When to use pthread_exit() and when to use pthread_join() in Linux?

As explained in the openpub documentations,

pthread_exit() will exit the thread that calls it.

In your case since the main calls it, main thread will terminate whereas your spawned threads will continue to execute. This is mostly used in cases where the main thread is only required to spawn threads and leave the threads to do their job

pthread_join will suspend execution of the thread that has called it unless the target thread terminates

This is useful in cases when you want to wait for thread/s to terminate before further processing in main thread.

Both methods ensure that your process doesn't end before all of your threads have ended.

The join method has your thread of the main function explicitly wait for all threads that are to be "joined".

The pthread_exit method terminates your main function and thread in a controlled way. main has the particularity that ending main otherwise would be terminating your whole process including all other threads.

For this to work, you have to be sure that none of your threads is using local variables that are declared inside them main function. The advantage of that method is that your main doesn't have to know all threads that have been started in your process, e.g because other threads have themselves created new threads that main doesn't know anything about.

pthread_exit terminates the calling thread while pthread_join suspends execution of calling thread until target threads completes execution.

They are pretty much well explained in detail in the open group documentation:

• pthread_exit
• pthread_join