Exercise 0-9

What is the shortest valid program?

Solution

According to chapter 0 (Getting Started) of the book Accelerated C++ …

On Main function:

• Every C++ program must define exactly one function, named main, that returns an int.
• The implementation runs the program by calling main.
• A zero returns indicates success; a non-zero return indicates failure.
• In general, functions must include at least one return statement and are not permitted to fall off the end of the function.
• The main function is special: it may omit the return; if it does so, the implementation will assume a zero return value.
• However, explicitly including a return from main is good practice.

The shortest valid program can therefore be as short as a one-liner like this (or can this be made even shorter I wonder?)

int main() {}

Result

The program compiles okay in Code::Block and gives me the following output the the console output window.

Process returned 0 (0x0)   execution time : 0.141 s
Press any key to continue.

Reference