Chapter 4 - Functions and Program Structure（二）.1

4.2 Functions Returning Non-integers

So far our examples of functions have returned either no value (void) or an int. What if a function must return some other type? many numerical functions like sqrt, sin, and cos return double; other specialized functions return other types. To illustrate how to deal with this, let us write and use the function atof(s), which converts the string s to its double-precision floating-point equivalent. atof if an extension of atoi, which we showed versions of in Chapters 2 and 3. It handles an optional sign and decimal point, and the presence or absence of either part or fractional part. Our version is not a high-quality input conversion routine; that would take more space than we care to use. The standard library includes an atof; the header <stdlib.h> declares it.

到目前为止，我们所讨论的函数都是不返回任何值（void）或只返回int类型值的函数。假如某个函数必须返回其它类型的值，该怎么办呢？许多数值函数（如sqrt、sin 与cos等函数）返回的是double 类型的值，某些专用函数则返回其它类型的值。我们通过函数atof(s)来说明函数返回非整型值的方法。该函数把字符串s 转换为相应的双精度浮点数。atof 函数是atoi 函数的扩展，第2 章与第3 章已讨论了atoi 函数的几个版本。atof 函数需要处理可选的符号和小数点，并要考虑可能缺少整数部分或小数部分的情况。我们这里编写的版本并不是一个高质量的输入转换函数，它占用了过多的空间。标准库中包含类似功能的atof函数，在头文件<stdlib.h>中声明。

First, atof itself must declare the type of value it returns, since it is not int. The type name precedes the function name:

Second, and just as important, the calling routine must know that atof returns a non-int value. One way to ensure this is to declare atof explicitly in the calling routine. The declaration is shown in this primitive calculator (barely adequate for check-book balancing), which reads one number per line, optionally preceded with a sign, and adds them up, printing the running sum after each input:

其次，调用函数必须知道atof函数返回的是非整型值，这一点也是很重要的。为了达到该目的，一种方法是在调用函数中显式声明atof函数。下面所示的基本计算器程序（仅适用于支票簿计算）中有类似的声明。该程序在每行中读取一个数（数的前面可能有正负号），并对它们求和，在每次输入完成后把这些数的累计总和打印出来：

The declaration

double sum, atof(char []);

says that sum is a double variable, and that atof is a function that takes one char[] argument and returns a double.

表明sum 是一个double 类型的变量，atof 函数带有个char[]类型的参数，且返回一个double类型的值。

The function atof must be declared and defined consistently. If atof itself and the call to it in main have inconsistent types in the same source file, the error will be detected by the compiler. But if (as is more likely) atof were compiled separately, the mismatch would not be detected, atof would return a double that main would treat as an int, and meaningless answers would result.

函数 atof的声明与定义必须一致。如果atof函数与调用它的主函数main放在同一源文件中，并且类型不一致，编译器就会检测到该错误。但是，如果atof函数是单独编译的（这种可能性更大），这种不匹配的错误就无法检测出来，atof 函数将返回double 类型的值，而main函数却将返回值按照int类型处理，最后的结果值毫无意义。

In the light of what we have said about how declarations must match definitions, this might seem surprising. The reason a mismatch can happen is that if there is no function prototype, a function is implicitly declared by its first appearance in an expression, such as

根据前面有关函数的声明如何与定义保持一致的讨论，发生不匹配现象似乎很令人吃惊。其中的一个原因是，如果没有函数原型，则函数将在第一次出现的表达式中被隐式声明，例如：

sum += atof(line)

If a name that has not been previously declared occurs in an expression and is followed by a left parentheses, it is declared by context to be a function name, the function is assumed to return an int, and nothing is assumed about its arguments. Furthermore, if a function declaration does not include arguments, as in

如果先前没有声明过的一个名字出现在某个表达式中，并且其后紧跟一个左圆括号，那么上下文就会认为该名字是一个函数名字，该函数的返回值将被假定为int 类型，但上下文并不对其参数作任何假设。并且，如果函数声明中不包含参数，例如：

double atof();

that too is taken to mean that nothing is to be assumed about the arguments of atof; all parameter checking is turned off. This special meaning of the empty argument list is intended to permit older C programs to compile with new compilers. But it's a bad idea to use it with new C programs. If the function takes arguments, declare them; if it takes no arguments, use void.

那么编译程序也不会对函数atof的参数作任何假设，并会关闭所有的参数检查。对空参数表的这种特殊处理是为了使新的编译器能编译比较老的C 语言程序。不过，在新编写的程序中这么做是不提倡的。如果函数带有参数，则要声明它们；如果没有参数，则使用void进行声明。

Given atof, properly declared, we could write atoi (convert a string to int) in terms of it:

/* atoi: convert string s to integer using atof */

int atoi(char s[])

{

double atof(char s[]);

return (int) atof(s);

}

Notice the structure of the declarations and the return statement. The value of the expression in

return expression;

is converted to the type of the function before the return is taken. Therefore, the value of atof, a double, is converted automatically to int when it appears in this return, since the function atoi returns an int. This operation does potentionally discard information, however, so some compilers warn of it. The cast states explicitly that the operation is intended, and suppresses any warning.

其中，表达式的值在返回之前将被转换为函数的类型。因为函数atoi的返回值为int类型，所以，return 语句中的atof 函数的double 类型值将被自动转换为int 类型值。但是，这种操作可能会丢失信息，某些编译器可能会对此给出警告信息。在该函数中，由于采用了类型转换的方法显式表明了所要执行的转换操作，因此可以防止有关的警告信息。

consistently adv. 一贯地;坚持地；固守地