Thread: function prototyping

True, but what if you forget what arguments it takes or what order?
Myself, I cannot remember exactly what or in what order arguments must be passed. But when typing out the function name, I clearly see what the arguments names are and thus I can pass the correct arguments and in order.
It is more of a reminder than actual documentation, but it is very helpful. And sometimes it even makes it so that I do not need to read the documentation.
This is the main purpose of putting names in prototypes according to me. Is that a waste of space?
You do need those prototypes anyway, so copy and paste is easier.

I also take shortcuts with not typing out stuff too, but not at such a point where it becomes unreadable. In my opinion, stripping the names of the parameters in prototypes reduces readability. And therefore, I do not do it.
Usually, readability comes before duplicate / unnecessary code.

// ..._t suffix is reserved nervermind, this is an example

I think it's only reserved by POSIX, not ANSI. http://bytes.com/groups/c/668814-usi...fixes-typedefs
Nevertheless, it's probably a good idea to avoid it. I usually use the suffix "_type_t" myself.
(This is going to start another debate about naming conventions, I just know it.)

FWIW, here's what I think. I agree with Elysia here in that I think parameter names should be included in prototypes (otherwise I wouldn't have linked to the wiki page in the first place). I think it makes them easier to read, because your eye is used to parsing function definitions, and why should prototypes be any different?

Named parameters are also useful in distinguishing two variables of the same type. While I realize that this information can be found in source code as well, it's often much easier to find a header file than a source file.

I also think that there's no really good reason to remove the variable names. I mean, most of the time the prototype is just copied and pasted from the definition, or vise versa, at least in my code. I don't think it's unnecessary duplication, because it can be useful and it doesn't usually involve any extra effort on the part of the programmer.

Most of this has already been said before, I know; I just thought I'd chime in with my opinion.