Question: Sometime I have to use `std::thread` to speed up my application. I also know `join()` waits until a thread completes. This is easy to understand, but what's the difference between calling `detach()` and not calling it?

I thought that without `detach()`, the thread's method will work using a thread independently.

Not detaching:

```
void Someclass::Somefunction() {
    //...

    std::thread t([ ] {
        printf("thread called without detach");
    });

    //some code here
}

```

Calling with detaching:

```
void Someclass::Somefunction() {
    //...

    std::thread t([ ] {
        printf("thread called with detach");
    });

    t.detach();

    //some code here
}

```

Answer: 
This answer is aimed at answering question in the title, rather than explaining the difference between `join` and `detach`. So when should `std::thread::detach` be used?

In properly maintained C++ code `std::thread::detach` should not be used at all. Programmer must ensure that all the created threads gracefully exit releasing all the acquired resources and performing other necessary cleanup actions. This implies that giving up ownership of threads by invoking `detach` is not an option and therefore `join` should be used in all scenarios.

However some applications rely on old and often not well designed and supported APIs that may contain indefinitely blocking functions. Moving invocations of these functions into a dedicated thread to avoid blocking other stuff is a common practice. There is no way to make such a thread to exit gracefully so use of `join` will just lead to primary thread blocking. That's a situation when using `detach` would be a less evil alternative to, say, allocating `thread` object with dynamic storage duration and then purposely leaking it.

```
#include <LegacyApi.hpp>
#include <thread>

auto LegacyApiThreadEntry(void)
{
    auto result{NastyBlockingFunction()};
    // do something...
}

int main()
{
    ::std::thread legacy_api_thread{&LegacyApiThreadEntry};
    // do something...
    legacy_api_thread.detach();
    return 0;
}

```
Maybe it is good idea to iterate what was mentioned in one of the answers above: When the main function is finished and main thread is closing, all spawn threads either will be terminated or suspended. So, if you are relying on detach to have a background thread continue running after the main thread is shutdown, you are in for a surprise. To see the effect try the following. If you uncomment the last sleep call, then the output file will be created and written to fine. Otherwise not:

```
#include <mutex>
#include <thread>
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <array>
#include <chrono>

using Ms = std::chrono::milliseconds;

std::once_flag oflag;
std::mutex mx;
std::mutex printMx;
int globalCount{};
std::ofstream *logfile;
void do_one_time_task() {
    //printMx.lock();
    //std::cout<<"I am in thread with thread id: "<< std::this_thread::get_id() << std::endl;
    //printMx.unlock();
    std::call_once(oflag, [&]() {
    //  std::cout << "Called once by thread: " << std::this_thread::get_id() << std::endl; 
    //  std::cout<<"Initialized globalCount to 3\n";
        globalCount = 3;
        logfile = new std::ofstream("testlog.txt");
        //logfile.open("testlog.txt");
        });
    std::this_thread::sleep_for(Ms(100));
    // some more here
    for(int i=0; i<10; ++i){    
        mx.lock();
        ++globalCount;
        *logfile << "thread: "<< std::this_thread::get_id() <<", globalCount = " << globalCount << std::endl;
        std::this_thread::sleep_for(Ms(50));
        mx.unlock();
        std::this_thread::sleep_for(Ms(2));
    }

    std::this_thread::sleep_for(Ms(2000));
    std::call_once(oflag, [&]() {
        //std::cout << "Called once by thread: " << std::this_thread::get_id() << std::endl;
        //std::cout << "closing logfile:\n";
        logfile->close();
        });

}

int main()
{
    std::array<std::thread, 5> thArray;
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; ++i)
        thArray[i] = std::thread(do_one_time_task);

    for (int i = 0; i < 5; ++i)
        thArray[i].detach();

    //std::this_thread::sleep_for(Ms(5000));
    std::cout << "Main: globalCount = " << globalCount << std::endl;

    return 0;
}

```