SEM_DESTROY

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3)
Updated: 2014-03-03
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

sem_destroy - destroy an unnamed semaphore

SYNOPSIS

#include <semaphore.h>

int sem_destroy(sem_t *sem);

Link with -pthread.

DESCRIPTION

sem_destroy() destroys the unnamed semaphore at the address pointed to by sem.

Only a semaphore that has been initialized by sem_init(3) should be destroyed using sem_destroy().

Destroying a semaphore that other processes or threads are currently blocked on (in sem_wait(3)) produces undefined behavior.

Using a semaphore that has been destroyed produces undefined results, until the semaphore has been reinitialized using sem_init(3).

RETURN VALUE

sem_destroy() returns 0 on success; on error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

EINVAL: sem is not a valid semaphore.

ATTRIBUTES

Multithreading (see pthreads(7))

The sem_destroy() function is thread-safe.

CONFORMING TO

POSIX.1-2001.

NOTES

An unnamed semaphore should be destroyed with sem_destroy() before the memory in which it is located is deallocated. Failure to do this can result in resource leaks on some implementations.

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.74 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Index

Multithreading (see pthreads(7))