Main function

 

C

Language

Headers

Type support

Program utilities

Variadic function support

Error handling

Dynamic memory management

Date and time utilities

Strings library

Algorithms

Numerics

Input/output support

Localization support

Atomic operations (C11)

Thread support (C11)

Technical Specifications

 

C language

 

Basic Concepts

comments

ASCII

Translation phases

identifier

scope

lifetime

lookup and name spaces

type

objects and alignment

arithmetic types

the main() function

the as-if rule

undefined behavior

memory model and data races

 

Every C program coded to run in a hosted execution environment contains the definition (not the prototype) of a function called main, which is the designated start of the program.

int main (void) { body }	(1)
int main (int argc, char *argv[]) { body }	(2)
/* another implementation-defined signature */ (since C99)	(3)

Parameters

argc	-	Non-negative value representing the number of arguments passed to the program from the environment in which the program is run.
argv	-	Pointer to an array of pointers to null-terminated multibyte strings that represent the arguments passed to the program from the execution environment (argv[0] through argv[argc-1]). The value of argv[argc] is guaranteed to be ​0​.

The names argc and argv are arbitrary, as well as the representation of the types of the parameters: int main(int ac, char** av) is equally valid.

A common implementation-defined form of main is int main(int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[]), where a third argument, of type char*[], points at an array of pointers to the execution environment variables.

Return value

If the return statement is used, the return value is used as the argument to the implicit call to exit() (see below for details). The values zero and EXIT_SUCCESS indicate successful termination, the value EXIT_FAILURE indicates unsuccessful termination.

Explanation

The main function is called at program startup, after all objects with static storage duration are initialized. It is the designated entry point to a program that is executed in hosted environment (that is, with an operating system). The name and type of the entry point to any freestanding program (boot loaders, OS kernels, etc) are implementation-defined.

The parameters of the two-parameter form of the main function allow arbitrary multibyte character strings to be passed from the execution environment (these are typically known as command line arguments). The pointers argv[1] .. argv[argc-1] point at the first characters in each of these strings. argv[0] is the pointer to the initial character of a null-terminated multibyte strings that represents the name used to invoke the program itself (or, if this is not supported by the execution environment, argv[0][0] is guaranteed to be zero).

If the execution environment cannot distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters, the command line arguments are converted to lower case.

The strings are modifiable, and any modifications made persist until program termination, although these modifications do not propagate back to the execution environment: they can be used, for example, with strtok.

The size of the array pointed to by argv is at least argc+1, and the last element, argv[argc], is guaranteed to be a null pointer.

The main function has several special properties:

1) A prototype for this function cannot be supplied by the program

2) If the return type of the main function is compatible with int, then the return from the initial call to main (but not the return from any subsequent, recursive, call) is equivalent to executing the exit function, with the value that the main function is returning passed as the argument (which then calls the functions registered with atexit, flushes and closes all streams, and deletes the files created with tmpfile, and returns control to the execution environment).

3)

If the main function executes a return that specifies no value or, which is the same, reaches the terminating } without executing a return, the termination status returned to the host environment is undefined.	(until C99)
If the return type of the main function is not compatible with int (e.g. void main(void)), the value returned to the execution environment is unspecified. If the returned type is compatible with int and control reaches the terminating }, the value returned to the environment is the same as if executing return 0;	(since C99)

Example

Demonstrates how to inform a program about where to find its input and where to write its results. Invocation: ./a.out indatafile outdatafile

Run this code

#include <stdio.h>
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    printf("argc = %d\n", argc);
    for(int ndx = 0; ndx != argc; ++ndx)
        printf("argv[%d] --> %s\n", ndx,argv[ndx]);
    printf("argv[argc] = %p\n", (void*)argv[argc]);
}

Possible output:

argc = 3
argv[0] --> ./a.out
argv[1] --> indatafile
argv[2] --> outdatafile
argv[argc] = (nil)

References

• C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):

• 5.1.2.2.1 Program startup (p: 13)

• C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):

• 5.1.2.2.1 Program startup (p: 12)

• C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):

• 5.1.2.2 Hosted environment

See also