pthread_detach(3) Library Functions Manual pthread_detach(3)
NAME
pthread_detach - detach a thread
LIBRARY
POSIX threads library (libpthread, -lpthread)
SYNOPSIS
#include <pthread.h>
int pthread_detach(pthread_t thread);
DESCRIPTION
The pthread_detach() function marks the thread identified by thread as
detached. When a detached thread terminates, its resources are automat-
ically released back to the system without the need for another thread
to join with the terminated thread.
Attempting to detach an already detached thread results in unspecified
behavior.
RETURN VALUE
On success, pthread_detach() returns 0; on error, it returns an error
number.
ERRORS
EINVAL thread is not a joinable thread.
ESRCH No thread with the ID thread could be found.
ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
┌────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
│ Interface │ Attribute │ Value │
├────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
│ pthread_detach() │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
└────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘
STANDARDS
POSIX.1-2008.
HISTORY
POSIX.1-2001.
NOTES
Once a thread has been detached, it can't be joined with pthread_join(3)
or be made joinable again.
A new thread can be created in a detached state using pthread_attr_set-
detachstate(3) to set the detached attribute of the attr argument of
pthread_create(3).
The detached attribute merely determines the behavior of the system when
the thread terminates; it does not prevent the thread from being termi-
nated if the process terminates using exit(3) (or equivalently, if the
main thread returns).
Either pthread_join(3) or pthread_detach() should be called for each
thread that an application creates, so that system resources for the
thread can be released. (But note that the resources of any threads for
which one of these actions has not been done will be freed when the
process terminates.)
EXAMPLES
The following statement detaches the calling thread:
pthread_detach(pthread_self());
SEE ALSO
pthread_attr_setdetachstate(3), pthread_cancel(3), pthread_create(3),
pthread_exit(3), pthread_join(3), pthreads(7)
Linux man-pages 6.9.1 2024-05-02 pthread_detach(3)
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