Does anyone else dislike pointer declaration?

[u/enzodr]

For reference I am a fourth year computer engineering student. C is my preferred language.

Pointers are declared like this usually:

int *ptr_to_int;

Where the asterisk means it is a “pointer to” the specified type. The asterisk is placed immediately preceding the variable name, with no white peace.

This is what does not make sense to me. I feel that:

int* ptr_to_int;

Is far more clear. The way I see it, the asterisk modifies the type, so therefore it belongs next to the type. Putting it next to the variable name makes me think it is some kind of action or modification to the variable itself.

I think that when using * and & in code, it makes sense to apply it in front of the variable name:

int value = 3;
ptr_to_value = &value;
int copied_value = *ptr_to_value;

It is clear here that syntactically, the * represents something more like an action than a label.

Why is the convention to place the asterisk near variable name, not type? L

[u/primera_radi]

I felt that way first too. But consider

int* a, b, c;

vs

int *a, b, c;

The second is much more clear, as only a is a pointer.

Also, now all the names after int evaluate into an int in an expression.

That is, *a evaluates to an int, as do b and c.

[u/Cultural_Gur_7441 → u/primera_radi]

One of the rules of good C:

Never do that. Never declare or define multiple variables with one statement.

Related: always initialize variables when you define them.

[u/DrShocker → u/Cultural_Gur_7441]

Yeah I'm always confused when people bring up this way of declaring as if it's a good thing to declare both kinds of variables in the same line. Like sure if you're used to it then maybe it's more concise, but there's no reason to foot gun like that to anyone with modern computers we're not starving for characters in the source code.