A tiny crate for checking if Ctrl-C was pressed.
No handlers to set. No threads. No AtomicBool.
Just call init_ctrlc() once, then check is_ctrlc_received() in your loop.
- Signal-safe
SIGINThandler - No threads, no allocations
- No runtime Rust dependencies
- Ideal for polling-based CLI tools
Add to your Cargo.toml:
ctrlc-tiny = "0.2"Example:
fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
ctrlc_tiny::init_ctrlc_with_print("Ctrl+C pressed\n")?;
while !ctrlc_tiny::is_ctrlc_received() {
// work...
}
Ok(())
}Need to detect Ctrl-C more than once? See examples/multi_ctrlc.rs.
ctrlc is great when you want to run custom logic when Ctrl-C is pressed.
But if you just want to check whether Ctrl-C was pressed, it can feel more involved than necessary.
ctrlc-tiny keeps things simple: a single flag you can poll.
- Internally uses a
volatile sig_atomic_tflag — safe in POSIX signal handlers. - No heap, no threads — fully signal-safe by design.
- The flag can be reset via
reset_ctrlc_received(), but may race with the signal handler if SIGINT is received at the same time.
- ✅ Linux
- ✅ macOS
- ❌ Windows (no plans to add support)
Honestly, Arc, AtomicBool, and even the internals of the ctrlc crate don't pose any real-world performance issues.
This crate was created to scratch a personal itch — to get rid of a subjective sense of overkill and a bit of boilerplate.
In that sense, I’m quite happy with how this crate turned out.
Licensed under either of:
- MIT
- Apache 2.0
See LICENSE-MIT or LICENSE-APACHE.