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I was recently coding in C++ when I realized that the int main() function works fine as a long main() and can support larger numbers (up to 2^63) so why is that not the normal way it is coded?

Frienderman
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    That's by definition the signature of an executable entry point, and supported by a variety of OS like this. If you want to get program output of any kind, use output streams. – πάντα ῥεῖ May 04 '21 at 19:40
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    Do you really need more than 2^32 different return codes? Normally you return EXIT_SUCCESS or EXIT_FAILURE indicating to the calling process success or failure – drescherjm May 04 '21 at 19:53
  • And even `int` is already too much for some OS. Typically, on those OS, you can only use error code from 0 to 255, so a single `uint8_t`. – prapin May 04 '21 at 21:00

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