Handling UNIX Signals

UNIX signals offer a very handy way of interacting asynchronously with our applications. However, UNIX signal handling requires the use of Go channels that are used exclusively for this task. So, it would be good to talk a little about the concurrency model of Go, which requires the use of goroutines and channels for signal handling.

Goroutine and channel

A goroutine is the smallest executable Go entity. In order to create a new goroutine, we have to use the go keyword followed by a predefined function or an anonymous function—the methods are equivalent. A channel in Go is a mechanism that, among other things, allows goroutines to communicate and exchange data. If you are an amateur programmer or are hearing about goroutines and channels for the first time, do not panic. Goroutines and channels are explained in much more detail in later chapters.

Note: In order for a goroutine or a function to terminate the entire Go application, it should call os.Exit() instead of return. However, most of the time, we should exit a goroutine or a function using return because we just want to exit that specific goroutine or function and not stop the ...