On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 05:02:33PM -0600, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> It really does not matter. Coder's choice. The result is the same.
> You could hunt them all down, change them all, save a few code bytes,
> but don't you dare introduce any bugs...
The main function is called by crt0 like
exit(main(argc, argv, envp));
Which means that "return 0;" and "exit(0);" in main lead to the same
result.
But there is a subtle difference.
If main calls exit, its own stack protector will never be validated,
which means that a previous overflow of main's stack is not spotted.
"return" on the other hand would trigger the machine code to check.
I would prefer a proper return. Who knows if we spot an issue? But on
the other hand, take Theo's statement into consideration:
> but don't you dare introduce any bugs...
Tobias
