void functions certainly were much more widely used before void *, but void
* worked on all the compilers I ever used. I'm a relative newcomer, though,
since the first C compiler I used was on a VAX running 4.2BSD...

Warner

On Sun, Nov 5, 2017 at 6:20 AM, Ron Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:

> Yes.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but I recall functions returning void came
> before void*.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Nov 5, 2017, at 5:06 AM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> >
> > Paul Ruizendaal <pnr at planet.nl> wrote:
> >
> >> I’m trying to understand the origins of void pointers in C. I think
> >> they first appeared formally in the C89 spec, but may have existed in
> >> earlier compilers.
> >
> > void was added after the publication of the first edition of K&R, in
> > the V7 time frame. The 4.x compilers had support for void pointers and
> > functions returning void. Also added around the same time was structure
> > assignment and the ability to pass and return structs by value (although
> > this was little used).
> >
> >> In the 4BSD era there was caddr_t, which I think was used for pretty
> >> much the same purposes.
> >
> > Only for kernel code. I am pretty sure caddr_t wasn't used in user-land
> code.
> >
> > HTH,
> >
> > Arnold
>
>
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