Re: [using gcc book] ch10.11 Certain Changes We Don't Want to Make

[Russ Allbery <rra at stanford dot edu>]

Chris Devers <cdevers@pobox.com> writes:

> In section 10.11, "Certain Changes We Don't Want to Make" we have the
> following paragraph:

>   * Warning when a non-void function value is ignored.

>     Coming as I do from a Lisp background, I balk at the idea that
>     there is something dangerous about discarding a value. There
>     are functions that return values which some callers may find
>     useful; it makes no sense to clutter the program with a cast
>     to void whenever the value isn't useful.

> There's just a bit more axe-grinding from the MIT alum that wrote this
> than is strictly necessary, I think :)

How about this, which I think gets at the heart of the matter more
directly:

    C contains many standard functions that return a value that is
    occasionally useful but usually ignored by most programs.  (printf is
    an obvious example.)  It is commonplace to call those functions
    without using their return value.  Warning about this practice only
    leads to cluttering the program with dozens of casts to void.  Such
    casts are required so frequently that they become visual noise, and
    writing those cats becomes so automatic that they no longer convey
    useful information about the intentions of the programmer.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>