Does main have to return int?

Why does main() have to return an int? [duplicate] Closed 8 years ago. In most cases int main() does not return anything, it doesn’t even have to since no return would not give an error.

What happens if you forgot the return statement in a non void function?

You may or may not use the return statement, as there is no return value. Even without the return statement, control will return to the caller automatically at the end of the function. A good utilization of a void function would be to print a header/footer to a screen or file.

Should a function contain a return statement if it does not return a value?

A value-returning function should include a return statement, containing an expression. If an expression is not given on a return statement in a function declared with a non- void return type, the compiler issues a warning message. For a function of return type void , a return statement is not strictly necessary.

When main does not return any values?

8 Answers. If main doesn’t return int , then you have an ill-formed program and behavior is undefined. Anything can happen. Your program might crash, or it might run as though nothing were wrong at all.

Does main return int in C?

main doesn’t neeed to be a function or return an int, but it usually should because that will become the return code of your program if it exits normally. so you can think of the return value of main being fed as input to the exit function. main() returns the data type it was defined with.

How do you fix control reaches end of non void function?

If control reaches the end of a function and no return is encountered, GCC assumes a return with no return value. However, for this, the function requires a return value. At the end of the function, add a return statement that returns a suitable return value, even if control never reaches there.

What is a non void function?

Functions that return are great for when we need to go through a lot of steps to get a value that we want to use in our code somewhere. Calling a non-void function tells the computer to head over to the function definition, do everything, and come back with the result once it’s done.

What happens if we return 1 in int main?

return 1 in the main function means that the program does not execute successfully and there is some error. return 0 means that the user-defined function is returning false. return 1 means that the user-defined function is returning true.

When program compile successfully then which value is return by compiler?

The correct option is (a). Explanation: After successful completion of a program, 0 is returned to the operating system.

Why can’t I return a value from a function in C++?

In C++ it’s not an error to fail to return a value from a value-returning function; it’s just “undefined behaviour”. The compiler is not required to diagnose undefined behaviour. Most compilers, however, are able to warn you in many cases that control might reach the end of a non-void function without returning a value.

Why can’t I return a value from main()?

If you compile with gcc or clang, you should always compile with – Wall in order to catch such problems. As Dinesh points out, main () is a special case. If you don’t return a value from main (), the program behaves as though 0 was returned (so in this case alone, it is well-defined behaviour.) .

Why does main() return 0 in C?

This is because pre-ANSI C didn’t have a void type; instead people used implicit int-returning functions with no returns. While the default for main () is indeed to return 0, it’s worth remembering that this may get translated before it’s returned to the host environment*.

Why don’t all code paths return a value?

When the compiler looks at your code, it’s sees a third path (the else you didn’t code for) that could occur but doesn’t return a value. Hence not all code paths return a value. For my suggested fix, I put a return after your loop ends.