PTHREAD_DETACH(3) Linux Programmer's Manual PTHREAD_DETACH(3)
NAME
pthread_detach - detach a thread
SYNOPSIS
#include <pthread.h>
int pthread_detach(pthread_t thread);
Compile and link with -pthread.
DESCRIPTION
The pthread_detach() function marks the thread identified by thread as
detached. When a detached thread terminates, its resources are auto-
matically 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 at-
tributes(7).
+-----------------+---------------+---------+
|Interface | Attribute | Value |
+-----------------+---------------+---------+
|pthread_detach() | Thread safety | MT-Safe |
+-----------------+---------------+---------+
CONFORMING TO
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.
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
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.)
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)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 5.07 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
latest version of this page, can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2020-06-09 PTHREAD_DETACH(3)