Can Segmentation Faults be Caught and Handled in Linux?

Catching Segmentation Faults in Linux Using Exceptions

In certain scenarios, such as during the cleanup operations of a third-party library, you may encounter segmentation faults. While addressing the root cause is ideal, it may not always be feasible. In this article, we'll explore how to catch segmentation faults in Linux environments using gcc, providing a cross-platform solution.

On Linux systems, segmentation faults can be treated as exceptions. To handle these exceptions, you can set up a custom signal handler for the SIGSEGV signal, which is generated when a segmentation fault occurs. However, it's important to ensure that your program can recover gracefully from such situations.

Some libraries have implemented exception-like functionality for signal handling. Among them is the libctftext library. With this library, you can write code that resembles:

try {
    *(int*) 0 = 0;
} catch (std::exception& e) {
    std::cerr << "Exception caught : " << e.what() << std::endl;
}

This library offers a platform-specific backend that supports x86 and x86-64 architectures out of the box. For other platforms, you may need to obtain backends from the gcc sources (libjava).

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