We could omit curly brackets in function declaration?

[STF]

While reading the C++ tutorial in this page:
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/tut2-2.html

I'm astonished to learn that we could omit curly brackets in function
declaration for single instruction as is written in the paragraph:
"statement is the function's body. It can be a single instruction or a
block of instructions. In the latter case it must be delimited by curly
brackets {}."

But I'm not sure if this is true. At least with GCC under Linux
and MinGW used within Dev-C++ for Windows, I'm unable to compile a file
having something like this:

int test123(int a)
return a;

So, could someone tell me if what's written in that webpage is
correct or not.

TIA

STF

[Victor Bazarov]

STF wrote:

While reading the C++ tutorial in this page:
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/tut2-2.html

I'm astonished to learn that we could omit curly brackets in function
declaration
...definition..
for single instruction as is written in the paragraph:
"statement is the function's body. It can be a single instruction or a
block of instructions. In the latter case it must be delimited by curly
Notice the "delimited" . Not "surrounded ".
brackets {}."

But I'm not sure if this is true. At least with GCC under Linux
and MinGW used within Dev-C++ for Windows, I'm unable to compile a file
having something like this:

int test123(int a)
return a;

So, could someone tell me if what's written in that webpage is
correct or not.

The wording is just bad. The function body must be _surrounded_ by the
curly braces. It's a requirement of the C++ syntax. In the Standard the
"function body" is defined as a "compound statement", which means it has
to have curly braces around it.

What the author of that tutorial meant by "delimited by curly brackets"
is a puzzle.

V

[Ron Natalie]

STF wrote:

I'm astonished to learn that we could omit curly brackets in function
declaration for single instruction as is written in the paragraph:
"statement is the function's body. It can be a single instruction or a
block of instructions. In the latter case it must be delimited by curly
brackets {}."

It's not true. The stuff after the parameters in the function
definition is not syntacitally "statement" . It is "compound-statement".
A compound statement is a pair of braces with zero or more other
statements inside.

That tutorial seems to have a number of problems.

[ben]

The wording is just bad. The function body must be _surrounded_ by the
curly braces. It's a requirement of the C++ syntax. In the Standard the
"function body" is defined as a "compound statement", which means it has
to have curly braces around it.

Something like this should work:

int f(void)
try
{
//...

return 1;
}
catch (..)
{
//...
return 0;
}

Regards,
ben

[Ron Natalie]

ben wrote:

The wording is just bad. The function body must be _surrounded_ by the
curly braces. It's a requirement of the C++ syntax. In the Standard the
"function body" is defined as a "compound statement", which means it has
to have curly braces around it.

Something like this should work:

int f(void)
try
{
//...

return 1;
}
catch (..)
{
//...
return 0;
}

And note that try needs a compound statement as well.

[seak.tf]

Victor Bazarov wrote:

STF wrote:

While reading the C++ tutorial in this page:
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/tut2-2.html

I'm astonished to learn that we could omit curly brackets in function
declaration

..definition..

> for single instruction as is written in the paragraph:
"statement is the function's body. It can be a single instruction or a
block of instructions. In the latter case it must be delimited by curly

Notice the "delimited" . Not "surrounded ".

brackets {}."

But I'm not sure if this is true. At least with GCC under Linux
and MinGW used within Dev-C++ for Windows, I'm unable to compile a file
having something like this:

int test123(int a)
return a;

So, could someone tell me if what's written in that webpage is
correct or not.

The wording is just bad. The function body must be _surrounded_ by the
curly braces. It's a requirement of the C++ syntax. In the Standard the
"function body" is defined as a "compound statement", which means it has
to have curly braces around it.

What the author of that tutorial meant by "delimited by curly brackets"
is a puzzle.

V

[seak.tf]

Indeed! I've tried the following code with MinGW

int f(void)
try { return 1; }
catch (char * str) { return 0; }

and it compiles but not

int test123(int a)
return a;