abort

 

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>
void abort(void);		(until C11)
_Noreturn void abort(void);		(since C11) (until C23)
[[noreturn]] void abort(void);		(since C23)

Causes abnormal program termination unless SIGABRT is being caught by a signal handler passed to signal and the handler does not return.

Functions passed to atexit() are not called. Whether open resources such as files are closed is implementation defined. An implementation defined status is returned to the host environment that indicates unsuccessful execution.

Parameters

(none)

Return value

(none)

Notes

POSIX specifies that the abort() function overrides blocking or ignoring the SIGABRT signal.

Some compiler intrinsics, e.g. __builtin_trap (gcc, clang, and icc) or __debugbreak (msvc), can be used to terminate the program as fast as possible.

Example

Run this code

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
 
int main(void) 
{
    FILE *fp = fopen("data.txt","r");
    if (fp == NULL) {
       fprintf(stderr, "error opening file data.txt in function main()\n");
       abort();
    }
 
    /* Normal processing continues here. */
    fclose(fp);
    printf("Normal Return\n");
    return 0;
}

Output:

error opening file data.txt in function main()

References

• C17 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2018):

• 7.22.4.1 The abort function (p: 255)

• C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):

• 7.22.4.1 The abort function (p: 350)

• C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):

• 7.20.4.1 The abort function (p: 315)

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

• 4.10.4.1 The abort function

See also

exit	causes normal program termination with cleaning up (function)
atexit	registers a function to be called on exit() invocation (function)
quick_exit (C11)	causes normal program termination without completely cleaning up (function)