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From: Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Whaddaya think?
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2024 07:09:34 +0200
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On 17.06.2024 15:38, James Kuyper wrote:
> On 6/17/24 03:16, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>> On 17.06.2024 08:20, Keith Thompson wrote:
>>> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
>>>> If I want a defined exit status (which is what I usually
>>>> want) I specify 'int main (...)' and provide an explicit
>>>> return statement (or exit() call).
>>>
>>> Why would you ever not want a defined exit status, given that it's
>>> easier to have one than not to have one? 
>>
>> Aren't we agreeing here? (The only difference is that you are
>> formulating in a negated form where I positively said the same.)
> 
> You implied, by saying "If I want a defined exit status", that there are
> occasions where you don't want a defined exit status

....where I don't _need_ one. Yes.
E.g. in code like  main() { printf("hello, world\n"); }

> - and he's
> questioning that. Things that are undefined are seldom useful.

I disagree. If things are undefined it _may_ just not matter.
If things matter they should not (ideally never) be undefined.

> If the
> exit status is undefined, it might be a failure status. In many
> contexts, that would cause no problems, but there's also places where it
> would.

Exactly.

> 
> ...
>> Well, to indicate that there's no status information or that
>> it's irrelevant. E.g. as was the case in the test fragment I
>> posted.
> 
> That's the problem - your "indication that there's no status
> information" doesn't achieve the desired effect. Instead, it results in
> an unspecified status being returned to the system. If might be a
> successful status, or an unsuccessful status. On the systems I use,
> scripts that execute programs will often abort if the program returns an
> unsuccessful status code. If there's nothing that needs to be brought to
> the system's attention, use "return 0;", not "void main()".

In cases where the return status is a substantial part of the
external specification, yes. Return status is not self purpose!
YMMV.

Janis