Re: type qualifiers on function return types?

["Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com>]

On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Steve Graegert wrote:

> On 12/8/05, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >
> >   i was just handed a pile of source code that, upon first build,
> > complains thusly:
> >
> > header.h:20: warning: type qualifiers ignored on function return type
> > header.h:22: warning: type qualifiers ignored on function return type
> >
> >   at those lines, we read:
> >
> >   typedef struct blah {
> >     volatile void           (**start_address)(void);    <--
> >     volatile char*          stack;
> >     volatile void           (**manual_start_address)(void); <--
> >     ...
> >
> > which seems to explain the warnings since i never thought you
> > could add type qualifiers to function return types.  or is there
> > something incredibly clever happening here that i've never seen
> > before?  just wondering why someone would have coded it that way
> > in the first place.
>
> Since functions can only return rvalues and the type qualifiers
> apply only to lvalues, it is meaningless and therefore ignored.

that's what i thought but, since i'm still working on the intricacies
of the language, whenever i come across something that mysterious, i
always assume it's just some idiomatic cleverness i've never seen
before.

of course, after that, i finally figure out it was just bad
programming.  :-(

rday

p.s.  i'm not *trying* to ask dumb questions.  i am merely succeeding.