HP-UX 11i Internals

The exit() System Call Mechanics

When a thread makes an exit() system call, it is asking to be removed from its run queue and to have its cumulative resources returned to the kernel for dispersal to their appropriate free lists and arenas (Figure 9-9). As we mentioned earlier, when any thread of a multithreaded process calls exit(), all of its threads are halted and removed from kernel tables and structures.

Figure 9-9. The exit()

Actually, there are two variations of the exit call, the original exit() and __exit(). When a programmer codes a call to exit(), an additional call is made to atexit(). The idea is that the programmer may wish to have ...