Related
I'm using the below code:
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
The implementation of do_something is not important here.
When I try to compile the above I get these two exception:
error: conflicting types for 'do_something' (at the printf call)
error: previous implicit declaration of 'do_something' was here (at the prototype line)
Why?
You are trying to call do_something before you declare it. You need to add a function prototype before your printf line:
char* do_something(char*, const char*);
Or you need to move the function definition above the printf line. You can't use a function before it is declared.
In "classic" C language (C89/90) when you call an undeclared function, C assumes that it returns an int and also attempts to derive the types of its parameters from the types of the actual arguments (no, it doesn't assume that it has no parameters, as someone suggested before).
In your specific example the compiler would look at do_something(dest, src) call and implicitly derive a declaration for do_something. The latter would look as follows
int do_something(char *, char *)
However, later in the code you explicitly declare do_something as
char *do_something(char *, const char *)
As you can see, these declarations are different from each other. This is what the compiler doesn't like.
A C Function-Declaration Backgrounder
In C, function declarations don't work like they do in other languages: The C compiler itself doesn't search backward and forward in the file to find the function's declaration from the place you call it, and it doesn't scan the file multiple times to figure out the relationships either: The compiler only scans forward in the file exactly once, from top to bottom. Connecting function calls to function declarations is part of the linker's job, and is only done after the file is compiled down to raw assembly instructions.
This means that as the compiler scans forward through the file, the very first time the compiler encounters the name of a function, one of two things have to be the case: It either is seeing the function declaration itself, in which case the compiler knows exactly what the function is and what types it takes as arguments and what types it returns — or it's a call to the function, and the compiler has to guess how the function will eventually be declared.
(There's a third option, where the name is used in a function prototype, but we'll ignore that for now, since if you're seeing this problem in the first place, you're probably not using prototypes.)
History Lesson
In the earliest days of C, the fact that the compiler had to guess types wasn't really an issue: All of the types were more-or-less the same — pretty much everything was either an int or a pointer, and they were the same size. (In fact, in B, the language that preceded C, there were no types at all; everything was just an int or pointer and its type was determined solely by how you used it!) So the compiler could safely guess the behavior of any function just based on the number of parameters that were passed: If you passed two parameters, the compiler would push two things onto the call stack, and presumably the callee would have two arguments declared, and that would all line up. If you passed only one parameter but the function expected two, it would still sort-of work, and the second argument would just be ignored/garbage. If you passed three parameters and the function expected two, it would also still sort-of work, and the third parameter would be ignored and stomped on by the function's local variables. (Some old C code still expects these mismatched-argument rules will work, too.)
But having the compiler let you pass anything to anything isn't really a good way to design a programming language. It worked well in the early days because the early C programmers were mostly wizards, and they knew not to pass the wrong type to functions, and even if they did get the types wrong, there were always tools like lint that could do deeper double-checking of your C code and warn you about such things.
Fast-forward to today, and we're not quite in the same boat. C has grown up, and a lot of people are programming in it who aren't wizards, and to accommodate them (and to accommodate everyone else who regularly used lint anyway), the compilers have taken on many of the abilities that were previously part of lint — especially the part where they check your code to ensure it's type-safe. Early C compilers would let you write int foo = "hello"; and it would just blithely assign the pointer to the integer, and it was up to you to make sure you weren't doing anything stupid. Modern C compilers complain loudly when you get your types wrong, and that's a good thing.
Type Conflicts
So what's all this got to do with the mysterious conflicting-type error on the line of the function declaration? As I said above, C compilers still have to either know or guess what a name means the first time they see that name as they scan forward through the file: They can know what it means it if it's an actual function declaration itself (or a function "prototype," more on that shortly), but if it's just a call to the function, they have to guess. And, sadly, the guess is often wrong.
When the compiler saw your call to do_something(), it looked at how it was invoked, and it concluded that do_something() would eventually be declared like this:
int do_something(char arg1[], char arg2[])
{
...
}
Why did it conclude that? Because that's how you called it! (Some C compilers may conclude that it was int do_something(int arg1, int arg2), or simply int do_something(...), both of which are even farther from what you want, but the important point is that regardless of how the compiler guesses the types, it guesses them differently from what your actual function uses.)
Later on, as the compiler scans forward in the file, it sees your actual declaration of char *do_something(char *, char *). That function declaration isn't even close to the declaration that the compiler guessed, which means that the line where the compiler compiled the call was compiled wrong, and the program is just not going to work. So it rightly prints an error telling you that your code isn't going to work as written.
You might be wondering, "Why does it assume I'm returning an int?" Well, it assumes that type because there's no information to the contrary: printf() can take in any type in its variable arguments, so without a better answer, int is as good a guess as any. (Many early C compilers always assumed int for every unspecified type, and assumed you meant ... for the arguments for every function declared f() — not void — which is why many modern code standards recommend always putting void in for the arguments if there really aren't supposed to be any.)
