[TUHS] origins of void* -- Apology!

[ralph@inputplus.co.uk (Ralph Corderoy)]

Hi Bakul,

> void* serves a different purpose. It says this is an untyped pointer
> (or a ptr to an instance of any type) so no question of size being an
> issue.

In C, ignoring POSIX, a void pointer is big enough to hold any pointer
to data.  Pointers to data may be different sizes.  And a void pointer
can't hold a function pointer, but all function pointers are defined to
be the same size.  Thus `void (*)(void)' can be used as a generic
function pointer type and cast to other ones when needed.

> It shouldn't even have been "void*". I would've preferred _* and _
> instead of void* and void. Much more appropriate for a concise
> language like C!

That's awful.  Might as well say `return' occurs so often, it should
have been `@'.  :-)

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy