Often the program prints a descriptive error message to a terminal or log as part of the graceful exit.
The code associated with a graceful exit may also take additional steps, such as closing files, to ensure that the program leaves data in a consistent, recoverable state.
In many cases, an outright crash can give the software developer the opportunity to attach a debugger or collect important information, such as a core dump or stack trace, to diagnose the root cause of the error.
The phrase "graceful exit" has also been generalized to refer to letting go from a job or relationship in life that has ended.
[2][3] In the Perl programming language, graceful exits are generally implemented via the die operator.