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From: Ben Bacarisse <ben@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Whaddaya think?
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2024 15:41:17 +0100
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DFS <nospam@dfs.com> writes:

> On 6/16/2024 10:41 PM, James Kuyper wrote:
>> On 6/16/24 12:20, DFS wrote:
>>> On 6/15/2024 6:22 PM, Keith Thompson wrote:
>>>> DFS <nospam@dfs.com> writes:
>> ...
>>>>> 	return(0);
>>>>
>>>> A minor style point: a return statement doesn't require parentheses.
>>>> IMHO using parentheses make it look too much like a function call.  I'd
>>>> write `return 0;`, or more likely I'd just omit it, since falling off
>>>> the end of main does an implicit `return 0;` (starting in C99).
>>>
>>> Can't omit it.  It's required by my brain.
>> The parentheses you're putting in are completely unrelated to the use of
>> parentheses in _Generic(), function calls, compound literals,
>> sizeof(type name), alignof(), _BitInt(), _Atomic(), typeof(),
>> typeof_unqual(), alignas(), function declarators, static_assert(), if(),
>> switch(for(), while(), do ... while(), function-like macro definitions
>> and invocations or cast expressions. In all of those cases, the
>> parentheses are part of the grammar.
>> The parentheses that you put in return(0) serve only for grouping
>> purpose. They are semantically equivalent to the parentheses in "i =
>> (0);"; they are just as legal, and just as pointless.
>> If your brain doesn't immediately understand why what I said above is
>> true, I recommend retraining it.
>
> I meant omit a return altogether.
>
> But looking around, I rarely see return(0).  Don't know why it became a
> thing for me.
>
> Moving forward, return 0 it is.

By the way, you might have retained return (exp); from old C.  C
originally required the parentheses, but they got dropped quite early
on.  The syntax in K&R (1st edition) does not require them, but almost
all the code example in the book still have them!

I took a while to drop them as I came to C from B where they were always
required so I'd got the habit.

-- 
Ben.