question about declaration - pointers

[jeniffer]

What does the following declare?
char*(*(*x)(void))[];

How to judge these type of questions? I am confused :(

[army1987]

jeniffer wrote:

What does the following declare?
char*(*(*x)(void))[];

A pointer to a function taking no arguments, and returning a pointer to an
array of unspecified length of pointers to char.

How to judge these type of questions? I am confused :(

See http://www.c-faq.com/ question 1.21, and remind to whoever wrote that
stuff that typedef exists. :-)
--
Army1987

[Richard Heathfield]

jeniffer said:

What does the following declare?
char*(*(*x)(void))[];

Others have already answered this part of your question.

How to judge these type of questions? I am confused :(

Judge these types of questions harshly. The question you show is
practically meaningless, because it tests a skill that is only needed when
deconstructing and rewriting badly-written code.

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[vippstar]

On Dec 27, 1:23 pm, Richard Heathfield <[e-mail]:

jeniffer said:

What does the following declare?
char*(*(*x)(void))[];

Others have already answered this part of your question.

How to judge these type of questions? I am confused :(

Judge these types of questions harshly. The question you show is
practically meaningless, because it tests a skill that is only needed when
deconstructing and rewriting badly-written code.

What if you are writing a C compiler or something similar?
Shall the compiler error because the programmer used a 'bad' data
type?

[Richard Heathfield]

vi******@gmail.com said:

On Dec 27, 1:23 pm, Richard Heathfield <[e-mail]:

>jeniffer said:

What does the following declare?
char*(*(*x)(void))[];

Others have already answered this part of your question.

How to judge these type of questions? I am confused :(

Judge these types of questions harshly. The question you show is
practically meaningless, because it tests a skill that is only needed
when deconstructing and rewriting badly-written code.

What if you are writing a C compiler or something similar?

What if you are? :-)

Shall the compiler error because the programmer used a 'bad' data
type?

The compiler should diagnose syntax errors and constraint violations, but
the above is not either of those. It follows the rules of the grammar, and
so the compiler writer will be able to deal with it simply by implementing
the grammar, which is a darn sight easier than decoding the above. (But
yes, okay, you're right - a compiler writer ought to be able to decode
such expressions by hand, even if it's only for testing purposes.)

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[Ben Pfaff]

vi******@gmail.com writes:

On Dec 27, 1:23 pm, Richard Heathfield <[e-mail]:

>jeniffer said:

What does the following declare?
char*(*(*x)(void))[];

Others have already answered this part of your question.

How to judge these type of questions? I am confused :(

Judge these types of questions harshly. The question you show is
practically meaningless, because it tests a skill that is only needed when
deconstructing and rewriting badly-written code.

What if you are writing a C compiler or something similar?

I surely would not mind if the C compiler diagnosed the above
similar to:

foo.c:6: warning: complicated type declarations are difficult to understand
--
char a[]="\n .CJacehknorstu";int putchar(int);int main(void){unsigned long b[]
={0x67dffdff,0x9aa9aa6a,0xa77ffda9,0x7da6aa6a,0xa6 7f6aaa,0xaa9aa9f6,0x11f6},*p
=b,i=24;for(;p+=!*p;*p/=4)switch(0[p]&3)case 0:{return 0;for(p--;i--;i--)case+
2:{i++;if(i)break;else default:continue;if(0)case 1:putchar(a[i&15]);break;}}}

[Dann Corbit]

"jeniffer" <ze******************@gmail.comwrote in message
news:2a**********************************@e25g2000 prg.googlegroups.com...

What does the following declare?
char*(*(*x)(void))[];

How to judge these type of questions? I am confused :(

E:\>cdecl
Type `help' or `?' for help
cdeclexplain char*(*(*x)(void))[];
declare x as pointer to function (void) returning pointer to array of
pointer to char
cdecl>

Look on the net for cdecl.zip

There are other distributions as well (e.g. in BSD code base)

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

[Richard Heathfield]

Dann Corbit said:

<snip>

Look on the net for cdecl.zip

I have done so. I even found it. The zip file was corrupted...

There are other distributions as well (e.g. in BSD code base)

....so I found a version written by Graham Ross, supposedly converted to
ANSI C by David Wolverton, which didn't compile. Once I got it to compile
(by removing features), it didn't link. Once I got it to link (by removing
more features), it didn't run (segfaulted straight away).

The cdecl functionality is a perfectly good example of code that *could* be
written in solid, clc-conforming ISO C code. And who knows? Perhaps it has
been. If so, where may it be found? And if not, well, I'll add it to my
to-do list.

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[user923005]

On Dec 28, 12:00*am, Richard Heathfield <[e-mail]:

Dann Corbit said:

<snip>

Look on the net for cdecl.zip

I have done so. I even found it. The zip file was corrupted...

There are other distributions as well (e.g. in BSD code base)

...so I found a version written by Graham Ross, supposedly converted to
ANSI C by David Wolverton, which didn't compile. Once I got it to compile
(by removing features), it didn't link. Once I got it to link (by removing
more features), it didn't run (segfaulted straight away).

The cdecl functionality is a perfectly good example of code that *could* be
written in solid, clc-conforming ISO C code. And who knows? Perhaps it has
been. If so, where may it be found? And if not, well, I'll add it to my
to-do list.

The one that I have builds fine with MINGW, but not with ANSI/ISO C
because it uses POSIX features.