FreeLists / haiku-development / [haiku-development] Re: coding style

["Michael Lotz" <mmlr@xxxxxxxx>]

> Marcus Overhagen wrote:
> >> * use "char* variable" instead of "char *variable" in C++ code
> > 
> > I disagree with that one. The * belongs to the variable, not to the 
> > type.
> 
> I wonder why. When I see something like this:
> 
> char* foo;
> 
> I read that foo is a pointer to a char (foo's type is "char 
> pointer"). 
> For me, moving * to be next to the variable name does not make much 
> sense.

This is really the one thing I also disagree. For one thing it simply 
looks ugly to me to have the * or & attached to the type, but this is a 
preference with no real technical basis. BTW I could agree to "char*", 
but it gets funny when you specify "const char*" or even "extern const 
char*". It looks inconsistent to me to have spacing between the "const" 
and the "char" and then not between the "char" and the "*". Of course 
you cannot write "constchar*", but for me it looks more natural to be 
consequent and have all the parts of the type separated by spaces which 
results in "const char *".
After the type I apply 0 or more spacing tabs, which results in what 
Marcus suggested "char *                Method();" in the column header format 
and in simply "const char *string = NULL" for variables.

Regards
Michael