Detached threads in C

A detached thread cleans up after itself, and can never be joined.

#include <pthread.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>

static void *background(void *arg) {
    (void) arg;
    printf("background work\n");
    return NULL;
}

int fire_and_forget(void) {
    pthread_t thread;
    if (pthread_create(&thread, NULL, background, NULL) != 0) {
        return 0;
    }
    if (pthread_detach(thread) != 0) {
        return 0;
    }
    sleep(1);
    return 1;
}

How it works

1. pthread_detach releases the resources on exit.
2. There is no way to collect its return value.
3. The main thread must not exit while it still matters.

Keywords and builtins used here

• NULL
• background
• fire_and_forget
• if
• int
• return
• static
• thread
• void

The run, in numbers

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21

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341

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Type this snippet

Step 3 of 3 in Starting threads, step 3 of 10 in Threads & concurrency.

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