How do I capture SIGINT in Python?

Question

I'm working on a python script that starts several processes and database connections. Every now and then I want to kill the script with a Ctrl+C signal, and I'd like to do some cleanup.

In Perl I'd do this:

$SIG{'INT'} = 'exit_gracefully';

sub exit_gracefully {
    print "Caught ^C \n";
    exit (0);
}

How do I do the analogue of this in Python?

Answer 1

Register your handler with signal.signal like this:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import signal
import sys

def signal_handler(sig, frame):
    print('You pressed Ctrl+C!')
    sys.exit(0)

signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler)
print('Press Ctrl+C')
signal.pause()

Code adapted from here.

More documentation on signal can be found here.