C9. C Functions

Functions

Functions are like “procedures” or “subroutines” in other programming lan­guages they're the building blocks from which programs are constructed. In fact, a C program is little more than a collection of functions. Functions fall into two categories: those written by the programmer and those provided as part of the C implementation. I'll refer to the latter as library functions, since they belong to a “library” of functions that are supplied with the compiler.

The term “function” comes from mathematics, where a function is a rule for computing a value when given one or more arguments:

C uses the term “function” more loosely. In C, a function is simply a series of statements that have been grouped together and given a name. Some functions compute a value; some don't. A function that computes a value uses the return statement to specify what value it “returns.” For example, a function that adds 1 to its argument might execute the statement

return x + 1;

while a function that computes the difference of the squares of its arguments might execute the statement

return y * y - z * z;

Although a C program may consist of many functions, only the main func­tion is mandatory, main is special: it gets called automatically when the program is executed.

The name main is critical; it can't be begin or start or even MAIN.

If main is a function, does it return a value?

Yes: it returns a status code that is given to the operating system when the program terminates.

#include

int main(void)

{

printf(“To C, or not to C: that is the question.\n”);

return 0;

}

The word int just before main indicates that the main function returns an inte­ger value. The word void in parentheses indicates that main has no arguments.