Why does declaring main as an array compile?

Question

I saw a snippet of code on CodeGolf that\'s intended as a compiler bomb, where main is declared as a huge array. I tried the following (non-bomb) version:

Answer 1

If you are interested how to create program in main array: https://jroweboy.github.io/c/asm/2015/01/26/when-is-main-not-a-function.html. The example source there just contains a char (and later int) array called main which is filled with machine instructions.

The main steps and problems were:

• Obtain the machine instructions of a main function from a gdb memory dump and copy it into the array
• Tag the data in main[] executable by declaring it const (data is apparently either writable or executable)
• Last detail: Change an address for actual string data.

The resulting C code is just

const int main[] = {
    -443987883, 440, 113408, -1922629632,
    4149, 899584, 84869120, 15544,
    266023168, 1818576901, 1461743468, 1684828783,
    -1017312735
};

but results in an executable program on a 64 bit PC:

$ gcc -Wall final_array.c -o sixth
final_array.c:1:11: warning: ‘main’ is usually a function [-Wmain]
 const int main[] = {
           ^
$ ./sixth 
Hello World!