The Fix
There are two common fixes for the function-declaration error.
The first solution, which is recommended by many other answers here, is to put a prototype in the source code above the place where the function is first called. A prototype looks just like the function's declaration, but it has a semicolon where the body should be:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src);
By putting the prototype first, the compiler then knows what the function will eventually look like, so it doesn't have to guess. By convention, programmers often put prototypes at the top of the file, just under the #include statements, to ensure that they'll always be defined before any potential usages of them.
The other solution, which also shows up in some real-world code, is to simply reorder your functions so that the function declarations are always before anything that calls them! You could move the entire char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src) { ... } function above the first call to it, and the compiler then would know exactly what the function looks like and wouldn't have to guess.
In practice, most people use function prototypes, because you can also take function prototypes and move them into header (.h) files so that code in other .c files can call those functions. But either solution works, and many codebases use both.
C99 and C11
It is useful to note that the rules are slightly different in the newer versions of the C standard. In the earlier versions (C89 and K&R), the compiler really would guess the types at function-call time (and K&R-era compilers often wouldn't even warn you if they were wrong). C99 and C11 both require that the function declaration/prototype must precede the first call, and it's an error if it doesn't. But many modern C compilers — mainly for backward compatibility with earlier code — will only warn about a missing prototype and not consider it an error.
You didn't declare it before you used it.
You need something like
char *do_something(char *, const char *);
before the printf.
Example:
#include <stdio.h>
char *do_something(char *, const char *);
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
int main ()
{
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
return 0;
}
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
Alternatively, you can put the whole do_something function before the printf.
You have to declare the function before you use it. If the function name appears before its declaration, C compiler will follow certain rules and makes the declaration itself. If it is wrong, you will get that error.
You have two options: (1) define it before you use it, or (2) use forward declaration without implementation. For example:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src);
Note the semicolon at the end.
C Commandment #3:
K&R #3 Thou shalt always prototype your functions or else the C compiler will extract vengence.
http://www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/hack/God.vs.K+R.html
Watch again:
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
Focus on this line:
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
You can clearly see that the do_something function is not declared!
If you look a little further,
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
you will see that you declare the function after you use it.
You will need to modify this part with this code:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
Cheers ;)
When you don't give a prototype for the function before using it, C assumes that it takes any number of parameters and returns an int. So when you first try to use do_something, that's the type of function the compiler is looking for. Doing this should produce a warning about an "implicit function declaration".
So in your case, when you actually do declare the function later on, C doesn't allow function overloading, so it gets pissy because to it you've declared two functions with different prototypes but with the same name.
Short answer: declare the function before trying to use it.
This often happens when you modify a c function definition and forget to update the corresponding header definition.
Make sure that types in the function declaration are declared first.
/* start of the header file */
.
.
.
struct intr_frame{...}; //must be first!
.
.
.
void kill (struct intr_frame *);
.
.
.
/* end of the header file */
#include <arpa/inet.h>
for objective-c Conflicting types for 'inet_ntoa'
I'm using the below code:
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
The implementation of do_something is not important here.
When I try to compile the above I get these two exception:
error: conflicting types for 'do_something' (at the printf call)
error: previous implicit declaration of 'do_something' was here (at the prototype line)
Why?
You are trying to call do_something before you declare it. You need to add a function prototype before your printf line:
char* do_something(char*, const char*);
Or you need to move the function definition above the printf line. You can't use a function before it is declared.
In "classic" C language (C89/90) when you call an undeclared function, C assumes that it returns an int and also attempts to derive the types of its parameters from the types of the actual arguments (no, it doesn't assume that it has no parameters, as someone suggested before).
In your specific example the compiler would look at do_something(dest, src) call and implicitly derive a declaration for do_something. The latter would look as follows
int do_something(char *, char *)
However, later in the code you explicitly declare do_something as
char *do_something(char *, const char *)
As you can see, these declarations are different from each other. This is what the compiler doesn't like.
A C Function-Declaration Backgrounder
In C, function declarations don't work like they do in other languages: The C compiler itself doesn't search backward and forward in the file to find the function's declaration from the place you call it, and it doesn't scan the file multiple times to figure out the relationships either: The compiler only scans forward in the file exactly once, from top to bottom. Connecting function calls to function declarations is part of the linker's job, and is only done after the file is compiled down to raw assembly instructions.
This means that as the compiler scans forward through the file, the very first time the compiler encounters the name of a function, one of two things have to be the case: It either is seeing the function declaration itself, in which case the compiler knows exactly what the function is and what types it takes as arguments and what types it returns — or it's a call to the function, and the compiler has to guess how the function will eventually be declared.
(There's a third option, where the name is used in a function prototype, but we'll ignore that for now, since if you're seeing this problem in the first place, you're probably not using prototypes.)
