exit is a command used in many operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 command line shells

Shell (computing)

A shell is a piece of software that provides an interface for users of an operating system which provides access to the services of a kernel. However, the term is also applied very loosely to applications and may include any software that is "built around" a particular component, such as web...

 and scripting language

Scripting language

A scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...

s. The command causes the shell or program to terminate

Exit (operating system)

On many computer operating systems, a computer process terminates its execution by making an exit system call. More generally, an exit in a multithreading environment means that a thread of execution has stopped running. The operating system reclaims resources that were used by the process...

. If performed within an interactive command shell

Command-line interface

A command-line interface is a mechanism for interacting with a computer operating system or software by typing commands to perform specific tasks...

, the user is logged out of their current session, and/or user's current console or terminal

Computer terminal

A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system...

 connection is disconnected. Typically an optional exit code

Exit status

The exit status or return code of a process in computer programming is a small number passed from a child process to a parent process when it has finished executing a specific procedure or delegated task...

 can be specified, which is a simple integer value that is then returned to the parent process

Parent process

In computing, a parent process is a process that has created one or more child processes.- Unix :In the operating system Unix, every process except is created when another process executes the fork system call. The process that invoked fork is the parent process and the newly-created process is...

. Scripting languages providing this command include sh

Bourne shell

The Bourne shell, or sh, was the default Unix shell of Unix Version 7 and most Unix-like systems continue to have /bin/sh - which will be the Bourne shell, or a symbolic link or hard link to a compatible shell - even when more modern shells are used by most users.Developed by Stephen Bourne at AT&T...

, ksh

Korn shell

The Korn shell is a Unix shell which was developed by David Korn in the early 1980s and announced at USENIX on July 14, 1983. Other early contributors were AT&T Bell Labs developers Mike Veach, who wrote the emacs code, and Pat Sullivan, who wrote the vi code...

, Perl

Perl

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...

, AWK, PHP

PHP

PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...

, TCL

TCL

TCL or Tcl may mean:* Biochemistry** TCL * Companies** TCL Corporation, a Chinese electronics company** Twin City Lines, former public transit via streetcar in Minneapolis*Computer languages...

, and others.

See also

• Exit (operating system)
  Exit (operating system)
  On many computer operating systems, a computer process terminates its execution by making an exit system call. More generally, an exit in a multithreading environment means that a thread of execution has stopped running. The operating system reclaims resources that were used by the process...
  
  
• Exit status
  Exit status
  The exit status or return code of a process in computer programming is a small number passed from a child process to a parent process when it has finished executing a specific procedure or delegated task...
  
  
• List of Unix programs
• List of DOS commands