Question

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Declaring pointers; asterisk on the left or right of the space between the type and name?
Does it matter where I place the asterisk when declaring pointers in C++?

I searched, but my keywords don’t seem to fit. I’m pretty sure this question has already been asked., so point me in some direction if you know a link or something !

My question is, why do so many people use

TypeIdentifier *varname;

Instead of

TypeIdentifier* varname;

which is much more logical to me as the * modifies the type and not the variable name.

Answer 1

In both C and C++, the declaration syntax (mostly) follows usage.

The declaration

int *n;

can be read as “n is of type int*“, or as “*n is of type int“. And if you take a look at the language grammar, the latter corresponds more closely to the way it’s parsed.

For a type consisting of just a name (like int) and a *, it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference, but it matters for more complex declarations.

The usual tendency is to use int *n; in C and int* n; in C++. The latter is because that’s Stroustrup’s personal preference. His point, I think, is that the “n is of type int*” reading is more natural, and the complexities can be avoided by not writing complex declarations. For example, whichever spacing you prefer, it’s better to write

int *a;
int b;

than either

int* a, b;

or

int *a, b;