History Lesson
In the earliest days of C, the fact that the compiler had to guess types wasn't really an issue: All of the types were more-or-less the same — pretty much everything was either an int or a pointer, and they were the same size. (In fact, in B, the language that preceded C, there were no types at all; everything was just an int or pointer and its type was determined solely by how you used it!) So the compiler could safely guess the behavior of any function just based on the number of parameters that were passed: If you passed two parameters, the compiler would push two things onto the call stack, and presumably the callee would have two arguments declared, and that would all line up. If you passed only one parameter but the function expected two, it would still sort-of work, and the second argument would just be ignored/garbage. If you passed three parameters and the function expected two, it would also still sort-of work, and the third parameter would be ignored and stomped on by the function's local variables. (Some old C code still expects these mismatched-argument rules will work, too.)
But having the compiler let you pass anything to anything isn't really a good way to design a programming language. It worked well in the early days because the early C programmers were mostly wizards, and they knew not to pass the wrong type to functions, and even if they did get the types wrong, there were always tools like lint that could do deeper double-checking of your C code and warn you about such things.
Fast-forward to today, and we're not quite in the same boat. C has grown up, and a lot of people are programming in it who aren't wizards, and to accommodate them (and to accommodate everyone else who regularly used lint anyway), the compilers have taken on many of the abilities that were previously part of lint — especially the part where they check your code to ensure it's type-safe. Early C compilers would let you write int foo = "hello"; and it would just blithely assign the pointer to the integer, and it was up to you to make sure you weren't doing anything stupid. Modern C compilers complain loudly when you get your types wrong, and that's a good thing.
Type Conflicts
So what's all this got to do with the mysterious conflicting-type error on the line of the function declaration? As I said above, C compilers still have to either know or guess what a name means the first time they see that name as they scan forward through the file: They can know what it means it if it's an actual function declaration itself (or a function "prototype," more on that shortly), but if it's just a call to the function, they have to guess. And, sadly, the guess is often wrong.
When the compiler saw your call to do_something(), it looked at how it was invoked, and it concluded that do_something() would eventually be declared like this:
int do_something(char arg1[], char arg2[])
{
...
}
Why did it conclude that? Because that's how you called it! (Some C compilers may conclude that it was int do_something(int arg1, int arg2), or simply int do_something(...), both of which are even farther from what you want, but the important point is that regardless of how the compiler guesses the types, it guesses them differently from what your actual function uses.)
Later on, as the compiler scans forward in the file, it sees your actual declaration of char *do_something(char *, char *). That function declaration isn't even close to the declaration that the compiler guessed, which means that the line where the compiler compiled the call was compiled wrong, and the program is just not going to work. So it rightly prints an error telling you that your code isn't going to work as written.
You might be wondering, "Why does it assume I'm returning an int?" Well, it assumes that type because there's no information to the contrary: printf() can take in any type in its variable arguments, so without a better answer, int is as good a guess as any. (Many early C compilers always assumed int for every unspecified type, and assumed you meant ... for the arguments for every function declared f() — not void — which is why many modern code standards recommend always putting void in for the arguments if there really aren't supposed to be any.)
The Fix
There are two common fixes for the function-declaration error.
The first solution, which is recommended by many other answers here, is to put a prototype in the source code above the place where the function is first called. A prototype looks just like the function's declaration, but it has a semicolon where the body should be:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src);
By putting the prototype first, the compiler then knows what the function will eventually look like, so it doesn't have to guess. By convention, programmers often put prototypes at the top of the file, just under the #include statements, to ensure that they'll always be defined before any potential usages of them.
The other solution, which also shows up in some real-world code, is to simply reorder your functions so that the function declarations are always before anything that calls them! You could move the entire char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src) { ... } function above the first call to it, and the compiler then would know exactly what the function looks like and wouldn't have to guess.
In practice, most people use function prototypes, because you can also take function prototypes and move them into header (.h) files so that code in other .c files can call those functions. But either solution works, and many codebases use both.
C99 and C11
It is useful to note that the rules are slightly different in the newer versions of the C standard. In the earlier versions (C89 and K&R), the compiler really would guess the types at function-call time (and K&R-era compilers often wouldn't even warn you if they were wrong). C99 and C11 both require that the function declaration/prototype must precede the first call, and it's an error if it doesn't. But many modern C compilers — mainly for backward compatibility with earlier code — will only warn about a missing prototype and not consider it an error.
You didn't declare it before you used it.
You need something like
char *do_something(char *, const char *);
before the printf.
Example:
#include <stdio.h>
char *do_something(char *, const char *);
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
int main ()
{
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
return 0;
}
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
Alternatively, you can put the whole do_something function before the printf.
You have to declare the function before you use it. If the function name appears before its declaration, C compiler will follow certain rules and makes the declaration itself. If it is wrong, you will get that error.
You have two options: (1) define it before you use it, or (2) use forward declaration without implementation. For example:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src);
Note the semicolon at the end.
