pthread_detach - detach a thread
POSIX threads library (
libpthread,
-lpthread)
#include <pthread.h>
int pthread_detach(pthread_t thread);
The
pthread_detach() function marks the thread identified by
thread as detached. When a detached thread terminates, its resources
are automatically 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.
On success,
pthread_detach() returns 0; on error, it returns an error
number.
- EINVAL
-
thread is not a joinable thread.
- ESRCH
- No thread with the ID thread could be found.
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
attributes(7).
Interface |
Attribute |
Value |
pthread_detach () |
Thread safety |
MT-Safe |
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.
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_setdetachstate(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 terminated 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.)
The following statement detaches the calling thread:
pthread_detach(pthread_self());
pthread_attr_setdetachstate(3),
pthread_cancel(3),
pthread_create(3),
pthread_exit(3),
pthread_join(3),
pthreads(7)