C++ style: Stroustrup' s placement of pointer asterisks

Question

Does anyone know why Stroustrup\'s style is the placement of pointers as follows? Specifically, what Stroustrup has provided for guidance about this matter?

int         


        

Answer 1

I cannot speak for Bjarne, but tying the asterisk (and ampersand in case of reference) to the type makes sense because being a pointer is semantically part of the type of the variable. The name of the variable is p and its type is int*. The name is not *p and the type is not int.

It is nearly always possible to avoid multiple variable declarations in a single declaration, so that is not an issue.

In my opinion, this approach is clearer, especially in case of return types:

T*
function(Args...);

T
*function(Args...);