What is the difference between return 1 and exit (1) from a C main function?

Question

In a C program, within the main function, is there a difference between

exit(1);

and

return 1;

?

Answer 1

exit represents immediate termination which will terminate program.

In the below program when we return value from main the destructors will be called but not in case when we use exit(value).

#include <iostream>
#include<string.h>

using namespace std;

class String {
private:
    char* s;
    int size;
 
public:
    String(char*); // constructor
    ~String(); // destructor
};
 
String::String(char* c){
    cout<<"Calling constructor"<<endl;
    size = strlen(c);
    s = new char[size + 1];
    strcpy(s, c);
}
String::~String() {
    cout<<"Calling destructor"<<endl;
        delete[] s; 
}

int main(){
    String s("Hell o");

    exit(1);
    //return 1;
}