C: why are extra semicolons OK?

Question

#include 

int main() {
    int a = -1, b = -10, c = 5;
    if (a > b)
        printf(\"Hello World\");
    else
        printf(\"Get out World\");;;;;         


        

Answer 1

Your program just has a sequence of empty statements at the end of the main function. It is parsed as this:

#include 

int main() {
    int a = -1, b = -10, c = 5;

    if (a > b)
        printf("Hello World");
    else
        printf("Get out World");
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
}

Note that int main() should be written int main(void) and it should return an int value, for example 0. C99 makes this return 0; implicit, but it is considered bad style and it is indeed less portable to omit it.