What happens when process terminates normally or abnormally

Introduction

Termination via Exit Linux call is normal termination. However termination via abort linux system call is abnormal termination.

Observations

• In both cases, the process's parent is sent a SIGCHLD signal.

• In both case, any children of the process are inherited by process 1

• In both case, program will eventually terminate.

• abort sends a SIGABRT signal to calling process, exit just closes the application performing normal cleanup.

• abort will not perform object destruction of your static and global members, but exit will.

• Abort creates coredump if ulimit is set in the linux. However, exit will not

Reference

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/397075/what-is-the-difference-between-exit-and-abort

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3837853/will-a-child-process-send-sigchld-on-abort

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2919378/how-to-enable-core-dump-in-my-linux-c-program