ThreadedGzip classes cannot prevent a program from exiting anymore.

CHANGELOG.rst

@@ -7,6 +7,12 @@ Changelog
 .. This document is user facing. Please word the changes in such a way
 .. that users understand how the changes affect the new version.
 
+version 0.5.1
+-----------------
++ Fix a bug where ``gzip_ng_threaded.open`` could
+  cause a hang when the program exited and the program was not used with a
+  context manager.
+
 version 0.5.0
 -----------------
 + Wheels are now build for MacOS arm64 architectures.

src/zlib_ng/gzip_ng_threaded.py

@@ -98,7 +98,8 @@ def __init__(self, filename, queue_size=2, block_size=1024 * 1024):
         self.exception = None
         self.buffer = io.BytesIO()
         self.block_size = block_size
-        self.worker = threading.Thread(target=self._decompress)
+        # Using a daemon thread prevents programs freezing on error.
+        self.worker = threading.Thread(target=self._decompress, daemon=True)
         self._closed = False
         self.running = True
         self.worker.start()
@@ -231,17 +232,18 @@ def __init__(self,
                 queue.Queue(queue_size) for _ in range(threads)]
             self.output_queues: List[queue.Queue[Tuple[bytes, int, int]]] = [
                 queue.Queue(queue_size) for _ in range(threads)]
-            self.output_worker = threading.Thread(target=self._write)
+            # Using daemon threads prevents a program freezing on error.
+            self.output_worker = threading.Thread(target=self._write, daemon=True)
             self.compression_workers = [
-                threading.Thread(target=self._compress, args=(i,))
+                threading.Thread(target=self._compress, args=(i,), daemon=True)
                 for i in range(threads)
             ]
         elif threads == 1:
             self.input_queues = [queue.Queue(queue_size)]
             self.output_queues = []
             self.compression_workers = []
             self.output_worker = threading.Thread(
-                target=self._compress_and_write)
+                target=self._compress_and_write, daemon=True)
         else:
             raise ValueError(f"threads should be at least 1, got {threads}")
         self.threads = threads