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From: eichin@athena.mit.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: C arrays of strings
Message-ID: <1843@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 19-Nov-87 23:51:14 EST
Article-I.D.: bloom-be.1843
Posted: Thu Nov 19 23:51:14 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Nov-87 17:57:51 EST
References: <3157@rosevax.Rosemount.COM> <231@cfpas.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: eichin@athena.mit.edu (Mark W. Eichin)
Organization: Masochists, Introverts and Technocrats
Lines: 38
Keywords: C
Summary: ``cdecl'' automatic C declaration parser

Another useful tool for understanding C declarations is ``cdecl''
which I found in one of project Athena's unsupported software
libraries; I believe it is public domain, but I didn't see any
comments AT ALL explaining how it works or who wrote it. Here is the
help line and a demo:

>help
        [] means optional; {} means 1 or more; <> means defined elsewhere
        command:
          declare <name> as <english>
          cast <name> into <english>
          explain <gibberish>
        english:
          function [( <name> )] returning <english>
          array [<number>] of <english>
          pointer to <english>
          <type>
        type:
          [{<modifier>}] <C-type>
          {<modifier>} [<C-type>]
          <sue> <name>
        name is a C identifier
        gibberish is a C declaration
        C-type is int, char, double or float
        modifier is short, long or unsigned
        sue is struct, union or enum
>explain char *str[12]
declare str as array 12 of pointer to char

(Note that the > chars are my addition, this program does NOT prompt).
Not great, but when you get to several levels of structures and
pointers thereto, it can help unravel things a little.

			Mark Eichin
			<eichin@athena.mit.edu>

Disclaimer: I read news to avoid playing larn. Maybe I should go back
to playing larn.