Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!spdcc!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: prototype my function, please
Message-ID: <16790@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Date: 5 Jun 90 01:37:14 GMT
References: <1231@wet.UUCP> <0705@sheol.UUCP> <1990May31.135230.242@druid.uucp> <236@taumet.COM> <1990Jun2.091606.9125@druid.uucp> <239@taumet.COM>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Cambridge, MA 02138-5302
Lines: 19

In article <239@taumet.COM> steve@taumet.UUCP (Stephen Clamage) writes:
>In article <1990Jun2.091606.9125@druid.uucp> darcy@druid.UUCP (D'Arcy J.M. Cain) writes:
>>int main(int argc, char **argv) { ... exit(0); }
>>[complains about int-valued function that seems to return void.  But if you
>>add a `return 0',] you now have added code (which won't be optimised
>>out) which has no other purpose than to shut the compiler up. ...
>
>Are you really concerned about one return statement in one function in
>the entire program taking up code space but never being executed?

On the implementation that I normally use, exit() is known to be a dead
function.  Hence, adding a `return' statement would *create* a warning about
unreachable code.

Besides which, you can't just write `exit(0); return 0;'.  You also have to
include a comment that says why you're doing something so silly, lest the next
person to read the code think you did it out of ignorance.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (karl@ima.ima.isc.com or harvard!ima!karl), The Walking Lint