Convention for pointer *

Question

Out of curiosity; why is convention for pointers in C languages like this:

NSString *str = ...

Wouldn\'t be more appropriate to write:

Answer 1

If you declare multiple pointer variables in a single declaration, you must write

char *a, *b;

since the declaration

char* a, b;

would declare a as a char pointer, but b as a plain char. IOW, this spacing shows that the asterisk really binds to the name only where it appears.