Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!uccba!alobar!grs
From: grs@alobar.ATT.COM (Gregg Siegfried)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Strange lint mumblings
Summary: exit vs return
Keywords: lint exit
Message-ID: <1037@alobar.ATT.COM>
Date: 14 Dec 88 16:30:21 GMT
References: <416@marob.MASA.COM>
Reply-To: grs@alobar.ATT.COM (Gregg Siegfried)
Distribution: na
Organization: Home for Future Burnt-out Hackers
Lines: 16

In article <416@marob.MASA.COM> daveh@marob.masa.com (Dave Hammond) writes:
>Can anyone explain why the statement:
>    exit(0);	/* followed immediately by main's closing brace */
>causes lint to complain:
>(137)  warning: main() returns random value to invocation environment

Exit is not part of the C language and appears to lint (and the compiler)
as just another function call.  That it happens to free resources, close
files, and run down the process is just a handy coincidence. ;-)

To nuke this message, use return rather than exit.  In most Unix environments,
an implicit exit is linked in with crt0 anyway.

>Dave Hammond

Gregg Siegfried
grs@alobar.att.com