NAME |LIBRARY |SYNOPSIS |DESCRIPTION |RETURN VALUE |ERRORS |ATTRIBUTES |VERSIONS |STANDARDS |HISTORY |EXAMPLES |SEE ALSO |COLOPHON | |
pthread_cancel(3) Library Functions Manualpthread_cancel(3)pthread_cancel - send a cancelation request to a thread
POSIX threads library (libpthread,-lpthread)
#include <pthread.h>int pthread_cancel(pthread_tthread);
Thepthread_cancel() function sends a cancelation request to the threadthread. Whether and when the target thread reacts to the cancelation request depends on two attributes that are under the control of that thread: its cancelabilitystate andtype. A thread's cancelability state, determined bypthread_setcancelstate(3), can beenabled (the default for new threads) ordisabled. If a thread has disabled cancelation, then a cancelation request remains queued until the thread enables cancelation. If a thread has enabled cancelation, then its cancelability type determines when cancelation occurs. A thread's cancelation type, determined bypthread_setcanceltype(3), may be eitherasynchronous ordeferred (the default for new threads). Asynchronous cancelability means that the thread can be canceled at any time (usually immediately, but the system does not guarantee this). Deferred cancelability means that cancelation will be delayed until the thread next calls a function that is acancelation point. A list of functions that are or may be cancelation points is provided inpthreads(7). When a cancelation request is acted on, the following steps occur forthread (in this order): (1) Cancelation clean-up handlers are popped (in the reverse of the order in which they were pushed) and called. (Seepthread_cleanup_push(3).) (2) Thread-specific data destructors are called, in an unspecified order. (Seepthread_key_create(3).) (3) The thread is terminated. (Seepthread_exit(3).) The above steps happen asynchronously with respect to thepthread_cancel() call; the return status ofpthread_cancel() merely informs the caller whether the cancelation request was successfully queued. After a canceled thread has terminated, a join with that thread usingpthread_join(3) obtainsPTHREAD_CANCELEDas the thread's exit status. (Joining with a thread is the only way to know that cancelation has completed.)
On success,pthread_cancel() returns 0; on error, it returns a nonzero error number.
ESRCHNo thread with the IDthread could be found.
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, seeattributes(7). ┌──────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐ │Interface│Attribute│Value│ ├──────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤ │pthread_cancel() │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │ └──────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘
On Linux, cancelation is implemented using signals. Under the NPTL threading implementation, the first real-time signal (i.e., signal 32) is used for this purpose. On LinuxThreads, the second real-time signal is used, if real-time signals are available, otherwiseSIGUSR2is used.
POSIX.1-2008.
glibc 2.0 POSIX.1-2001.
The program below creates a thread and then cancels it. The main thread joins with the canceled thread to check that its exit status wasPTHREAD_CANCELED. The following shell session shows what happens when we run the program: $ ./a.out thread_func(): started; cancelation disabled main(): sending cancelation request thread_func(): about to enable cancelation main(): thread was canceledProgram source #include <errno.h> #include <pthread.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <unistd.h> #define handle_error_en(en, msg) \ do { errno = en; perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } while (0) static void * thread_func(void *ignored_argument) { int s; /* Disable cancelation for a while, so that we don't immediately react to a cancelation request. */ s = pthread_setcancelstate(PTHREAD_CANCEL_DISABLE, NULL); if (s != 0) handle_error_en(s, "pthread_setcancelstate"); printf("%s(): started; cancelation disabled\n", __func__); sleep(5); printf("%s(): about to enable cancelation\n", __func__); s = pthread_setcancelstate(PTHREAD_CANCEL_ENABLE, NULL); if (s != 0) handle_error_en(s, "pthread_setcancelstate"); /* sleep() is a cancelation point. */ sleep(1000); /* Should get canceled while we sleep */ /* Should never get here. */ printf("%s(): not canceled!\n", __func__); return NULL; } int main(void) { pthread_t thr; void *res; int s; /* Start a thread and then send it a cancelation request. */ s = pthread_create(&thr, NULL, &thread_func, NULL); if (s != 0) handle_error_en(s, "pthread_create"); sleep(2); /* Give thread a chance to get started */ printf("%s(): sending cancelation request\n", __func__); s = pthread_cancel(thr); if (s != 0) handle_error_en(s, "pthread_cancel"); /* Join with thread to see what its exit status was. */ s = pthread_join(thr, &res); if (s != 0) handle_error_en(s, "pthread_join"); if (res == PTHREAD_CANCELED) printf("%s(): thread was canceled\n", __func__); else printf("%s(): thread wasn't canceled (shouldn't happen!)\n", __func__); exit(EXIT_SUCCESS); }pthread_cleanup_push(3),pthread_create(3),pthread_exit(3),pthread_join(3),pthread_key_create(3),pthread_setcancelstate(3),pthread_setcanceltype(3),pthread_testcancel(3),pthreads(7)
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