Why does int main() {} compile?

by

3.6.1 Main function

….

2 An implementation shall not predefine the main function. This function shall not be overloaded. It shall have a return type of type int, but otherwise its type is implementation-defined. All implementations shall allow both of the following definitions of main:

int main() { /* ... */ }

and

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
/* ... */
}

…. and it continues to add …

5 A return statement in main has the effect of leaving the main function (destroying any objects with automatic storage duration) and calling exit with the return value as the argument. If control reaches the end of main without encountering a return statement, the effect is that of executing return 0;

attempting to find an online copy of the C++ standard so I could quote this passage I found a blog post that quotes all the right bits better than I could.

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