Question

Possible Duplicate:
In C, why is the asterisk before the variable name, rather than after the type?
Declaring pointers; asterisk on the left or right of the space between the type and name?

I have been using pointers for a while and used to declare pointers like

int *x;

But noticed thru some code that, the * seems to be after data type in some cases, like

void* setValue(){
 /*          */
}

What’s the difference and why it’s used like that

Answer 1

Semantically nothing. It is style.

The advantage for putting the star right next to the variable is preventing this common error:

char* str1, str2;
/* str2 is a char, not char* ! */

char *str1, *str2;
/* ok */

This issue is non-existent with return types, so it matters even less there.