18 Aug 96 13:39, Roy McNeill wrote to Peter Leschev:

 > There's a loose convention (not a rule) that says you return 0 for 
 > normal termination, and non-zero values for abnormal termination.

The C Standard says that

  int main(void)
  {
      return 0;
  }

is identical to

  #include 

  int main(void)
  {
      exit(0);
  }

and that if the value of the parameter passed to exit() is zero of
EXIT_SUCCESS, an "implementation-defined form of the status successful
termination is returned".  It continues, "If the value of [the
parameter passed to exit()] is EXIT_FAILURE, an implementation-defined form
of the status unsuccessful termination is returned.  Otherwise the status
returned is implementation defined."

So there you go - it's not just convention after all.  :-)

Regards
Andrew

-- randy{at}zws.com

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