Important Notice

The pages on this site contain documentation for very old MS-DOS software, purely for historical purposes. If you're looking for up-to-date documentation, particularly for programming, you should not rely on the information found here, as it will be woefully out of date.

                                             ◄Up► ◄Contents► ◄Index► ◄Back►
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
  Keyword:   main, argc, argv, envp
 
  Syntax:    main( int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[] )
             {
                 <program-statements>
             }
 
  Summary:   The main function is the name of the function that marks
             the beginning and end of program execution. A C program
             must have one function named main.
 
  See also:  _dos_findfirst, _dos_findnext, getenv, putenv, _searchenv
             ◄Expanding Wild-Card Arguments►
             ◄Parsing Command-Line Arguments►
             ◄Suppressing Command-Line Processing►
 
     The main function can take the following three optional arguments,
     traditionally called argc, argv, and envp (in that order):
 
     Argument     Description
 
     argc         An integer specifying how many arguments are passed
                  to the program from the command line. Since the
                  program name is considered an argument, argc is at
                  least one.
 
     argv         An array of null-terminated strings. It can be
                  declared as an array of pointers to char
                  (char *argv[]) or as a pointer to pointers to char
                  (char **argv). The first string (argv[0]) is the
                  program name, and each following string is an
                  argument passed to the program from the command
                  line. The last pointer (argv[argc]) is NULL.
 
     envp         A pointer to an array of environment strings. It
                  can be declared as an array of pointers to char
                  (char *envp[]) or as a pointer to pointers to char
                  (char **envp). The end of the array is indicated by
                  a NULL pointer.
                                    -♦-