Must declare function prototype in C?

Question

I am kind of new to C (I have prior Java, C#, and some C++ experience). In C, is it necessary to declare a function prototype or can the code compile without it? Is it good programming practice to do so? Or does it just depend on the compiler? (I am running Ubuntu 9.10 and using the GNU C Compiler, or gcc, under the Code::Blocks IDE)

Answer 1

It is never required to declare a prototype for a function in C, neither in "old" C (including C89/90) nor in new C (C99). However, there's a significant difference between C89/90 and C99 with regard to function declarations.

In C89/90 it was not necessary to declare a function at all. If the function is not declared at the point of the call, the compiler "guesses" (infers) the declaration implicitly from the types of the arguments passed in the call and assumes that the return type is int.

For example

int main() {
  int i = foo(5); 
  /* No declaration for `foo`, no prototype for `foo`.
     Will work in C89/90. Assumes `int foo(int)` */

  return 0;
}

int foo(int i) {
  return i;
}

In C99 every function that you call must be declared before point of the call. However, it is still not necessary to declare it with a prototype specifically. A non-prototype declaration will work as well. This means that in C99 the "implicit int" rule no longer works (for inferred function return types, in this case), but parameter types can still be guessed from the argument types if function is declared without a prototype.

The previous example will not compile in C99, since foo is not declared at the point of the call. Yet, you can add a non-prototype declaration

int foo(); /* Declares `foo`, but still no prototype */

int main() {
  int i = foo(5); 
  /* No prototype for `foo`, although return type is known. 
     Will work in C99. Assumes `int foo(int)` */

  return 0;
}
...

and end up with valid C99 code.

Nevertheless, it is always a good practice to declare a prototype for the function before you call it.

An additional note: I said above that it is never required to declare a function prototype. In fact, for some functions it is a requirement. In order to properly call a variadic function in C (printf for example) the function must be declared with a prototype before the point of the call. Otherwise, the behavior is undefined. This applies to both C89/90 and C99.