C Commandment #3:
K&R #3 Thou shalt always prototype your functions or else the C compiler will extract vengence.
http://www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/hack/God.vs.K+R.html
Watch again:
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
Focus on this line:
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
You can clearly see that the do_something function is not declared!
If you look a little further,
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
you will see that you declare the function after you use it.
You will need to modify this part with this code:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
Cheers ;)
When you don't give a prototype for the function before using it, C assumes that it takes any number of parameters and returns an int. So when you first try to use do_something, that's the type of function the compiler is looking for. Doing this should produce a warning about an "implicit function declaration".
So in your case, when you actually do declare the function later on, C doesn't allow function overloading, so it gets pissy because to it you've declared two functions with different prototypes but with the same name.
Short answer: declare the function before trying to use it.
This often happens when you modify a c function definition and forget to update the corresponding header definition.
Make sure that types in the function declaration are declared first.
/* start of the header file */
.
.
.
struct intr_frame{...}; //must be first!
.
.
.
void kill (struct intr_frame *);
.
.
.
/* end of the header file */
#include <arpa/inet.h>
for objective-c Conflicting types for 'inet_ntoa'
I'm using the below code:
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
The implementation of do_something is not important here.
When I try to compile the above I get these two exception:
error: conflicting types for 'do_something' (at the printf call)
error: previous implicit declaration of 'do_something' was here (at the prototype line)
Why?
You are trying to call do_something before you declare it. You need to add a function prototype before your printf line:
char* do_something(char*, const char*);
Or you need to move the function definition above the printf line. You can't use a function before it is declared.
In "classic" C language (C89/90) when you call an undeclared function, C assumes that it returns an int and also attempts to derive the types of its parameters from the types of the actual arguments (no, it doesn't assume that it has no parameters, as someone suggested before).
In your specific example the compiler would look at do_something(dest, src) call and implicitly derive a declaration for do_something. The latter would look as follows
int do_something(char *, char *)
However, later in the code you explicitly declare do_something as
char *do_something(char *, const char *)
As you can see, these declarations are different from each other. This is what the compiler doesn't like.
A C Function-Declaration Backgrounder
In C, function declarations don't work like they do in other languages: The C compiler itself doesn't search backward and forward in the file to find the function's declaration from the place you call it, and it doesn't scan the file multiple times to figure out the relationships either: The compiler only scans forward in the file exactly once, from top to bottom. Connecting function calls to function declarations is part of the linker's job, and is only done after the file is compiled down to raw assembly instructions.
This means that as the compiler scans forward through the file, the very first time the compiler encounters the name of a function, one of two things have to be the case: It either is seeing the function declaration itself, in which case the compiler knows exactly what the function is and what types it takes as arguments and what types it returns — or it's a call to the function, and the compiler has to guess how the function will eventually be declared.
(There's a third option, where the name is used in a function prototype, but we'll ignore that for now, since if you're seeing this problem in the first place, you're probably not using prototypes.)
History Lesson
In the earliest days of C, the fact that the compiler had to guess types wasn't really an issue: All of the types were more-or-less the same — pretty much everything was either an int or a pointer, and they were the same size. (In fact, in B, the language that preceded C, there were no types at all; everything was just an int or pointer and its type was determined solely by how you used it!) So the compiler could safely guess the behavior of any function just based on the number of parameters that were passed: If you passed two parameters, the compiler would push two things onto the call stack, and presumably the callee would have two arguments declared, and that would all line up. If you passed only one parameter but the function expected two, it would still sort-of work, and the second argument would just be ignored/garbage. If you passed three parameters and the function expected two, it would also still sort-of work, and the third parameter would be ignored and stomped on by the function's local variables. (Some old C code still expects these mismatched-argument rules will work, too.)
But having the compiler let you pass anything to anything isn't really a good way to design a programming language. It worked well in the early days because the early C programmers were mostly wizards, and they knew not to pass the wrong type to functions, and even if they did get the types wrong, there were always tools like lint that could do deeper double-checking of your C code and warn you about such things.
Fast-forward to today, and we're not quite in the same boat. C has grown up, and a lot of people are programming in it who aren't wizards, and to accommodate them (and to accommodate everyone else who regularly used lint anyway), the compilers have taken on many of the abilities that were previously part of lint — especially the part where they check your code to ensure it's type-safe. Early C compilers would let you write int foo = "hello"; and it would just blithely assign the pointer to the integer, and it was up to you to make sure you weren't doing anything stupid. Modern C compilers complain loudly when you get your types wrong, and that's a good thing.
Type Conflicts
So what's all this got to do with the mysterious conflicting-type error on the line of the function declaration? As I said above, C compilers still have to either know or guess what a name means the first time they see that name as they scan forward through the file: They can know what it means it if it's an actual function declaration itself (or a function "prototype," more on that shortly), but if it's just a call to the function, they have to guess. And, sadly, the guess is often wrong.
