This has been posted before[1], and the "spiral rule" is a load of hooey.

The correct rule is "follow the C grammar". An easier to remember and also correct rule is "start at the identifier being declared; work outwards from that point, reading right until you hit a closing parenthesis, then left until you hit the corresponding open parenthesis, then resume reading right..." (this is sometimes called the "right-left rule"[2]).

The "spiral rule" dances around the truth without actually being precise enough to be useful.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5079787 [2] http://ieng9.ucsd.edu/~cs30x/rt_lt.rule.html