What happens when you close a c++ console application

Question

I guess the question says it all, but, what happens if someone closes a c++ console app? As in, clicks the "x" in the top corner. Does it instantly close? Does it throw some sort of exception? Is it undefined behavior?

Answer 1

I imagine that the console process just gets unceremoniously killed by the OS. If you want to trap this event and do something it looks like the SetConsoleCtrlHandler function is the way to do it.

See also:

• How to handle a ctrl-break signal in a command line interface
• Console Event Handling

Answer 2

On Linux and other Unix systems, the console runs as a separate process. As you close the shell, it sends the SIGHUP signal to the currently active process or processes that are not executed in the background. If the programmer does not handle it, the process simply terminates. The same signal is sent if you close the SSH session with a terminal and an active process.

Answer 3

Closing a c++ console app with the "x" in the top corner throws an CTRL_CLOSE_EVENT which you could catch and process if you set a control handler using the SetConsoleCtrlHandler function. In there you could override the close functionality and perform whatever you wished to do, and then optionally still perform the default behavior.