Question

This is a newbie C++ question. What is the difference between the following two constructs?

1. const int* const* const x
2. const int**

How do I read these constructs?

Answer 1

It gets a bit easier if you group things the right way. For example, *const is really one unit meaning “const pointer to” (you can read the const as a subscript here: *const). I’d write it as:

const int *const *const p1; // p1 is a const pointer to const pointer to const int
const int **p2; // p2 is a pointer to pointer to const int

Also remember that declarations read “inside out”, starting at the identifier being declared.