NAME
exit
—
perform normal program
termination
SYNOPSIS
#include
<stdlib.h>
void
exit
(int
status);
DESCRIPTION
The
exit
()
function terminates a process.
Before termination it performs the following functions in the order listed:
- Call the functions registered with the atexit(3) function, in the reverse order of their registration.
- Flush all open output streams.
- Close all open streams.
- Unlink all files created with the tmpfile(3) function.
Following this,
exit
() calls
_exit(2). Note that typically
_exit(2) only passes the lower 8 bits of status
on to the parent, thus negative values have less meaning.
RETURN VALUES
The exit
() function never returns.
SEE ALSO
STANDARDS
The exit
() function conforms to
ISO/IEC 9899:1999
(“ISO C99”).
HISTORY
An exit
() function first appeared as a
system call in Version 1 AT&T UNIX. It
has accepted the status argument since
Version 2 AT&T UNIX. In
Version 7 AT&T UNIX, the bare system call
was renamed to _exit(2).