How Go Handles Signals and Interrupts

Go handles signals by registering handlers via the os/signal package, which intercepts OS signals like syscall.SIGINT and syscall.SIGTERM and sends them to a Go channel for safe, concurrent processing. Use signal.Notify to direct specific signals to a channel and signal.Reset to stop listening.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"os"
	"os/signal"
	"syscall"
)

func main() {
	sigs := make(chan os.Signal, 1)
	done := make(chan bool, 1)

	signal.Notify(sigs, syscall.SIGINT, syscall.SIGTERM)

	go func() {
		<-sigs
		fmt.Println("Caught signal, shutting down...")
		done <- true
	}()

	<-done
	os.Exit(0)
}

Go programs run in a single thread that handles all incoming system signals. Instead of stopping the program immediately, you can set up a "mailbox" (channel) to catch these signals and handle them gracefully, like saving data before closing. This prevents crashes and allows for clean shutdowns when a user presses Ctrl+C or the system sends a stop command.