The EXIT_CODE is stored in the program Data Segment and has the value of 0x0000 at startup. No library macros modify this value unless explicitly told to change it. The lower byte of this value is passed as the return code back to DOS when the program terminates.

If the EXIT_CODE has a non-zero value at shut down an error message will be displayed. There are very few built in error messages. If the appropriate message for the error cannot be found, a generic unknown error will be displayed.

See also Terminate.