why can we use printf without including stdio.h
I read the c programming language again to mourn Dennis Ritchie who passed away recently.
I noticed below statements in section "4.2 Functions Returning Non-integers", which explains the question, why can we use printf without including stdio.h.
So, let's take a look at the hello world sample below:
1 //#include <stdio.h>
2
3 int main(int argc, char *argv[])
4 {
5 printf("hello world!\n");
6 return 0;
7 }
When the code is compiled, the statement on line 5 implicitly declares the printf function because it's not declared explicitly. It's the same as if we declared printf as:
int printf();
And there is no assumption about its argument, so the code can pass the compile phase.
In link phase, unlike c++, only the function name (function signature doesn't matter) affects the symbol name. So the printf symbol name can be found from the standard c library which is linked automatically. As a result, the code above can compile and run successfully.
I noticed below statements in section "4.2 Functions Returning Non-integers", which explains the question, why can we use printf without including stdio.h.
The function atof must be declared and defined consistently. If atof itself and the call to it in main have inconsistent types in the same source file, the error will be detected by the compiler. But if (as is more likely) atof were compiled separately, the mismatch would not be detected, atof would return a double that main would treat as an int, and meaningless answers would result.
In the light of what we have said about how declarations must match definitions, this might seem surprising. The reason a mismatch can happen is that if there is no function prototype, a function is implicitly declared by its first appearance in an expression, such as
sum += atof(line)
If a name that has not been previously declared occurs in an expression and is followed by a left parentheses, it is declared by context to be a function name, the function is assumed to return an int, and nothing is assumed about its arguments. Furthermore, if a function declaration does not include arguments, as in
double atof();
that too is taken to mean that nothing is to be assumed about the arguments of atof; all parameter checking is turned off. This special meaning of the empty argument list is intended to permit older C programs to compile with new compilers. But it's a bad idea to use it with new C programs. If the function takes arguments, declare them; if it takes no arguments, use
void.
In the light of what we have said about how declarations must match definitions, this might seem surprising. The reason a mismatch can happen is that if there is no function prototype, a function is implicitly declared by its first appearance in an expression, such as
sum += atof(line)
If a name that has not been previously declared occurs in an expression and is followed by a left parentheses, it is declared by context to be a function name, the function is assumed to return an int, and nothing is assumed about its arguments. Furthermore, if a function declaration does not include arguments, as in
double atof();
that too is taken to mean that nothing is to be assumed about the arguments of atof; all parameter checking is turned off. This special meaning of the empty argument list is intended to permit older C programs to compile with new compilers. But it's a bad idea to use it with new C programs. If the function takes arguments, declare them; if it takes no arguments, use
void.
So, let's take a look at the hello world sample below:
1 //#include <stdio.h>
2
3 int main(int argc, char *argv[])
4 {
5 printf("hello world!\n");
6 return 0;
7 }
When the code is compiled, the statement on line 5 implicitly declares the printf function because it's not declared explicitly. It's the same as if we declared printf as:
int printf();
And there is no assumption about its argument, so the code can pass the compile phase.
In link phase, unlike c++, only the function name (function signature doesn't matter) affects the symbol name. So the printf symbol name can be found from the standard c library which is linked automatically. As a result, the code above can compile and run successfully.
