The exit function in C allows us to terminate our program’s execution whenever we want. Normally, our program’s execution will terminate whenever we hit the return 0 statement in the main function. However, with the exit function, we can exit our program in other places as well, including in the middle of a function that the main function calls.
To use the exit function, we need to include stdlib.h in our code. We can then use the exit function by calling it and passing in a value that indicates whether the program exited successfully (0) or unsuccessfully (anything other than 0).
For example, if we have a function called “func” that prints out “in the func” and exits with a value of 0, we can call this function from the main function and terminate our program in the middle of the “func” execution.
We can also use two constants, “exit_success” and “exit_failure”, instead of using 0 and 1 to indicate successful or unsuccessful program termination.
It is important to note that when the program terminates, the value passed to the exit function is returned to the parent process (the shell) and can be accessed by using the command “echo $?” in the terminal.
In summary, the exit function in C allows us to terminate our program’s execution whenever we want. It can be used in the main function or in other functions that the main function calls. By using constants like “exit_success” and “exit_failure”, we can indicate whether our program terminated successfully or unsuccessfully. To learn more about C programming projects and other programming courses, visit portfolio courses.com.