For 1, I’d like for you to think you’re telling a story, one that is really air tight and unambiguous. If you think putting all the calls in main() can help you tell that story, then so be it.
For 2, of late industrial software development has largely moved to keeping variables as local as possible so its easier to express provenance. This has been the case for at least a good 3-4 decades now.
At no extra cost, I’d like to give you an unsolicited advice. If you’re using modern, real C compilers like gcc or clang, I’d strongly recommend you pass -Wpedantic -pedantic-errors -Wall -Wextra on the command line.
gcc -Wpedantic -pedantic-errors -Wall -Wextra -Werror program.c
and if you’re using clang, also pass -Wmost along with the rest. Learning C is one thing. But following the standard rules right from the start, it will save you from unexpected grief later on. If you try compiling your code under these flags now, it will refuse to compile. I’d suggest you try fixing as much as you can, then go back to compiling the normal way until you get a hang of things.
I’d recommend not to alias compilers like that. Rather, if you’re interested, you could just use a simple Makefile like shown below and get it over with. Save it into a file called
Makefile(yes, uppercase M followed byakefileall lowercase) in the same directory as yourprogram.cfile.Note, I have used
-std=c89but you can delete that line or maybe even use a more modern standard such as-std=c23if you like. If you delete, both gcc and clang will default to the latest ISO standard supported by that version of compiler.Also since you’re compiling only a single file, I have used
program.cas input producingprogramexecutable on UNIX. To run thisMakefileyou need to invokemakefrom the same directory asMakefileon command-line as:make W=1to enable all the warnings and compile. If you set
W=0it will not warn or even print any diagnostic unless compiler really cannot generate the executable. You can also passD=0for optimised/release build,D=1for debug build so you can backtrack ingdb. You can also passA=1if you want address sanitisers enabled. It will report if your program is touching or even looking at pointers/memory regions the wrong way, leaking memory or just generally doing operations that cannot guarantee correct behaviour. PassingV=1will display the exact command executed to compile, otherwise it will silently compile.Here’s the full
MakefileI use:# Control build verbosity. V ?= 0 ifeq ($(V),1) Q := else Q := @ endif # Control DEBUG (1) or RELEASE (0) build. D ?= 1 # Add some warning flags? W ?= 0 # Add some address/undefined sanitiser flags? A ?= 1 ifeq ($(shell $(CC) -v 2>&1 | grep -c "gcc version"),1) COMPILER := gnu else ifeq ($(shell $(CC) -v 2>&1 | grep -c "clang version"),1) COMPILER := llvm endif # Delete environment garbage so we can generate absolutely controlled LDFLAGS := CFLAGS := ifeq ($(D),1) CFLAGS_DEFS += -D_DEBUG else CFLAGS_DEFS += -DNDEBUG endif CFLAGS_DEFS += -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600 ifeq ($(D),0) CFLAGS_DEFS += -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 endif CFLAGS_DEFS += -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE=1 CFLAGS_DEFS += -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE=1 ifeq ($(W),1) CFLAGS_STDS += -std=c89 CFLAGS_STDS += -Wpedantic CFLAGS_STDS += -pedantic-errors CFLAGS_STDS += -Werror CFLAGS_STDS += -Wall CFLAGS_STDS += -Wextra ifeq ($(COMPILER),gnu) CFLAGS_STDS += -Wbad-function-cast CFLAGS_STDS += -Wcast-align CFLAGS_STDS += -Wcast-qual CFLAGS_STDS += -Wduplicated-branches CFLAGS_STDS += -Wduplicated-cond CFLAGS_STDS += -Wfloat-equal CFLAGS_STDS += -Wformat-nonliteral CFLAGS_STDS += -Wformat-security CFLAGS_STDS += -Wformat-signedness CFLAGS_STDS += -Wformat-truncation=2 CFLAGS_STDS += -Wformat=2 CFLAGS_STDS += -Winline CFLAGS_STDS += -Wlogical-op CFLAGS_STDS += -Wmissing-declarations CFLAGS_STDS += -Wmissing-format-attribute CFLAGS_STDS += -Wmissing-include-dirs CFLAGS_STDS += -Wmissing-noreturn CFLAGS_STDS += -Wmissing-prototypes CFLAGS_STDS += -Wnested-externs CFLAGS_STDS += -Wno-unused-result CFLAGS_STDS += -Wnull-dereference CFLAGS_STDS += -Wold-style-definition CFLAGS_STDS += -Wpointer-arith CFLAGS_STDS += -Wpointer-sign CFLAGS_STDS += -Wredundant-decls CFLAGS_STDS += -Wrestrict CFLAGS_STDS += -Wreturn-type CFLAGS_STDS += -Wshadow CFLAGS_STDS += -Wsign-compare CFLAGS_STDS += -Wsign-conversion CFLAGS_STDS += -Wstrict-aliasing CFLAGS_STDS += -Wstrict-prototypes CFLAGS_STDS += -Wswitch-enum CFLAGS_STDS += -Wtrampolines CFLAGS_STDS += -Wundef CFLAGS_STDS += -Wuninitialized CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunreachable-code CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-but-set-parameter CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-but-set-variable CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-label CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-local-typedefs CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-parameter CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-variable CFLAGS_STDS += -Wwrite-strings else CFLAGS_STDS += -Wmost CFLAGS_STDS += -Warray-bounds-pointer-arithmetic CFLAGS_STDS += -Wassign-enum CFLAGS_STDS += -Wcomma CFLAGS_STDS += -Wconditional-uninitialized CFLAGS_STDS += -Wformat-type-confusion CFLAGS_STDS += -Widiomatic-parentheses CFLAGS_STDS += -Wloop-analysis CFLAGS_STDS += -Wshift-sign-overflow CFLAGS_STDS += -Wshorten-64-to-32 CFLAGS_STDS += -Wstrict-aliasing=2 CFLAGS_STDS += -Wstrict-overflow=5 CFLAGS_STDS += -Wtautological-constant-in-range-compare CFLAGS_STDS += -Wthread-safety CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunreachable-code-aggressive CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-argument CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-but-set-parameter CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-but-set-variable CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-comparison CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-const-variable CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-exception-parameter CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-function CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-label CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-local-typedefs CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-macros CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-parameter CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-value CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-variable CFLAGS_STDS += -Wunused-volatile-lvalue endif else # Disable all manners of warnings, even default ones. CFLAGS_STDS += -w endif CFLAGS_OPTS += -fPIC # These are needed anyway. ifeq ($(D),1) CFLAGS_OPTS += -O0 -g3 -ggdb3 CFLAGS_OPTS += -fno-omit-frame-pointer else CFLAGS_OPTS += -O3 CFLAGS_OPTS += -ffunction-sections CFLAGS_OPTS += -fdata-sections CFLAGS_OPTS += -fmerge-all-constants endif ifeq ($(A),1) CFLAGS_OPTS += -fsanitize=address,leak,undefined endif # Add more include directories to your liking CFLAGS_INCS += -I. # Assemble them all into a singfle CFLAGS += $(CFLAGS_DEFS) CFLAGS += $(CFLAGS_INCS) CFLAGS += $(CFLAGS_STDS) CFLAGS += $(CFLAGS_OPTS) LDFLAGS += -Wl,--as-needed LDFLAGS += -Wl,--gc-sections LDFLAGS += -Wl,--no-undefined LDFLAGS += -Wl,-z,defs LDFLAGS += -Wl,-z,nocombreloc LDFLAGS += -Wl,-z,now LDFLAGS += -Wl,-z,relro # The $(Q)$(CC) has a real TAB before it, not space. If you copy paste from Lemmy, you might end up with spaces. program: program.c $(Q)$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $@ $< $(LDFLAGS) .DEFAULT_GOAL := all .PHONY: all all: program .PHONY: clean # The space before $(Q)$(RM) is real TAB as well. clean: $(Q)$(RM) program