What's the difference between char* a and char *a

[CharChen]

What's the difference between char* a and char *a

  char*    a

  char    *a

  char  *  a

[xismn]

There is none. The compiler ignores whitespace.

[metulburr]

from a video i watched the instructor said that
char* a
is incorrect format from another language, but c allows it anyways,
and that the proper way is
char *a
but in the end it doesnt matter.

[LB]

char* a, b, c;

Only a is a pointer, but the spacing is misleading.

Consider instead:

char *a, b, c;

It is the same as before, but the spacing makes it more clear that only a is a pointer.

[CharChen]

I see...thanks ^_^..

[vlad from moscow]

In C# and in C++ the meaning of declaration

char* a, b, c:

is different.

In C# declaration

char* a, b, c;

means that all three identifiesr have type char *.
While in C++ and C this declaration means that only identifier a has type char *.

So never use such records as for example char* a; or char& a; in C/C++. This only confuses the reader of the code and simply is a bad style of programming. In the West many programmers have no own brain so they simply repeat constructions by some idiot who is more experienced than they are.

[metulburr]

vlad from moscow wrote:

In the West many programmers have no own brain

Well, this explains a lot

[cire]

There are more zombies in the West, you see. More programmers have their brains eaten.

[coder777]

There are more zombies in the West, you see.

True so. Snowden and Assange just discoverd what that means...

[TheIdeasMan]

@CharChen

One way to avoid confusion, is to only declare one variable per line of code. This way there is no confusion over whether it is a pointer or reference or not.

Then you can also comment what it means (even better provide a meaningful name in the first place), and / or comment other useful information like it's range of acceptable values say, or anything else that will be helpful.

Also, I am not sure what happens (because I never do it, and consequently not looked it up in the standard) when one puts a qualifier like short or unsigned before a list of variable declarations? Is the first one a short, and the rest int's? Does the same thing apply to const & static or any other qualifier? I have a sneaking suspicion that it does.

So avoid all this, and make it crystal clear by doing one declaration per line.

Hope all is well at your end :-)

[MatthewRock]

Actually, even in reference, variables are declared like this:

char* a;

instead of

char *a;

As you can see here:
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/ostream/ostream/operator%3C%3C/

Well it doesn't matter at all for compiler, as long as you delare one var per line(as TheIdeasMan explained). Vlad said some harsh words about declaring it like char*, but personally I prefer doing it this way.

Most of the time, I declare only one pointer/reference/etc per line, and it simply shows you instantly what type you are using. In the end, it's char* type. I like it that way. Do as you prefer. Compiler won't mind.

[MikeyBoy]

Most of the time, I declare only one pointer/reference/etc per line, and it simply shows you instantly what type you are using. In the end, it's char* type. I like it that way. Do as you prefer. Compiler won't mind.

This.

The char* a, b, c; issue is a weird inconsistency of C that's been inherited by C++. In most contexts in C/C++, char* is treated syntactically as a type in the same way as, say, char would. Writing char* a separates the type from the variable name in a natural way.

Yes, you have to remember the char* a, b, c; gotcha, but, like MatthewRock, I tend to declare one variable per line, so it's never an issue for me.

EDIT: If I really, really wanted to declare multiple variables in a line, and make one of them a pointer, I would make an exception to my usual style and write:

char *a, b, c;

just to make it clear that only a is a pointer, and the rest are chars.

But I can't imagine any circumstances under which I would decide to declare multiple variables of different types on a single line like that.