Formal argument

Formal arguments are the parameters present in a function definition  that  might  also  be  known  as  dummy  arguments  or  the  parametric variables. Whenever the function is invoked, the formal parameters are replaced via the actual parameters.

Example:

# include<iostream.h>

void main(void)

{

int x,y;

void output(int x, int y);

output(x,y);

}

void output(int a, int b) // a and b are the formal or dummy arguments

{

// body of the function definition

}

Formal argument might be declared through the similar name or through different names in calling a portion of the program or in a called function but the data types should be the similar in both the blocks.