missing return statement on non void functions; just a warning?

[macracan]

I'm wondering what was the rationale that caused gcc to only have a
warning (disabled by default!!) to signal the following:

int a()
{}; // intentionally no statements

int main()
{
printf("%d", a());
return 0;
}

Function a() is declared as returning an int and the compiler doesn't
treat as an error the missing return statement.
I'm asking in this forum because I suspect that gcc crowd will just
tell me to read the standard. If I'm in the wrong forum, I hope to be
corrected.

Thank you,
Adrian

[Ian Collins]

Re: missing return statement on non void functions; just a warning?

macracan wrote:

I'm wondering what was the rationale that caused gcc to only have a
warning (disabled by default!!) to signal the following:
>
int a()
{}; // intentionally no statements
>
int main()
{
printf("%d", a());
return 0;
}
>
Function a() is declared as returning an int and the compiler doesn't
treat as an error the missing return statement.
I'm asking in this forum because I suspect that gcc crowd will just
tell me to read the standard. If I'm in the wrong forum, I hope to be
corrected.
>

You must have compiled it as C, it certainly won't compile as C++.

--
Ian Collins.