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iOS Objective-C Basics (Retired) Fundamentals of C Anatomy of a C program

Posted by Jake Nisenboim
Jake Nisenboim
3,374 Points

Return 0 in C

As I understand, 

return 0;

indicates that the program ran properly.

Why would a programmer have 

return 1;

in their code, indicating that it did not run properly? I am not understanding correctly?

Should I always use return 0, or is that incorrect?

Thanks!

1 Answer

mkmk
mkmk
15,897 Points
mkmk
mkmk
15,897 Points

In C the main function has to return an integer. A zero has been established as the code for success, but other numbers have been used as exit codes to return a variety of messages.

Here's an example list of Window's exit codes:
http://www.hiteksoftware.com/knowledge/articles/049.htm

Jake Nisenboim
Jake Nisenboim
3,374 Points

Hi mkmk,

I believe I understand what you are saying however I do not understand what changing that number within the code would mean for the outcome of the actual program.

Thanks.