On Okt 10 2024, Florian Weimer wrote: > * Laurent Cimon via Gcc: > >> I realize that compilers have evolved with time, and that many >> things required the use of function prototypes, but my question is, >> what is the historical reason that a function defined further down >> in a C file cannot be used without a function prototype? > > The most common implementation strategy in the 80s was not to read the > entire source file into memory and process function definitions one > function at a time. This favored forward declarations once prototypes > were introduced, otherwise the existing compilers would have to change > rather drastically to support this feature.
A typical compiler of that era: https://sourceforge.net/projects/sozobon/ -- Andreas Schwab, SUSE Labs, sch...@suse.de GPG Key fingerprint = 0196 BAD8 1CE9 1970 F4BE 1748 E4D4 88E3 0EEA B9D7 "And now for something completely different."
