Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!vsi!friedl
From: friedl@vsi.COM (Stephen J. Friedl)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: help with a MESSY C definition!!?
Summary: Abstract declaration
Message-ID: <950@vsi.COM>
Date: 24 Nov 88 19:54:09 GMT
References: <207600008@s.cs.uiuc.edu> <1506@buengc.BU.EDU>
Organization: V-Systems, Inc. -- Santa Ana, CA
Lines: 25

In article <1506@buengc.BU.EDU>, bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
> Now, prove that 
> 
> 	(int *(*)())
> 
> is unambiguously "cast to pointer to function returning pointer
> to int" and never misinterpreted as "cast to function returning pointer
> to pointer to int," whatever the hell that means...

Casts are "abstract declarations".  This means that if you drop the
outer parens, there is exactly one place where a variable name (say,
`foo') could be inserted to make this a real declaration.  Above,
the only place would be:

	int *(*foo)()

So, this is "cast to ptr to function returning ptr to int".

     Steve

-- 
Steve Friedl    V-Systems, Inc.  +1 714 545 6442    3B2-kind-of-guy
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