RE: GCC 3.0 Branch: Guidelines

[David Korn <dkorn at pixelpower dot com>]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Joe Buck [mailto:jbuck@synopsys.COM]
>Sent: 14 March 2001 16:43

>I go back far enough to have perused the V7 Unix sources (I briefly
>used version 6 as well).  I know how C used to be written.

  That is indeed a long time!

>The standard way to write a void function, pre-void, was not to name
>a return type at all, e.g.
>
>foo() {
>	do_something();
>}
>
>But if the user says "void", s/he has made a specific statement: this
>function does not return a value.  There is no symmetry here.

  I guess it just seemed symmetrical to me because I saw that case as being
an instance of failing to return a value from a function that should return
an (implicit) int, rather than seeing it (as it seems you do) as not
returning a value from a function that is not declared to return a
function.

>Even in K&R days, a user who explicitly declared a function void would not
>purposely try to return a value from such a function!

  Point taken.

>  The reason is that (void) was not added until prototypes were added.

  D'oh.  Forgot that.  I guess functions that didn't explicitly declare a
return type weren't regarded as returning an implicit int until that stage
either, which might explain why what seemed symmetry to me wasn't actually
so.  I appear to have been guilty of some major anachronisms!

         DaveK
-- 
 All your base are belong to us!


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