12 ms·

What happened to the const in the second example?

• cyphar 10y ago
  Yeah, I think they confused const * with * const
  • colanderman 10y ago
    Nope, * const means that the identifier (i.e. thing to the right of the star) is const. That is, in this example, the symbol "bar" is const, not anything that it points to. So once you dereference it, the const no longer matters.
    • cyphar 10y ago
      You're right, I got confused. const is read as "the thing to the right of me is const". const * means const pointer, * const means pointer to const.
      • wruza 10y ago
        Vice versa. Const pointer: int *const p; Pointer to const value: const int *p int const *p >const is read as "the thing to the right of me is const" const is one of storage classes and is read at its order, not just "to the right".
        • cyphar 10y ago
          Wow. I literally was staring at my test case when I wrote it and I _still_ got it wrong. I think I need to get some more sleep...
• kr7 10y ago
  The pointer itself is const; not what it points to. bar -> const pointer to mutable array of ints *bar -> mutable array of ints And const pointers are dereferenced with * , not (* const), so the rule needs an exception for const pointers (as well as volatile pointers).
• colanderman 10y ago
  That const applies only to the bar symbol itself, not to anything it points to. So once bar is dereferenced, the const doesn't matter. The beauty of this method is that it predicts that correctly without having to think about it.