How to terminate or stop a detached thread in c++?

Question

I am interested in terminating/stopping/killing a detached thread in c++. How can this be done?

void myThread()
{
    int loop = 0;
    while(true)
    {
                


        

Answer 1

There is no way to cleanly shutdown a detached thread. Doing so would require waiting for the cleanup to complete, and you can only do that if the thread is joinable.

Consider, for example, if the thread holds a mutex that another thread needs to acquire in order to cleanly shut down. The only way to cleanly shut down that thread would be to induce it to release that mutex. That would require the thread's cooperation.

Consider if the thread has opened a file and holds a lock on that file. Aborting the thread will leave the file locked until the process completes.

Consider if the thread holds a mutex that protects some shared state and has put that shared state temporarily into a inconsistent state. If you terminate the thread, either the mutex will never be released or the mutex will be released with the protected data in an inconsistent state. This can cause crashes.

You need a thread's cooperation to cleanly shut it down.