Mastering Embedded Linux Programming - Second Edition

Terminating a thread

A thread terminates when:

• It reaches the end of its start_routine
• It calls pthread_exit(3)
• It is canceled by another thread calling pthread_cancel(3)
• The process that contains the thread terminates, for example, because of a thread calling exit(3), or the process receives a signal that is not handled, masked, or ignored

Note that if a multithreaded program calls fork, only the thread that made the call will exist in the new child process. Fork does not replicate all threads.

A thread has a return value, which is a void pointer. One thread can wait for another to terminate and collect its return value by calling pthread_join(2). There is an example in the code for thread-demo, mentioned in the preceding section. This ...