Terminate the current script with a status code or message

Description

exit(string|int $status = 0): never

Terminates execution of the script. Shutdown functions and object destructors will always be executed even if exit() is called. However, finally blocks are never executed.

An exit code of 0 is used to indicate that the program succeeded in its tasks. Any other value indicates some sort of error occurred during execution.

exit() is a special function, because it has a dedicated token in the parser, as such it can be used like a statement (i.e. without parentheses) to terminate the script with the default status code.

Caution

It is not possible to disable, or create a namespaced function shadowing the global exit() function.

Parameters

status

If status is a string, this function prints the status just before exiting. The exit code returned by PHP is 0.

If status is an int, the exit code returned by PHP will be status.

Note: Exit codes should be in the range 0 to 254, the exit code 255 is reserved by PHP and should not be used.

Warning

Prior to PHP 8.4.0, exit() did not follow PHP's standard type juggling semantics, nor respect the strict_types declare.

Any value not of type int was cast to string including resource and array values. As of PHP 8.4.0, it follows the usual type juggling semantics and throws a TypeError on invalid values.

Return Values

As this terminates the PHP script, no value is returned.

Changelog

Version	Description
8.4.0	exit() is now a proper function, therefore it follows the usual type juggling semantics is affected by the `strict_types` declare, can be called with named arguments, and be a variable functions.

Examples

Example #1 Basic exit() example

<?php

// exit program normally
exit();
exit(0);

// exit with an error code
exit(1);

?>

Example #2 exit() example with a string

<?php

$filename = '/path/to/data-file';
$file = fopen($filename, 'r')
    or exit("unable to open file ($filename)");

?>

Example #3 Shutdown functions and destructors run regardless

<?php
class Foo
{
    public function __destruct()
    {
        echo 'Destruct: ' . __METHOD__ . '()' . PHP_EOL;
    }
}

function shutdown()
{
    echo 'Shutdown: ' . __FUNCTION__ . '()' . PHP_EOL;
}

$foo = new Foo();
register_shutdown_function('shutdown');

exit();
echo 'This will not be output.';
?>

The above example will output:

Shutdown: shutdown()
Destruct: Foo::__destruct()

Example #4 exit() as a statement

<?php

// exit program normally with exit code 0
exit;

?>

Notes