Cancelling a thread using pthread_cancel : good practice or bad

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In general thread cancellation is not a really good idea. It is better, whenever possible, to have a shared flag, that is used by the threads to break out of the loop. That way, you will let the threads perform any cleanup they might need to do before actually exiting.

On the issue of the threads not actually cancelling, the POSIX specification determines a set of cancellation points ( man 7 pthreads ). Threads can be cancelled only at those points. If your infinite loop does not contain a cancellation point you can add one by calling pthread_testcancel. If pthread_cancel has been called, then it will be acted upon at this point.

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