Interrupting the UNIX time command

Consider the following use of the standard Unix time command:
/usr/bin/time ls -R /

If the SIGTERM signal is sent to the time process, then the ls process will continue! This is an unexpected behavior, which is not well-documented.

Normally, this is not much of an issue; the process that is monitored will simply terminate quietly. However, when the time utility is used in interactive applications, process interrupts can lead to many unexpected rogue processes.

The timer command is a modification of the UNIX timing utility that behaves as expected. When using timer, the SIGTERM signal is sent to the process, which terminates it as expected. The timer command is available in the UTILIB software library, but it can be compiled independently.

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