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(gcc-295.info)Function Prototypes

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Prototypes and Old-Style Function Definitions
=============================================

   GNU C extends ANSI C to allow a function prototype to override a
later old-style non-prototype definition.  Consider the following
example:

     /* Use prototypes unless the compiler is old-fashioned.  */
     #ifdef __STDC__
     #define P(x) x
     #else
     #define P(x) ()
     #endif
     
     /* Prototype function declaration.  */
     int isroot P((uid_t));
     
     /* Old-style function definition.  */
     int
     isroot (x)   /* ??? lossage here ??? */
          uid_t x;
     {
       return x == 0;
     }

   Suppose the type `uid_t' happens to be `short'.  ANSI C does not
allow this example, because subword arguments in old-style
non-prototype definitions are promoted.  Therefore in this example the
function definition's argument is really an `int', which does not match
the prototype argument type of `short'.

   This restriction of ANSI C makes it hard to write code that is
portable to traditional C compilers, because the programmer does not
know whether the `uid_t' type is `short', `int', or `long'.  Therefore,
in cases like these GNU C allows a prototype to override a later
old-style definition.  More precisely, in GNU C, a function prototype
argument type overrides the argument type specified by a later
old-style definition if the former type is the same as the latter type
before promotion.  Thus in GNU C the above example is equivalent to the
following:

     int isroot (uid_t);
     
     int
     isroot (uid_t x)
     {
       return x == 0;
     }

   GNU C++ does not support old-style function definitions, so this
extension is irrelevant.