How to quit a java app from within the program

What's the best way to quit a Java application with code?

You can use System.exit() for this purpose.

According to oracle's Java 8 documentation:

public static void exit(int status)

Terminates the currently running Java Virtual Machine. The argument serves as a status code; by convention, a nonzero status code indicates abnormal termination.

This method calls the exit method in class Runtime. This method never returns normally.

The call System.exit(n) is effectively equivalent to the call:

Runtime.getRuntime().exit(n)

System.exit(0);

The "0" lets whomever called your program know that everything went OK. If, however, you are quitting due to an error, you should System.exit(1);, or with another non-zero number corresponding to the specific error.

Also, as others have mentioned, clean up first! That involves closing files and other open resources.