From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] the declaration of main()
From: forsyth@vitanuova.com
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Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 12:09:21 +0100
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>>okamoto@granite.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp wrote:
>>> I wonder why C99 employed that int main(),

>>Existing practice, tracable back to UNIX.

although it was possible to return a status from main by 6th edition
(in 5th edition returning from main did exit(0)), and only su included
return from main, arguably wrongly in 5th edition and definitely so in
6th.  when i looked recently, i could find only two commands using it
in 7th edition (makekey and graph, both returning 0).  the UNIX programming
paper encouraged the use of exit to ensure reliable exit status for a caller.

return from main seemed to me to be used mainly by the System III/V crowd,
rather later.

it's unfortunately more error prone than void/exit.  for instance, it was
common to forget fflush() in the presence of setbuf/setvbuf in main for an auto buffer
and worse, that sometimes `worked' (until ported).

i like the plan 9 conventions, myself.