Main Method Retun value

Question

hi can any one tell me how main method return value and how i use it......?

Sam Hobbs · Answer

The main thing is that it is how Windows and other operating systems work. Note that in addition to the %ERRORLEVEL% environment variable the Process.ExitCode Property also has the return value of a process so if you use the Process class then you can get the Main's return value from the Process.ExitCode Property. The exit code is set in other ways by programs written in other languages but most compilers support a way to return a return value. Read the documentation of the Process.ExitCode Property for a little bit more.

Vulpes · Answer

Just to elaborate a bit on Jaganathan's answer if you use int as the return type of Main() then Windows can recover this using the special variable %ERRORLEVEL%. So if you compile and run this program from the command line: using System; class Program { static int Main() { return 1; } } and then type at the command line: echo %ERRORLEVEL% you'll see a value of 1 returned. This can be used to tell the OS (or another process) whether the program terminated normally or not. By convention 0 is returned for a normal termination (you'll always get this if you use a void return type) and other numbers can be used to indicate various error conditions.

Jaganathan Bantheswaran · Answer

Hi Return type of the Main can be int or void. Its better to use int. If you return 0 then OS will know that program has been executed successfully.