Where to put a star in the designation of a pointer to C and C ++

Question

Possible duplicate:
The correct way to declare pointer variables in C / C ++

For some time, the following annoyed me: where should I put the star in a notation with a pointer.

int *var; // 1 

and

 int* var; // 2 

obviously do the same thing, and both entries are correct, but I find that most of the literature and code I'm looking at uses the 1st notation.

Wouldn’t it be more “correct” to use the 2nd notation, separating the type and name of the variable with a space, and not mixing the type and variable markers?

Answer 1

No. Never. <g>

But consider:

 int* var1, var2; 

Here the placement * is misleading, since it does not apply to var2 , which is int , not int* .

Answer 2

Linux kernel coding style convention:

 int *ptr1 , *ptr2; 

Therefore, I think you should accept this as an agreement.

When declaring data of a pointer or function that returns a type of pointer, the preferred use of * is next to the data name or function name, and not next to the type name. Examples:

 char *linux_banner; unsigned long long memparse(char *ptr, char **retptr); char *match_strdup(substring_t *s); 

Answer 3

I believe that part of the reason for this notation is that the use and declaration of a variable looks the same.

 int *var; int x; x = *var; 

You can also think of it as dereferencing var give you an int.