Return type in Main Method

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C#

why not we can use other return type in Main() except int or void please....

Posted 25-Oct-10 3:24am

AshishKr

Updated 25-Oct-10 3:25am

v2

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Solution 1

Main is starting point of any application in C#. It is run under main thread. Then what should it return and most important whom it return.

There no client waiting for main to finished

So the return type is void

:)

Posted 25-Oct-10 3:30am

Khaniya

v2

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OriginalGriff 25-Oct-10 9:48am

That turns out to be wrong: Main always returns an int, even if you specify a void return. You can check this value to see what happened to the process in other C# apps if you need to. See MSDN on Process.ExitCode (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.process.exitcode.aspx)

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OriginalGriff · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-25T03:30:00

Traditionally DOS (and then windows) apps returned an integer value to say "success" (zero), or "failed" (non-zero error code).
You can still return this - the debugger shows this value if you look at the Output tab when your program completes.
You don't have to return an int: a void is the equivalent of a zero.

There is no facility for any other return format for historical reasons - anything else would be effectively a pointer, and treated as a non-zero error code.