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

It only compiles because you don't use the proper options (and works because linkers sometimes only care for the names of symbols, not their type).

$ gcc -std=c89 -pedantic -Wall x.c
x.c:1:5: warning: ISO C forbids zero-size array ‘main’ [-Wpedantic]
 int main[0];
     ^
x.c:1:5: warning: ‘main’ is usually a function [-Wmain]