How to stop a goroutine

go goroutine channels
Łukasz Gruner picture Łukasz Gruner · Jul 24, 2011 · Viewed 121.2k times · Source

I have a goroutine that calls a method, and passes returned value on a channel:

ch := make(chan int, 100)
go func(){
    for {
        ch <- do_stuff()
    }
}()

How do I stop such a goroutine?

Answer

jimt picture jimt · Jul 24, 2011

Typically, you pass the goroutine a (possibly separate) signal channel. That signal channel is used to push a value into when you want the goroutine to stop. The goroutine polls that channel regularly. As soon as it detects a signal, it quits.

quit := make(chan bool)
go func() {
    for {
        select {
        case <- quit:
            return
        default:
            // Do other stuff
        }
    }
}()

// Do stuff

// Quit goroutine
quit <- true

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