Can someone please explain to me why the following compiles:
int main()
{
int a = mymethod(0);
}
int mymethod(int b)
{
return b;
}
but this does not:
int main()
{
mymethod(0);
}
void mymethod(int b)
{
return;
}
I thought that forward declarations were required in C/C++, yet here is a counterexample. How do implicit declarations work in C?
The implicit declarations the compiler generates will assume that the return type of the function is
int
, which sometimes is not what you want. Avoid using it.Note that implicit declarations only works in C89, it's removed in C99. C++ doesn't support it either.
This can be confirmed in C11(ISO/IEC 9899:201x) standard.
In the C11 Forward section, it lists all the major changes in the third edition(i.e, C11) and the second edition(i.e, C99), one of which is:
Also in Rationale for International Standard Programming Languages C §6.5.2.2 Function calls
For implicit function in C99 the function has to be declared before it's getting called. While declaring write the proper prototype of functions. The default method declaration prototype has return type "int" that's why it works fine (in first case of your example) with one warning (Like "implicit declaration of a function is invalid in c99"). But in second case you have changed the default prototype so u need to declare its prototype.
For example:
The default assumption is that a function returns an int. So the first one worked (luckily) because that was the case. In general, it does not.
I assume when you say that it does not work in the second code example, you mean that you get a compile time error.
The reason is that when there is an implicit function declaration, it is assumed to take a fixed number of arguments, and return
int
. However,mymethod()
is first implicitly declared, and then later declared to returnvoid
. This is an error since the new declaration does not match the previous (implicit) declaration.C90 (ANSI C89) allowed implicit function declarations. From C89, Section 3.3.2.2:
However, this allowance has been removed as of C99 (and hence also disallowed in C11). C++ never allowed implicit function declarations.