search for: unix_signal

Thanks for these explanations - it all makes sense, that is, the default behavior for a process that does not capture SIGQUIT is to quit and perform a core dump (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_signal#SIGQUIT). Then the remaining question, as Luke says, is: should R handle this signal? For instance, in interactive mode, SIGQUIT could maybe bring up: Possible actions: 1: abort (with core dump, if enabled) 2: normal R exit 3: exit R without saving workspace 4: exit R saving workspace 5: ignore...

When running R from the terminal on Linux (Ubuntu 16.04), it core dumps whenever / wherever I press Ctrl-4 or Ctrl-\. You get thrown back to the terminal with "Quit (core dump)" being the only message. Grepping the R source code, it doesn't look like that message is generated by R itself. Over on Twitter, it has been confirmed to also happen on macOS. $ R -d valgrind --vanilla