When the compiler saw your call to do_something(), it looked at how it was invoked, and it concluded that do_something() would eventually be declared like this:
int do_something(char arg1[], char arg2[])
{
...
}
Why did it conclude that? Because that's how you called it! (Some C compilers may conclude that it was int do_something(int arg1, int arg2), or simply int do_something(...), both of which are even farther from what you want, but the important point is that regardless of how the compiler guesses the types, it guesses them differently from what your actual function uses.)
Later on, as the compiler scans forward in the file, it sees your actual declaration of char *do_something(char *, char *). That function declaration isn't even close to the declaration that the compiler guessed, which means that the line where the compiler compiled the call was compiled wrong, and the program is just not going to work. So it rightly prints an error telling you that your code isn't going to work as written.
You might be wondering, "Why does it assume I'm returning an int?" Well, it assumes that type because there's no information to the contrary: printf() can take in any type in its variable arguments, so without a better answer, int is as good a guess as any. (Many early C compilers always assumed int for every unspecified type, and assumed you meant ... for the arguments for every function declared f() — not void — which is why many modern code standards recommend always putting void in for the arguments if there really aren't supposed to be any.)
The Fix
There are two common fixes for the function-declaration error.
The first solution, which is recommended by many other answers here, is to put a prototype in the source code above the place where the function is first called. A prototype looks just like the function's declaration, but it has a semicolon where the body should be:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src);
By putting the prototype first, the compiler then knows what the function will eventually look like, so it doesn't have to guess. By convention, programmers often put prototypes at the top of the file, just under the #include statements, to ensure that they'll always be defined before any potential usages of them.
The other solution, which also shows up in some real-world code, is to simply reorder your functions so that the function declarations are always before anything that calls them! You could move the entire char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src) { ... } function above the first call to it, and the compiler then would know exactly what the function looks like and wouldn't have to guess.
In practice, most people use function prototypes, because you can also take function prototypes and move them into header (.h) files so that code in other .c files can call those functions. But either solution works, and many codebases use both.
C99 and C11
It is useful to note that the rules are slightly different in the newer versions of the C standard. In the earlier versions (C89 and K&R), the compiler really would guess the types at function-call time (and K&R-era compilers often wouldn't even warn you if they were wrong). C99 and C11 both require that the function declaration/prototype must precede the first call, and it's an error if it doesn't. But many modern C compilers — mainly for backward compatibility with earlier code — will only warn about a missing prototype and not consider it an error.
You didn't declare it before you used it.
You need something like
char *do_something(char *, const char *);
before the printf.
Example:
#include <stdio.h>
char *do_something(char *, const char *);
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
int main ()
{
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
return 0;
}
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
Alternatively, you can put the whole do_something function before the printf.
You have to declare the function before you use it. If the function name appears before its declaration, C compiler will follow certain rules and makes the declaration itself. If it is wrong, you will get that error.
You have two options: (1) define it before you use it, or (2) use forward declaration without implementation. For example:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src);
Note the semicolon at the end.
C Commandment #3:
K&R #3 Thou shalt always prototype your functions or else the C compiler will extract vengence.
http://www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/hack/God.vs.K+R.html
Watch again:
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
Focus on this line:
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
You can clearly see that the do_something function is not declared!
If you look a little further,
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
you will see that you declare the function after you use it.
You will need to modify this part with this code:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
Cheers ;)
When you don't give a prototype for the function before using it, C assumes that it takes any number of parameters and returns an int. So when you first try to use do_something, that's the type of function the compiler is looking for. Doing this should produce a warning about an "implicit function declaration".
So in your case, when you actually do declare the function later on, C doesn't allow function overloading, so it gets pissy because to it you've declared two functions with different prototypes but with the same name.
Short answer: declare the function before trying to use it.
This often happens when you modify a c function definition and forget to update the corresponding header definition.
Make sure that types in the function declaration are declared first.
/* start of the header file */
.
.
.
struct intr_frame{...}; //must be first!
.
.
.
void kill (struct intr_frame *);
.
.
.
/* end of the header file */
#include <arpa/inet.h>
for objective-c Conflicting types for 'inet_ntoa'
Edit 3: For the code itself all together check the first answer or the end of this post.
As stated in the title I'm trying to find a way to tell if an optional argument was passed to a function or not. What I'm trying to do is something like how almost all dynamic languages handle their substring function. Below is mine currently, but it doesn't work since I don't know how to tell if/when the thing is used.
char *substring(char *string,unsigned int start, ...){
va_list args;
int unsigned i=0;
long end=-1;
long long length=strlen(string);
va_start(args,start);
end=va_arg(args,int);
va_end(args);
if(end==-1){
end=length;
}
char *to_string=malloc(end);
strncpy(to_string,string+start,end);
return to_string;
}
Basically I want to still be able to not include the length of the string I want back and just have it go to the end of the string. But I cannot seem to find a way to do this. Since there's also no way to know the number of arguments passed in C, that took away my first thought of this.
