Argument Lists in Function Prototypes (Nondefining Declaration)
The form argument-declaration-list is a list of the type names of the arguments. Consider an argument-declaration-list for a function, func
, that takes these three arguments: pointer to type char *, char, and int.
The code for such an argument-declaration-list can be written:
char *, char, int
The function declaration (the prototype) might therefore be written:
void func( char *, char, int );
Although the preceding declaration contains enough information for the compiler to perform type checking and conversions, it does not provide much information about what the arguments are. A good way to document function declarations is to include identifiers as they would appear in the function definition, as in the following:
void func( char *szTarget, char chSearchChar, int nStartAt );
These identifiers in prototypes are useful only for default arguments, because they go out of scope immediately. However, they provide meaningful program documentation.