General Category > Ideas

Syntax of const pointers

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lerno:
I've thought about this some more and I'm actually leaning towards 5 now, since that would make things easier when reading.

Do we want to write:

--- Code: ---int volatile x = 10;
Foo const foo = { ... };
int * const y = &x;

// or
volatile int x = 10;
const Foo foo = { ... };
int const* y = &x;

--- End code ---

Maybe it's just me, but in the simple case then the prefix keyword really rules.

And for the complex ones, maybe () isn't such a bad idea:

// 4

--- Code: ---int* volatile x = 10;     // volatile pointer to int
Foo* const foo = { ... }; // const pointer to Foo
Foo const* foo = { ... }; // pointer to const Foo
int* const y = &x;        // const pointer to int
int const* y = &x;        // pointer to const int

--- End code ---

// 5

--- Code: ---int volatile* x = 10;     // volatile pointer to int
Foo const* foo = { ... }; // const pointer to Foo
const Foo* foo = { ... }; // pointer to const Foo
int const* y = &x;        // const pointer to int
const int* y = &x;        // pointer to const int

--- End code ---

// 1

--- Code: ---volatile (int*) x = 10;     // volatile pointer to int
const (Foo*) foo = { ... }; // const pointer to Foo
(const Foo)* foo = { ... }; // pointer to const Foo
const (int*) y = &x;        // const pointer to int
(const int)* y = &x;        // pointer to const int

--- End code ---

Note that it looks very different visually depending on where you put the "*". (1) shines when the star is put next to the type.

One more thing to consider should be the parsing. For example: an expression starting with '(' can be deducted to always be an expression on C, but with ( ) in the type names, that would not be obvious.

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