exit

 

C

Language

Standard Library

Type support

Dynamic memory management

Error handling

Program utilities

Date and time utilities

Strings library

Algorithms

Numerics

Input/output support

Localization support

Thread support (C11)

Atomic operations (C11)

 

Program support utilities

Program termination
abort exit quick_exit (C++11) _Exit (C++11)	atexit at_quick_exit (C++11) EXIT_SUCCESSEXIT_FAILURE
Communicating with the environment
system	getenv
Signals
signal raise sig_atomic_t	SIG_DFLSIG_IGN SIG_ERR
Signal types
SIGABRTSIGFPESIGILLSIGINTSIGSEGVSIGTERM
Non-local jumps
setjmp
longjmp
Types
jmp_buf

 

Defined in header <stdlib.h>
void exit( int exit_code );		(until C11)
_Noreturn void exit( int exit_code );		(since C11)

Causes normal program termination to occur.

Several cleanup steps are performed:

• functions passed to atexit are called, in reverse order of registration
• all C streams are flushed and closed
• files created by tmpfile are removed
• control is returned to the host environment. If exit_code is zero or EXIT_SUCCESS, an implementation-defined status, indicating successful termination is returned. If exit_code is EXIT_FAILURE, an implementation-defined status, indicating unsuccessful termination is returned. In other cases implementation-defined status value is returned.

Notes

The functions registered with at_quick_exit are not called.

The behavior is undefined if a program calls exit more than once, or if it calls exit and quick_exit

The behavior is undefined if during a call to a function registered with atexit, the function exits with longjmp.

Returning from the the main function, either by a return statement or by reaching the end of the function, executes exit(), passing the argument of the return statement (or ​0​ if implicit return was used) as exit_code.

Parameters

exit_code

-

exit status of the program

Return value

(none)

Example

Run this code

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
 
int main(void)
{
    FILE *fp = fopen("data.txt","r");
    if (fp == NULL) {
       fprintf(stderr, "error opening file data.txt in function main()\n");
       exit(1);
    }
    fclose(fp);
    printf("Normal Return\n");
}

Output:

error opening file data.txt in function main()

See also

abort	causes abnormal program termination (without cleaning up) (function)
atexit	registers a function to be called on exit() invocation (function)
quick_exit (C99)	causes normal program termination without completely cleaning up (function)
C++ documentation for exit