Edit:
new way of doing it here's the current code.
#define substring(...) P99_CALL_DEFARG(substring, 3, __VA_ARGS__)
#define substring_defarg_2 (0)
char *substring(char *string,unsigned int start, int end){
int unsigned i=0;
int num=0;
long long length=strlen(string);
if(end==0){
end=length;
}
char *to_string=malloc(length);
strncpy(to_string,string+start,end);
return to_string;
}
and then in a file I call test.c to see if it works.
#include "functions.c"
int main(void){
printf("str:%s",substring("hello world",3,2));
printf("\nstr2:%s\n",substring("hello world",3));
return 0;
}
functions.c has an include for functions.h which includes everything that is ever needed. Here's the clang output(since clang seems to usually give a bit more detail.
In file included from ./p99/p99.h:1307:
./p99/p99_generic.h:68:16: warning: '__error__' attribute ignored
__attribute__((__error__("Invalid choice in type generic expression")))
^
test.c:4:26: error: called object type 'int' is not a function or function
pointer
printf("\nstr2:%s\n",substring("hello world",3));
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In file included from test.c:1:
In file included from ./functions.c:34:
In file included from ./functions.h:50:
./string.c:77:24: note: instantiated from:
#define substring(...) P99_CALL_DEFARG(substring, 3, __VA_ARGS__)
GCC just says the object is not a function
Edit 2: Note that setting it to -1 doesn't change it either, it still throws the same thing. The compile options I'm using are as follows.
gcc -std=c99 -c test.c -o test -lm -Wall
Clang is the same thing(whether or not it works with it is another question.
ANSWER HERE
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include "p99/p99.h"
#define substring(...) P99_CALL_DEFARG(substring, 3, __VA_ARGS__)
#define substring_defarg_2() (-1)
char *substring(char *string, size_t start, size_t len) {
size_t length = strlen(string);
if(len == SIZE_MAX){
len = length - start;
}
char *to_string = malloc(len + 1);
memcpy(to_string, string+start, len);
to_string[len] = '\0';
return to_string;
}
You will need p99 from there. It is by the selected answer. Just drop into your source directory and you should be OK. Also to summarize his answer on the license. You're able to use it however you want, but you cannot fork it basically. So for this purpose you're free to use it and the string function in any project whether proprietary or open source.
The only thing I ask is that you at least give a link back to this thread so that others who happen upon it can learn of stack overflow, as that's how I do my comments for things I've gotten help with on here.
In C, there's no such thing as an optional argument. The common idiom for situations like this is to either have two functions; substr(char *, size_t start, size_t end) and substr_f(char *, size_t start) or to have a single function where end, if given a special value, will take on a special meaning (such as in this case, possibly any number smaller than start, or simply 0).
When using varargs, you need to either use a sentinel value (such as NULL) at the end of the argument list, or pass in as an earlier argument the argc (argument count).
C has a very low amount of runtime introspection, which is a feature, not a bug.
Edit: On a related note, the correct type to use for string lengths and offsets in C is size_t. It is the only integer type that is guaranteed to be both large enough to address any character in any string, and guaranteed to be small enough to not be wasting space if stored.
Note too that it is unsigned.
Other than common belief functions with optional arguments can be implemented in C, but va_arg functions are not the right tool for such a thing. It can be implemented through va_arg macros, since there are ways to capture the number of arguments that a function receives. The whole thing is a bit tedious to explain and to implement, but you can use P99 for immediate use.
You'd have to change your function signature to something like
char *substring(char *string, unsigned int start, int end);
and invent a special code for end if it is omitted at the call side, say -1. Then with P99 you can do
#include "p99.h"
#define substring(...) P99_CALL_DEFARG(substring, 3, __VA_ARGS__)
#define substring_defarg_2() (-1)
where you see that you declare a macro that "overloads" your function (yes this is possible, common C library implementations use this all the time) and provide the replacement with the knowledge about the number of arguments your function receives (3 in this case). For each argument for which you want to have a default value you'd then declare the second type of macro with the _defarg_N suffix, N starting at 0.
The declaration of such macros is not very pretty, but tells at least as much what is going on as the interface of a va_arg function would. The gain is on the caller ("user") side. There you now can do things like
substring("Hello", 2);
substring("Holla", 2, 2);
to your liking.
(You'd need a compiler that implements C99 for all of this.)
Edit: You can even go further than that if you don't want to implement that convention for end but want to have two distinct functions, instead. You'd implement the two functions:
char *substring2(char *string, unsigned int start);
char *substring3(char *string, unsigned int start, unsigned int end);
and then define the macro as
#define substring(...) \
P99_IF_LT(P99_NARG(__VA_ARGS__, 3)) \
(substring2(__VA_ARGS__)) \
(substring3(__VA_ARGS__))
this would then ensure that the preprocessor chooses the appropriate function call by looking at the number of arguments it receives.
