🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3173B383.41C67EA6@rstcorp.com> "Aaron S. Binns"
<asbinn@rstcorp.com> writes:

|> [Moderator's note: This is crossposted to comp.std.c++ and
|> comp.lang.c++, and followups have been set to comp.std.c++. mha]

|> I recently came across a piece of code that reads:

|> class A {
|>   // contents of class A
|> } a1, *a2, const *a3;

While I personally wouldn't write anything like this, it is definitly
legal.

|> This looks pretty bogus to me.  I thought that the 'const' applied
|> to the elaborated specifier 'class A'.  If the 'const' qualifier is
|> supposed to apply to the pointer in 'a3', then it should come _after_
|> the '*'.

No, it is the A being pointed to that is const, not the pointer.

Separating each of the definitions out into a separate statement makes
this obvious:

    class A { ... } ;
    A               a1 ;
    A*              a2 ;
    A const*        a3 ;

|> I think that either one of the two following was intended.

|> 1)

|> class A {
|>   // contents of class A
|> } a1, *a2, * const a3;


|> 2)

|> class A {
|>   // contents of class A
|> } a1, *a2;

|> A const *a3;  // Or const A *a3;

Regardless of what was intended, 2 is the interpretation required by
the draft standard (and by the C standard).
-- 
James Kanze         Tel.: (+33) 88 14 49 00        email: kanze@gabi-soft.fr
GABI Software, Sarl., 8 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
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