C Pocket Reference

Functions

Every C program contains at least the function main() , which is the first function executed when the program starts. All other functions are subroutines.

The definition of a function lists the statements it executes. Before a function can be called in a given translation unit, it must be declared. A function definition also serves as a declaration of the function. The declaration of a function informs the compiler of its return type. For example:

extern double pow();

Here pow() is declared as a function that returns a value with type double. Because function names are external names by default, the storage class specifier extern can also be omitted.

In ANSI C99, implicit function declarations are no longer permitted. Formerly, calls to undeclared functions were allowed, and the compiler implicitly assumed in such cases that the function returned a value of type int.

The declaration of the function pow() in the example above contains no information about the number and type of the function’s parameters. Hence the compiler has no way of testing whether the arguments supplied in a given function call are compatible with the function’s parameters. This missing information is supplied by a function prototype.