The System.exit method forces termination of all threads in the Java virtual machine. This can be drastic. It might, for example, destroy all windows created by the interpreter without giving the user a chance to record or even read their contents.

Programs should usually terminate by stopping all non-daemon threads; in the simplest case of a command-line program, this is as easy as returning from the main method.

System.exit should be reserved for a catastrophic error exit, or for cases when a program is intended for use as a utility in a command script that may depend on the program’s exit code.