Editing Abort (computing) (section)

{{short description|Unscheduled termination of a process}}
{{more citations needed|date=January 2021}}
{{Wiktionary|abort}}
{{dicdef|date=May 2023}}
In a [[computer]] or [[data transmission]] system, to '''abort''' means to [[Wiktionary:terminate|terminate]], usually in a controlled manner, a processing activity because it is impossible or undesirable for the activity to proceed or in conjunction with an error.  Such an action may be accompanied by [[Wiktionary:diagnostics|diagnostic]] information on the aborted process.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/a/abort.htm|title=What is Abort?|website=www.computerhope.com|language=en|access-date=2019-04-22|archive-date=2019-04-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190422210450/https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/a/abort.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

In addition to being a verb, abort also has two noun senses.  In the most general case, the event of aborting can be referred to as an abort.  Sometimes the event of aborting can be given a special name, as in the case of an abort involving a [[Unix]] [[Kernel (operating system)|kernel]] where it is known as a [[kernel panic]].  Specifically in the context of [[data transmission]], an abort is a function invoked by a sending station to cause the recipient to discard or ignore all [[bit]] sequences transmitted by the [[Sender (telephony)|sender]] since the preceding [[flag sequence]].

In the [[C (programming language)|C programming language]], [[C process control#abort|<code>abort()</code>]] is a standard library function that terminates the current application and returns an error code to the host environment.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf|title=C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011)|access-date=2020-03-11|archive-date=2018-03-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180329042731/http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>