What do "int *p(char *a)" & "char (*p)(int *a)" mean?

[staz]

I cant recognise them as declarations of some arrays or so... Are they some declaration of functions with parameter & return type? If so, then how come function names are missing?

[weaknessforcats]

"int *p(char *a)" & "char (*p)(int *a)" mean?

This code is written to trip you up since beginners think "p" means "pointer". Because of that assumption, you can't read this code.

int *p(char *a) 

is a function named "p" that takes a char* argument "a" and returns a pointer to an int. You would have no problem were it written like this:

int *MyFunction(char *arg)

This one:

char (*p)(int *a)

defines "p" to be a pointer to a function that takes an int* arguments "a" and returns a char.

I expect I am doing your homework, but at least now you know.