What do parameter declarations between function declaration and bracket mean?

Question

What's the difference between this declaration:

void 
main(argc, argv)
int argc;
char **argv;
{
    // ...
}

from this?

void 
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    // ...
}

Thanks for answers.

Does the top one even compile? (sorry, no access to C compiler at the moment) — EyeOfTheHawks, May 21 '14 at 20:57
Welp, I had never seen that before. Thanks for sharing this :) — Pacane, May 21 '14 at 21:00
That just good old pre-standard/K&R C. Nothing to see here.. — lethal-guitar, May 21 '14 at 21:01
Alternate duplicate: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3092006/function-declaration-kr-vs-ansi — Kerrek SB, May 21 '14 at 21:02
Known as "obsolete forms of function definitions" here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/efx873ys.aspx — Mahonri Moriancumer, May 21 '14 at 21:09

slaadvak · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-21T21:03:30.133

2

Its a different notation style that was used in C at its beginning called the KR Notation (for Kernighan and Ritchie, C's designers). The well known C notation style that is used today follows the ANSI standard.

Here's link to a Wikipedia article describing the KR notation : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%26R_C#K.26R_C

edited May 21 '14 at 21:03

answered May 21 '14 at 20:57

slaadvak

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What do parameter declarations between function declaration and bracket mean?

1 Answers1