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Interrupt vs. Trap in OS

Interrupt

• An interrupt is a hardware or software signal that demands instant attention by an OS. It notifies the processor that a critical process needs urgent execution. In such a case, the present working process is interrupted.

Trap

• A trap is a synchronous interrupt triggered by an exception in a user process to execute functionality. Exception conditions like invalid memory access, division by zero, or a breakpoint can trigger a trap in an OS.

References

Stallings, W. (2018). Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles (9th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.