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Do not send an uncaught signal to kill a thread to kill it because the signal kills the entire process rather than killing , not just the individual thread. This rule is a specific instance of recommendation SIG02-C. Avoid using signals to implement normal functionality.

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This code uses the pthread_kill() function to send a SIGKILL signal to the created thread. The thread receives the signal, and the entire process is terminated.

void func(void *foo){
  /* Execution of thread */
}

int main(void) {
  int result;
  pthread_t thread;

  if ((result = pthread_create(&thread, NULL, func, 0)) != 0) {
    /* Handle Error */
  }
  if ((result = pthread_kill(thread, SIGKILL)) != 0) {
    /* Handle Error */
  }

  /* Continue executing until the signal kills the process */

  return 0;
}

Compliant Solution

This compliant code uses instead uses the pthread_cancel() function to terminate the thread. The thread continues to run until it reaches a cancellation point. See [Open Group 2004] for lists of functions that are required and allowed to be cancellation points. If the cancellation type is set to asynchronous, the thread is terminated immediately. However, POSIX only requires the pthread_cancel(), pthread_setcancelstate(), and pthread_setcanceltype() functions to be async-cancel safe. An application that calls other POSIX functions with asynchronous cancellation enabled is non-conforming. Consequently, we recommend disallowing asynchronous cancellation, as expalined explained by rule POS47-C. Do not use threads that can be canceled asynchronously.

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