[gameprogrammer] Re: A Note on C Programming Style

On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 13:52 -0700, Alan Wolfe wrote:
> Wes you are the only person that i have talked to that sees the value
> of char *p instead of char* p.
> 
> my hat is off to you (:

Take a look at the declaration syntax for a pointer to a function that
takes a character pointer as an argument and returns a character
pointer. :-)

No matter what else you want to say about this subject, it is the case
that variable declaration syntax in C/C++ is poorly designed. The "best"
way to declare a variable is the one that is most likely to be
understood by people reading the code. 

                Bob Pendleton

> 
> On 5/5/05, Wes Wannemacher <techgeek@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On 5/5/05, Chris Nystrom <cnystrom@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >=3D20
> > > Here is a small rant on C programming style from my blog, that some
> > > beginners might find useful:
> > >=3D20
> > [snip]
> > >=3D20
> > > For this reason, I believe it would be better to write pointer definiti=
> on=3D
> > s:
> > >=3D20
> > >   char* p;
> > >=3D20
> > > Note that the space is now between the * and the pointer name, and
> > > also that the change has no effect on the code itself.
> > >=3D20
> > [/snip]
> >=20
> > Although you make a valid point here, there is one thing that I think
> > needs to be noted about this type of notation... It can be misleading
> > if you are declaring multiple variables. For instance:
> >=20
> > char* p, q;
> >=20
> > Would mean, one pointer of type char and one char variable. I know
> > that it would be bad style to declare these two as such, but when you
> > put the * close to the type, I can see it leading to this type of
> > error later. That's normally why I put the * by the variable name
> > rather than the variable type.
> >=20
> >=20
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> >=20
> >
> 
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