Declaration that omits the function body
Also known as function interface
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In computer programming, a function prototype is a declaration of a function that specifies the function's name and type signature, but omits the function body. While a function definition specifies how the function does what it does, a function prototype merely specifies its interface, i.e. what data types go in and come out of it. The term "function prototype" is particularly used in the context of the programming languages C and C++ where placing forward declarations of functions in header files allows for splitting a program into translation units, i.e. into parts that a compiler can separately translate into object files, to be combined by a linker into an executable or a library. The function declaration precedes the function definition, giving details of name, return type, and storage class along with other relevant attributes.