EXIT(3P)

🌸 EXIT(3P) — the POSIX Programmer's Manual edition 🌸

okay bestie, welcome to exit(3p) 💖 this one lives in the POSIX Programmer's Manual, and it's your girl's guide to ✨ending a process✨ the polite, standardised way. pull up a chair, we're doing this 🫶

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💫 PROLOG 💫

so like, real talk first: this manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. the Linux implementation of this interface may differ (so pls go consult the corresponding Linux manual page if you wanna know how Linux actually behaves, okay?), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux at all. no cap. 🙈

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👑 NAME 👑

exit — terminate a process 💀✨

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

#include <stdlib.h>

void exit(int status);

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with the ISO C standard. Any conflict between the requirements described here and the ISO C standard is unintentional — this volume of POSIX.1‐2017 defers to the ISO C standard. periodt 💅

The value of status may be 0, EXIT_SUCCESS, EXIT_FAILURE, or literally any other value you want, bestie. BUT — and this is the tea 🍵 — only the least significant 8 bits (that is, status & 0377) shall be available from wait() and waitpid(). the full value shall be available from waitid() and in the siginfo_t passed to a signal handler for SIGCHLD. so like, know your audience when you're passing a status around 👀

The exit() function shall first call all functions registered by atexit(), in the reverse order of their registration — except that a function is called after any previously registered functions that had already been called at the time it was registered. Each function is called as many times as it was registered. (yes, as many times. it's giving thorough. it's giving extra. we love that for it ✨)

⚠️ If, during the call to any such function, a call to the longjmp() function is made that would terminate the call to the registered function, the behavior is undefined. do not do this. i'm serious. 🚫

⚠️ If a function registered by a call to atexit() fails to return, the remaining registered functions shall not be called and the rest of the exit() processing shall not be completed. and if exit() is called more than once? behavior is undefined. one exit. ONE. 💀

The exit() function shall then flush all open streams with unwritten buffered data and close all open streams. Finally, the process shall be terminated with the same consequences as described in Consequences of Process Termination. bye bestie, you're done here 🌈

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🫶 RETURN VALUE 🫶

The exit() function does not return. like, ever. it's the main character leaving the party and never coming back 👑

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😭 ERRORS 😭

No errors are defined. flawless, honestly.

The following sections are informative.

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🍓 EXAMPLES 🍓

None.

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💜 APPLICATION USAGE 💜

None.

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🧚 RATIONALE 🧚

See _Exit().

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⭐ FUTURE DIRECTIONS ⭐

None.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• _Exit()
• atexit()
• exec
• longjmp()
• tmpfile()
• wait()
• waitid()

The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, <stdlib.h>

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💅 COPYRIGHT 💅

Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

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and that's the whole page bestie, brought to you by IEEE/The Open Group, 2017 — EXIT(3P), signing off 💖🎀🦋