CONTROL \ crashes call to getline - c

Question

The following code produces "Quit (core dumped)" when I run it and type control \. I don't even get to hit return. I got this code from a tutorial book.
I tried debugging with gcc but it does this: (At the blank line it's running getline and I'm typing control \.)
14 bytes_read = getline (&my_string, &nbytes, stdin); (gdb)
Program received signal SIGQUIT, Quit. 0x004011e5 in main () at
myfile.c:14 14 bytes_read = getline (&my_string, &nbytes,
stdin); (gdb)
...when I single step it.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
int bytes_read;
int nbytes = 100;
char *my_string;
puts ("Please enter a line of text.");
/* These 2 lines are the heart of the program. */
my_string = (char *) malloc (nbytes + 1);
bytes_read = getline (&my_string, &nbytes, stdin);
if (bytes_read == -1)
{
puts ("ERROR!");
}
else
{
puts ("You typed:");
puts (my_string);
}
return 0;
}
I used command-line "gcc -g myfile.c".
I am on Cygwwin bash
$ uname --all CYGWIN_NT-5.1 LENOVO-3AA1E185 1.7.29(0.272/5/3)
2014-04-07 13:44 i686 Cygwin
$ gcc -v Using built-in specs. COLLECT_GCC=gcc
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-cygwin/4.8.2/lto-wrapper.exe
Target: i686-pc-cygwin Configured with:
/cygdrive/i/szsz/tmpp/gcc4/gcc-4.8.2-2/src/gcc-4.8.2/configure
--srcdir=/cygdrive/i/szsz/tmpp/gcc4/gcc-4.8.2-2/src/gcc-4.8.2 --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --sbindir=/usr/sbin --libexecdir=/usr/libexec --datadir=/usr/share --localstatedir=/var --sysconfdir=/etc --libdir=/usr/lib --datarootdir=/usr/share --docdir=/usr/share/doc/gcc --htmldir=/usr/share/doc/gcc/html -C --build=i686-pc-cygwin --host=i686-pc-cygwin --target=i686-pc-cygwin --without-libiconv-prefix --without-libintl-prefix --enable-shared --enable-shared-libgcc --enable-static --enable-version-specific-runtime-libs --enable-bootstrap --disable-__cxa_atexit --with-dwarf2 --with-arch=i686 --with-tune=generic --disable-sjlj-exceptions --enable-languages=ada,c,c++,fortran,java,lto,objc,obj-c++ --enable-graphite --enable-threads=posix --enable-libatomic --enable-libgomp --disable-libitm --enable-libquadmath --enable-libquadmath-support --enable-libssp --enable-libada --enable-libjava --enable-libgcj-sublibs --disable-java-awt --disable-symvers --with-ecj-jar=/usr/share/java/ecj.jar --with-gnu-ld --with-gnu-as --with-cloog-include=/usr/include/cloog-isl --without-libiconv-prefix --without-libintl-prefix --with-system-zlib --libexecdir=/usr/lib Thread model: posix gcc version 4.8.2 (GCC)
underneath cygwin is Microsoft Windows XP Professional 32-bit SP3

Answer 1

Control-C is a Quit Signal trigger on most systems :
The SIGQUIT signal is similar to SIGINT, except that it's controlled
by a different key—the QUIT character, usually C-\—and produces a core
dump when it terminates the process, just like a program error signal.
You can think of this as a program error condition “detected” by the
user.
quoted from GNU. So this behavior is expected: You program did receive the SIGQUIT signal