Geeky C Question - What is a old-style formal list ?

BTW, that "old-style formal list" is from ancient K&R * syntax in which a function would be declare something like this (cut me some slack, guys, I'm doing this from memory):
double Total_SA(r, h);
double r;
double h;
{
return 2*PI*r*(r+h);
}
You'll never use this old syntax, but there's still a lot of old source code floating around on the Web that use it, so you just might encounter it one day and when you do you'll need to know how to correct it.

[* Footnote: K&R == "Kernighan & Ritchie", the designers of C and authors of "The C Programming Language". The second edition does conform to ANSI C standards.