Edit2: Here a better suited version of a substring function:
use the types that are semantically correct for length and stuff like
that
the third parameter seems to be a length for you and not the end of the string, name it accordingly
strncpy is almost never the correct function to chose, there are situations where it doesn't write the terminating '\0' character. When you know the size of a string use memcpy.
char *substring(char *string, size_t start, size_t len) {
size_t length = strlen(string);
if(len == SIZE_MAX){
len = length - start;
}
char *to_string = malloc(len + 1);
memcpy(to_string, string+start, len);
to_string[len] = '\0';
return to_string;
}
Unfortunately, you cannot use va_arg like that:
Notice also that va_arg does not determine either whether the retrieved argument is the last argument passed to the function (or even if it is an element past the end of that list). The function should be designed in such a way that the amount of parameters can be inferred in some way by the values of either the named parameters or the additional arguments already read.
A common "workaround" is to give the other "overload" a nice mnemonic name, such as right_substr. It will not look as fancy, but it will certainly run faster.
If duplicating implementation is your concern, you could implement left_substr, substring, and right_substr as wrappers to a hidden function that takes start and length as signed integers, and interprets negative numbers as missing parameters. It is probably not a good idea to use this "convention" in your public interface, but it would probably work fine in a private implementation.
In standard C, when using variable argument prototypes (...), there is no way to tell directly how many arguments are being passed.
Behind the scenes, functions like printf() etc assume the number of arguments based on the format string.
Other functions that take, say, a variable number of pointers, expect the list to be terminated with a NULL.
Consider using one of these techniques.
I'm using the below code:
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
The implementation of do_something is not important here.
When I try to compile the above I get these two exception:
error: conflicting types for 'do_something' (at the printf call)
error: previous implicit declaration of 'do_something' was here (at the prototype line)
Why?
You are trying to call do_something before you declare it. You need to add a function prototype before your printf line:
char* do_something(char*, const char*);
Or you need to move the function definition above the printf line. You can't use a function before it is declared.
In "classic" C language (C89/90) when you call an undeclared function, C assumes that it returns an int and also attempts to derive the types of its parameters from the types of the actual arguments (no, it doesn't assume that it has no parameters, as someone suggested before).
In your specific example the compiler would look at do_something(dest, src) call and implicitly derive a declaration for do_something. The latter would look as follows
int do_something(char *, char *)
However, later in the code you explicitly declare do_something as
char *do_something(char *, const char *)
As you can see, these declarations are different from each other. This is what the compiler doesn't like.
A C Function-Declaration Backgrounder
In C, function declarations don't work like they do in other languages: The C compiler itself doesn't search backward and forward in the file to find the function's declaration from the place you call it, and it doesn't scan the file multiple times to figure out the relationships either: The compiler only scans forward in the file exactly once, from top to bottom. Connecting function calls to function declarations is part of the linker's job, and is only done after the file is compiled down to raw assembly instructions.
This means that as the compiler scans forward through the file, the very first time the compiler encounters the name of a function, one of two things have to be the case: It either is seeing the function declaration itself, in which case the compiler knows exactly what the function is and what types it takes as arguments and what types it returns — or it's a call to the function, and the compiler has to guess how the function will eventually be declared.
(There's a third option, where the name is used in a function prototype, but we'll ignore that for now, since if you're seeing this problem in the first place, you're probably not using prototypes.)
History Lesson
In the earliest days of C, the fact that the compiler had to guess types wasn't really an issue: All of the types were more-or-less the same — pretty much everything was either an int or a pointer, and they were the same size. (In fact, in B, the language that preceded C, there were no types at all; everything was just an int or pointer and its type was determined solely by how you used it!) So the compiler could safely guess the behavior of any function just based on the number of parameters that were passed: If you passed two parameters, the compiler would push two things onto the call stack, and presumably the callee would have two arguments declared, and that would all line up. If you passed only one parameter but the function expected two, it would still sort-of work, and the second argument would just be ignored/garbage. If you passed three parameters and the function expected two, it would also still sort-of work, and the third parameter would be ignored and stomped on by the function's local variables. (Some old C code still expects these mismatched-argument rules will work, too.)
But having the compiler let you pass anything to anything isn't really a good way to design a programming language. It worked well in the early days because the early C programmers were mostly wizards, and they knew not to pass the wrong type to functions, and even if they did get the types wrong, there were always tools like lint that could do deeper double-checking of your C code and warn you about such things.
Fast-forward to today, and we're not quite in the same boat. C has grown up, and a lot of people are programming in it who aren't wizards, and to accommodate them (and to accommodate everyone else who regularly used lint anyway), the compilers have taken on many of the abilities that were previously part of lint — especially the part where they check your code to ensure it's type-safe. Early C compilers would let you write int foo = "hello"; and it would just blithely assign the pointer to the integer, and it was up to you to make sure you weren't doing anything stupid. Modern C compilers complain loudly when you get your types wrong, and that's a good thing.
