That will help if there is a value to return - but then it's not much better than just returning something invalid, like a NULL pointer. If the only return valu

That will help if there is a value to return - but then it's not much better than just returning something invalid, like a NULL pointer. If the only return value is success/failure you need compiler support (1) to ensure it's not ignored. (1) There are clever hacks to mimic this behavior to some extent, but I don't even want to go there. If you really want this feature - just use a language that has it.