Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!aero-c!lmiller
From: lmiller@aero.org (Lawrence H. Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: Must main return a value?
Message-ID: <1991Jun29.182106.6778@aero.org>
Date: 29 Jun 91 18:21:06 GMT
References: <16575@smoke.brl.mil> <1991Jun29.002410.27632@aero.org> <16582@smoke.brl.mil>
Sender: news@aero.org
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Lines: 27

In article <16582@smoke.brl.mil> gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>In article <1991Jun29.002410.27632@aero.org> lmiller@aero.org (Lawrence H. Miller) writes:
>>The question one might ask of a standards body is why this is "undefined"
>>and not "implementation defined," since it clearly involves the program's
>>interaction with its host.
>
>I don't think you understand what these terms mean as used in the C
>standard.  Either that, or you really believe that an implementation
>could document what would happen for every program that returned
>garbage instead of a deliberate value, where the garbage is NOT
>specified in the program (unlike the case for the part of 4.10.4.3
>that you quoted).
>
>Basically, this was specified to cause undefined behavior because
>that's exactly what it does.

	I understand fully well what the terms "undefined" and
	"implementation defined" mean.  I don't understand what the
	term "garbage" means and can't find it defined anywhere in the
	standard.


-- 
Larry Miller
The Aerospace Corporation
lmiller@aero.org
(213 soon to be 310)336-5597