How to know if a pthread died

Question

How can one know if a pthread died?

Is there a way to check a pthreads status?

Answer 1

if(pthread_kill(the_thread, 0) == 0)
{
    /* still running */
}

See: pthread_kill

Note: there is an inherent risk to using pthread_kill() to test if a thread is still running. See this post for an explanation: How do I determine if a pthread is alive?

Answer 2

If you don't need to write a portable application and can use GNU extensions, you can use pthread_tryjoin_np. I believe there isn't another way to do it, except for setting up communication between two threads (e.g. using a global mutex which is hold by a thread as long as it is alive).