Difference between void main and int main in C/C++? [duplicate]
Does it matter which way I declare the main function in a C++ (or C) program?
The difference is one is the correct way to define main, and the other is not.
And yes, it does matter. Either
int main(int argc, char** argv)
or
int main()
are the proper definition of your main per the C++ spec.
void main(int argc, char** argv)
is not and was, IIRC, a perversity that came with older Microsoft's C++ compilers.
https://isocpp.org/wiki/faq/newbie#main-returns-int
Bjarne Stroustrup made this quite clear:
The definition
void main()is not and never has been C++, nor has it even been C.
See reference.
You should use int main. Both the C and C++ standards specify that main should return a value.
For C++, only int is allowed. For C, C99 says only int is allowed. The prior standard allowed for a void return.
In short, always int.
The point is, C programs (and C++ the same) always (should?) return a success value or error code, so they should be declared that way.