Re: [RFC] bloody mess with __attribute__() syntax

[Al Viro <viro@ftp.linux.org.uk>]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2007 at 08:36:35AM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> Wow.  Insane.  So these all declare the same type:
> __attribute__((foo)) T *v;
> T __attribute__((foo)) *v;
> T *__attribute__((foo)) v;
> ?  Specifically, they point to a foo-T, for convenient shooting?

They all give you foo-pointer-to-T.  
	T (__attribute__((foo)) *v);
would give pointer-to-foo-T.

> context also represents a qualifier; the position of the qualifier should
> determine things like whether you want to enforce the context when you access
> a pointer or dereference a pointer.

Since __context__ is (sparse-only) keyword, we are not constrained by
anything anyway.
 
> > Frankly, I would rather add a new primitive (__qualifier__) mirroring the
> > __attribute__, but acting like real qualifiers do.  And switched the
> > noderef et.al. to it.
> 
> Something like that sounds vaguely reasonable.  It should allow the same set
> of attributes, and just change what they apply to.  To use your example,
> T __qualifier__((foo)) *v;
> and
> T (__attribute__((foo)) *v);
> would mean the same thing.

Yup, except that it would not accept storage-class-like attributes (e.g.
always_inline).  And yes, __qualifier__((context(...))) probably might
be a replacement for __context__, to reduce the number of primitives.