C process control refers to a group of functions in the standard library of the C programming language implementing basic process control operations. The process control operations include actions such as termination of the program with various levels of cleanup, running an external command interpreter or accessing the list of the environment operations.

Overview of functions

The process control functions are defined in the stdlib.h header (cstdlib header in C++).

FunctionDescription
Terminating a programcauses abnormal program termination (without cleaning up)
causes normal program termination with cleaning up
causes normal program termination without cleaning up (C99)
registers a function to be called on exit() invocation
causes normal program termination without cleaning up, but with IO buffers flushed (C11)
registers a function to be called on quick_exit() invocation
Communicating with the environmentaccesses the list of the environment variables
calls the host environment's command processor

Example

The following is an example of communicating with the system environment in C.

External links