Signal i is blocked if the i - 1 bit in mask is a 1. For example, to add the protection-violation signal to the set of blocked signals, use the following line: sigblock(1 << (SIGBUS - 1)); You can express signals in mnemonics (such as SIGBUS for a protection violation) or numbers as defined in the <signal.h> header file, and you can express combinations of signals by using the bitwise OR operator (|).