Type Conflicts
So what's all this got to do with the mysterious conflicting-type error on the line of the function declaration? As I said above, C compilers still have to either know or guess what a name means the first time they see that name as they scan forward through the file: They can know what it means it if it's an actual function declaration itself (or a function "prototype," more on that shortly), but if it's just a call to the function, they have to guess. And, sadly, the guess is often wrong.
When the compiler saw your call to do_something(), it looked at how it was invoked, and it concluded that do_something() would eventually be declared like this:
int do_something(char arg1[], char arg2[])
{
...
}
Why did it conclude that? Because that's how you called it! (Some C compilers may conclude that it was int do_something(int arg1, int arg2), or simply int do_something(...), both of which are even farther from what you want, but the important point is that regardless of how the compiler guesses the types, it guesses them differently from what your actual function uses.)
Later on, as the compiler scans forward in the file, it sees your actual declaration of char *do_something(char *, char *). That function declaration isn't even close to the declaration that the compiler guessed, which means that the line where the compiler compiled the call was compiled wrong, and the program is just not going to work. So it rightly prints an error telling you that your code isn't going to work as written.
You might be wondering, "Why does it assume I'm returning an int?" Well, it assumes that type because there's no information to the contrary: printf() can take in any type in its variable arguments, so without a better answer, int is as good a guess as any. (Many early C compilers always assumed int for every unspecified type, and assumed you meant ... for the arguments for every function declared f() — not void — which is why many modern code standards recommend always putting void in for the arguments if there really aren't supposed to be any.)
The Fix
There are two common fixes for the function-declaration error.
The first solution, which is recommended by many other answers here, is to put a prototype in the source code above the place where the function is first called. A prototype looks just like the function's declaration, but it has a semicolon where the body should be:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src);
By putting the prototype first, the compiler then knows what the function will eventually look like, so it doesn't have to guess. By convention, programmers often put prototypes at the top of the file, just under the #include statements, to ensure that they'll always be defined before any potential usages of them.
The other solution, which also shows up in some real-world code, is to simply reorder your functions so that the function declarations are always before anything that calls them! You could move the entire char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src) { ... } function above the first call to it, and the compiler then would know exactly what the function looks like and wouldn't have to guess.
In practice, most people use function prototypes, because you can also take function prototypes and move them into header (.h) files so that code in other .c files can call those functions. But either solution works, and many codebases use both.
C99 and C11
It is useful to note that the rules are slightly different in the newer versions of the C standard. In the earlier versions (C89 and K&R), the compiler really would guess the types at function-call time (and K&R-era compilers often wouldn't even warn you if they were wrong). C99 and C11 both require that the function declaration/prototype must precede the first call, and it's an error if it doesn't. But many modern C compilers — mainly for backward compatibility with earlier code — will only warn about a missing prototype and not consider it an error.
You didn't declare it before you used it.
You need something like
char *do_something(char *, const char *);
before the printf.
Example:
#include <stdio.h>
char *do_something(char *, const char *);
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
int main ()
{
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
return 0;
}
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
Alternatively, you can put the whole do_something function before the printf.
You have to declare the function before you use it. If the function name appears before its declaration, C compiler will follow certain rules and makes the declaration itself. If it is wrong, you will get that error.
You have two options: (1) define it before you use it, or (2) use forward declaration without implementation. For example:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src);
Note the semicolon at the end.
C Commandment #3:
K&R #3 Thou shalt always prototype your functions or else the C compiler will extract vengence.
http://www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/hack/God.vs.K+R.html
Watch again:
char dest[5];
char src[5] = "test";
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
Focus on this line:
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
You can clearly see that the do_something function is not declared!
If you look a little further,
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
you will see that you declare the function after you use it.
You will need to modify this part with this code:
char *do_something(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return dest;
}
printf("String: %s\n", do_something(dest, src));
Cheers ;)
When you don't give a prototype for the function before using it, C assumes that it takes any number of parameters and returns an int. So when you first try to use do_something, that's the type of function the compiler is looking for. Doing this should produce a warning about an "implicit function declaration".
So in your case, when you actually do declare the function later on, C doesn't allow function overloading, so it gets pissy because to it you've declared two functions with different prototypes but with the same name.
Short answer: declare the function before trying to use it.
This often happens when you modify a c function definition and forget to update the corresponding header definition.
Make sure that types in the function declaration are declared first.
/* start of the header file */
.
.
.
struct intr_frame{...}; //must be first!
.
.
.
void kill (struct intr_frame *);
.
.
.
/* end of the header file */
#include <arpa/inet.h>
for objective-c Conflicting types for 'inet_ntoa'