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Comment by Y_Y | Hacker News Reader

* doesn't (have to) mean "pointer"!

It works in simple cases, but I find the consistent thing to do is read it as "dereference".

    double volatile *(const immutable_pointer); 
    // immutable_pointer is immutable, when you dereference it you'll get a volatile double

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Yes, that's the philosophy around the declaration syntax.

The declaration of the pointer ip,

  int *ip;

is intended as a mnemonic; it says that the expression *ip is an int. The syntax of the declaration for a variable mimics the syntax of expressions in which the variable might appear. This reasoning applies to function declarations as well.

K&R C

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