Question

For some reason my Visual Studio 2008 began to show warnings for code like:
“int main( int argc, char **argv)”, which is really annoying.

The detailed warning ouputs are (you can ignore the line numbers):
1>.\main.cpp(86) : warning C4100: ‘argv’ : unreferenced formal parameter
1>.\main.cpp(86) : warning C4100: ‘argc’ : unreferenced formal parameter

I wonder if there are settings in Visual Studio 2008 that have been accidentally changed. Or how should I deal with this warning?

Answer 1

If the parameters are unreferenced, you can leave them unnamed:

int main(int, char**)
{
}

instead of

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
}

If you really want just to suppress the warning, you can do so using the /wd4100 command line option to the compiler or using #pragma warning(disable: 4100) in your code.

This is a level 4 warning; if you compile at a lower warning level, you won’t get this warning. The warning level is set in the project properties (right-click project, select Properties; on the Configuration Properties -> C++ -> General, set “Warning Level”).