Purpose of allowing unnecessary semicolons in class definition [closed]

Question

Consider following program:

#include <iostream>
struct Test
{
    int a;
    Test(int s) : a(s)
    { };        // Observe this semicolon
    int geta()
    {
        return a;
    }
};
int main()
{
    Test t(3);
    std::cout<<t.geta()<<'\n';
}

The program compiles fine even when I use -pedantic-errors option in both gcc & clang. (See live demo here & here.) I also don't get any error from compiler if I put semicolon at the end of geta() member function like following:

int geta()
{
   return a;
}; // This also compiles fine without any error or warnings in both g++ & clang

So, what is the purpose of allowing this unnecessary semicolon? Is there any use of this? Is it allowed explicitly by language standard?

Answer 1

Semicolon (;) stands for empty declaration in c++. You can see Declarations

C++ class allows following things inside the braces:

list of access specifiers

member object

member function declarations and definitions

Reference:Class

Thus going by above rule, empty declarations are allowed in c++. Which is why you have semicolon.