TITLE: returning from main

(Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++.moderated, 3 Oct 96)

KUEHL: kuehl@horn.informatik.uni-konstanz.de (Dietmar Kuehl)

As far as the missing 'return' statement goes: Every function returning
something different than 'void' results in "undefined behavior" if the
path of execution floats off this function without a 'return'
statement. Well, there is on exception to this rule:  If the path of
execution floats off 'main()' without a return statement (as would
e.g.  be the case in the example on page 18), this is equivalent to
'return 0;' (or 'return EXIT_SUCCESS;'). However, I think it is bad
style to use this rule... (and I wouldn't teach it...)


KANZE: kanze@gabi-soft.fr (J. Kanze)

It's also worth pointing out that this rule represents a recent change,
and is probably not implemented in very many compilers yet.