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From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: dereferencing function pointers
Message-ID: <9464@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 20 Jan 89 20:34:24 GMT
References: <185@ncr-fc.FtCollins.NCR.COM>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 19

In article <185@ncr-fc.FtCollins.NCR.COM> dona@ncr-fc.FtCollins.NCR.COM (Don Allingham) writes:
>The above code operates as I would expect, an prints "hello" to the screen.
>However, if ppointer is derefernced only once, as in the following example,
>the program will produces the same results.

Sure, because actually functions are called through pointers to them.
The name of a function in the usual form of function call
	foo(bar);
gets immediately turned into a pointer to the function then the call
is made using that pointer.  The extra * on ppointer in your first
example of calling the function was unnecessary (but valid).

If you find the above surprising, you're not alone!

>%CC-W-CONFLICTDECL, This declaration of "pointer" conflicts
>                with a previous declaration of the same name.

All I can guess is that VMS's <stdio.h> has usurped the identifier
"pointer" to mean something else.  Perhaps it's a typedef for (void*).