Exiting a thread from outside the thread ?

I have the code as follows,

Code:

---

for (;;) {

        if (side == computer)
        {
        DWORD Id;
        HANDLE hThread = CreateThread(0, 0, think, pcon, 0, &Id);
}

if (input == quit)
{
//I want to exit the above thread from outside the thread
}

}

---

So is it possible to exit the thread from outside that thread please?
Thanks.

There are a couple of ways. Most direct is the TerminateThread function. This is basically brute-force kill the thread, no questions asked. Note that this is NOT recommended a number of reasons: for C++ code because the destructors of any classes that were created in the thread will not be called, for code that could be manipulating a DLL (it wouldn't be closed), for code that might have a file or other resource open (it wouldn't be released), etc.

Another way is to create an event object before you create the thread, give the thread function a pointer to the object, and have the thread check the event periodically (can be done with a while loop) and return when the event signals. Then the parent thread can keep the event object handy and signal it when (in this case) input==quit.