TITLE: position of const keyword

(Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++.moderated, 7 Mar 97)


FRASER: James Fraser <james.fraser@baesema.co.uk>

> what is int const * p ? 


SZONYE: "Bradd W. Szonye" <bradds@concentric.net>

    T const * p;

is equivalent syntactically and semantically to

    const T * p;

I prefer the former notation because it leads to a consistent rule: const
modifies the type or declaration immediately to its left. For example:

    int const * p; // pointer to integer constant
    int * const p; // pointer constant pointing to integer
    int const * const p; // pointer constant pointing to integer constant
    int p() const; // member function with constant semantics

I switched to 'T const*' when writing templates as preprocessor macros on a
compiler with no builtin template support. Making the declarations
syntactically consistent is extremely important when using a stupid
text-based macro facility (like cpp).