I think this is just about where the identifier has to go in a declaration. Otherwise the spiral rule [or rather right-left-rule, as pointed out elsethred] does

I think this is just about where the identifier has to go in a declaration. Otherwise the spiral rule [or rather right-left-rule, as pointed out elsethred] doesn't start at the right place (to over-simplify it). You can in fact have parentheses in declarations, but the identifier must be on the inside, not just to the right of everything: https://godbolt.org/z/vKzcYMdvK https://godbolt.org/z/vKzcYMdvK