EXIT_SUCCESS, EXIT_FAILURE

 

C

Language

Headers

Type support

Program utilities

Variadic function support

Error handling

Dynamic memory management

Strings library

Algorithms

Numerics

Date and time utilities

Input/output support

Localization support

Concurrency support (C11)

Technical Specifications

Symbol index

 

Program support utilities

Program termination
abort exit quick_exit (C11) _Exit (C99)	atexit at_quick_exit (C11) EXIT_SUCCESSEXIT_FAILURE
Unreachable control flow
unreachable (C23)
Communicating with the environment
system	getenvgetenv_s (C11)
Signals
signal raise sig_atomic_t	SIG_DFLSIG_IGN SIG_ERR
Signal types
SIGABRTSIGFPESIGILL	SIGINTSIGSEGVSIGTERM
Non-local jumps
setjmp	longjmp
Types
jmp_buf

 

Defined in header <stdlib.h>
#define EXIT_SUCCESS /*implementation defined*/
#define EXIT_FAILURE /*implementation defined*/

The EXIT_SUCCESS and EXIT_FAILURE macros expand into integral expressions that can be used as arguments to the exit function (and, therefore, as the values to return from the main function), and indicate program execution status.

Constant	Explanation
EXIT_SUCCESS	successful execution of a program
EXIT_FAILURE	unsuccessful execution of a program

Notes

Both EXIT_SUCCESS and the value zero indicate successful program execution status (see exit), although it is not required that EXIT_SUCCESS equals zero.

Example

Run this code

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
 
int main(void)
{
    FILE *fp = fopen("data.txt","r");
    if (fp == NULL)
    {
       fprintf(stderr, "fopen() failed in file %s at line # %d", __FILE__,__LINE__);
       exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
 
    /* Normal processing continues here. */
    fclose(fp);
    printf("Normal Return\n");
 
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Output:

fopen() failed in file main.cpp at line # 9

References

• C17 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2018):

• 7.22/3 General utilities <stdlib.h> (p: 248)

• C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):

• 7.22/3 General utilities <stdlib.h> (p: 340)

• C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):

• 7.20/3 General utilities <stdlib.h> (p: 306)

• C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):

• 4.10 General utilities <stdlib.h>