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The routine handler must be very careful, since processing elsewhere was interrupted at some arbitrary point. POSIX has the concept of "safe function". If a signal interrupts an unsafe function, and handler calls an unsafe function, then the behavior is undefined. Safe functions are listed explicitly in the various standards. The POSIX.1-2003 list is 

 _Exit() _exit() abort() accept() access() aio_error() aio_return() aio_suspend() alarm() bind() cfgetispeed() cfgetospeed() cfsetispeed() cfsetospeed() chdir() chmod() chown() clock_gettime() close() connect() creat() dup() dup2() execle() execve() fchmod() fchown() fcntl() fdatasync() fork() fpathconf() fstat() fsync() ftruncate() getegid() geteuid() getgid() getgroups() getpeername() getpgrp() getpid() getppid() getsockname() getsockopt() getuid() kill() link() listen() lseek() lstat() mkdir() mkfifo() open() pathconf() pause() pipe() poll() posix_trace_event() pselect() raise() read() readlink() recv() recvfrom() recvmsg() rename() rmdir() select() sem_post() send() sendmsg() sendto() setgid() setpgid() setsid() setsockopt() setuid() shutdown() sigaction() sigaddset() sigdelset() sigemptyset() sigfillset() sigismember() signal() sigpause() sigpending() sigprocmask() sigqueue() sigset() sigsuspend() sleep() socket() socketpair() stat() symlink() sysconf() tcdrain() tcflow() tcflush() tcgetattr() tcgetpgrp() tcsendbreak() tcsetattr() tcsetpgrp() time() timer_getoverrun() timer_gettime() timer_settime() times() umask() uname() unlink() utime() wait() waitpid() write().