pthread_attr_setdetachstate(3)

pthread_attr_setdetachstate3

Set/get detach state attribute in thread attributes object

Usage

#include <pthread.h>

int pthread_attr_setdetachstate(pthread_attr_t *attr, int detachstate); int pthread_attr_getdetachstate(const pthread_attr_t *attr, int *detachstate);

Library

POSIX threads library (libpthread, -lpthread)

Overview

The pthread_attr_setdetachstate() function sets the detach state attribute of the thread attributes object referred to by attr to the value specified in detachstate. The detach state attribute determines whether a thread created using the thread attributes object attr will be created in a joinable or a detached state.

The following values may be specified in detachstate:

PTHREAD_CREATE_DETACHED

Threads that are created using attr will be created in a detached state.

PTHREAD_CREATE_JOINABLE

Threads that are created using attr will be created in a joinable state.

The default setting of the detach state attribute in a newly initialized thread attributes object is PTHREAD_CREATE_JOINABLE.

The pthread_attr_getdetachstate() returns the detach state attribute of the thread attributes object attr in the buffer pointed to by detachstate.

Return value

On success, these functions return 0; on error, they return a nonzero error number.

Errors

pthread_attr_setdetachstate() can fail with the following error:

EINVAL

An invalid value was specified in detachstate.

Attributes

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

InterfaceAttributeValue
pthread_attr_setdetachstate(), pthread_attr_getdetachstate()Thread safetyMT-Safe

Notes

See pthread_create(3) for more details on detached and joinable threads.

A thread that is created in a joinable state should eventually either be joined using pthread_join(3) or detached using pthread_detach(3); see pthread_create(3).

It is an error to specify the thread ID of a thread that was created in a detached state in a later call to pthread_detach(3) or pthread_join(3).

Examples

See pthread_attr_init(3).

Releases

10 releases since Debian 5.0 (Lenny); the text changed 9 times.

  1. 5.0
  2. 6.0
  3. 7
  4. 8
  5. 9
  6. 10
  7. 11
  8. 12
  9. 13
  10. Arch

Standards

POSIX.1-2008.

History

POSIX.1-2001.

From man-pages 6.19-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.