Interview › Scripting (Bash, Groovy)
What is the difference between exit and return? [Intermediate]
Answer
exit terminates the current shell or script process, while return exits only the current function or sourced script. In normal scripts, use return inside functions and exit for final script termination.
Technical explanation
Calling exit inside a sourced file can close the caller's shell, which is dangerous for library files.
return can only be used inside a function or sourced script, not at top level of a normally executed script.
Both accept numeric statuses, and both should preserve meaningful failure codes where possible.
Hands-on example
validate() { [[ -f "$1" ]] || return 2}
main() { validate config.yaml || return $? echo "valid"}
main "$@"exit $?
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