The attached script ign2ndsig.py demonstrates an attempted way to handle signals at most once and ignore any subsequent signals. SIGINT and SIGTERM are used in the demo.


In Python 3.5, the subprocess would go into one of the "except KeyboardInterrupt:" or "except SystemExit:" blocks before doing "finally:" and exiting zero:


# execute the script with no args:
# ./ign2ndsig.py

subproc: sys.version_info(major=3, minor=5, micro=9, releaselevel='final', serial=0)
raising KeyboardInterrupt
handling KeyboardInterrupt
doing finally
rc: 0



In Python 3.6, 3.7 or 3.8, the subprocess would go into neither the "except KeyboardInterrupt:" nor "except SystemExit:" blocks before doing "finally:" and exiting non-zero, with a traceback like this:


subproc: sys.version_info(major=3, minor=6, micro=10, releaselevel='final', serial=0)
raising KeyboardInterrupt
doing finally
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./ign2ndsig.py", line 30, in subproc
    input()
  File "./ign2ndsig.py", line 18, in handler
    raise KeyboardInterrupt
KeyboardInterrupt

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./ign2ndsig.py", line 58, in <module>
    subproc()
  File "./ign2ndsig.py", line 32, in subproc
    printef('handling KeyboardInterrupt')
  File "./ign2ndsig.py", line 10, in printef
    print(*objects, file=sys.stderr, flush=True)
TypeError: 'int' object is not callable
rc: 1



More on the behaviors of ign2ndsig.py :
1. Replacing SIG_IGN at line 14 and 15 with a no-op Python function "fixes" the problem - such that in Python 3.6, 3.7 or 3.8, it'd behave similarly to the Python 3.5 output above.
2. Sending a SIGTERM then a SIGINT (instead of a SIGINT followed by a SIGTERM) (i.e. reversing the order of SIGINT and SIGTERM) at line 49-50 results in a similar behavior (that the TypeError is raised).
3. Sending 2 SIGINTs or 2 SIGTERMs (instead of 1 SIGINT + 1 SIGTERM) (i.e. sending the same signal twice) at line 49-50 does NOT result in the TypeError.


Potentially related issues:

_thread.interrupt_main() errors if SIGINT handler in SIG_DFL, SIG_IGN
https://bugs.python.org/issue23395

Turn SIG_DFL and SIG_IGN into functions
https://bugs.python.org/issue23325