_exit() System Call in Linux

NAME

_exit, _Exit - terminate the current process

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>

void _exit(int status);

#include <stdlib.h>

void _Exit(int status);

DESCRIPTION

The function _exit() terminates the calling process "immediately". Any open file descriptors belonging to the process are closed; any children of the process are inherited by process 1, init, and the processs parent is sent a SIGCHLD signal.

The value status is returned to the parent process as the processs exit status, and can be collected using one of the wait() family of calls.

The function _Exit() is equivalent to _exit().

RETURN VALUE

These functions do not return.

CONFORMING TO

SVr4, POSIX.1-2001, 4.3BSD. The function _Exit() was introduced by C99.

NOTES

For a discussion on the effects of an exit, the transmission of exit status, zombie processes, signals sent, etc., see exit(3).

The function _exit() is like exit(), but does not call any functions registered with atexit() or on_exit(). Whether it flushes standard I/O buffers and removes temporary files created with tmpfile(3) is implementation dependent. On the other hand, _exit() does close open file descriptors, and this may cause an unknown delay, waiting for pending output to finish. If the delay is undesired, it may be useful to call functions like tcflush() before calling _exit(). Whether any pending I/O is cancelled, and which pending I/O may be cancelled upon _exit(), is implementation-dependent.