Hi... i have just read about the exit() and the error messages that we pass to the exit as arguments.. I am very curious to learn what is the difference between an exit (1) and an exit(2) command... and that's why because i the exit doesnot return a value... so what;s the meaning feeding exit with arguments.. Any ideas?
Thx a lot

"Hi... i have just read about the exit() and the error messages that we pass to the exit as arguments.. I am very curious to learn what is the difference between an exit (1) and an exit(2) command... and that's why because i the exit doesnot return a value... so what;s the meaning feeding exit with arguments.. Any ideas?"

The exit argument is the return code that the program returns to the calling program. Typically people use a zero return code to mean errror free completion. Positive integers usually mean errors of various kinds. It is up to the programmer to describe what each error code signifies.

-------------------------
Steve Stites

Write a little program which does an exit(0). Compile it and run.
$ ./a.out
$ echo $?
0

Then, do the same thing with exit(0).
$ ./a.out
$ echo $?
1

The value to exit() is the program's exit code. You should exit(0) on success and exit(> 0) on failure. This is to allow the calling application to check if the called program succeeded. One of the easiest examples is a shell script which does
if ./a.out
then
echo Success!
else
echo Fail...
fi
to see if there were any problems.

and if i want to return an error code from a function then u should use the return right?

In C and most languages, yes. In C/C++ make sure you return an int (or a short int or char, etc...)