The Clockwise/Spiral Rule

This paper was posted to comp.lang.c by its author, David Anderson, on 1994-05-06.

The Clockwise/Spiral Rule

By David Anderson

There is a technique known as the “Clockwise/Spiral” which enables any C programmer to parse in their head any C declaration!

There are three simple steps to follow:

1. Starting with the unknown element, move in a spiral/clockwise direction; when ecountering the following elements replace them with the corresponding english statements:

   [X] or [] 
          => Array X size of... or Array undefined size of...
   (type1, type2)
          => function passing type1 and type2 returning...
   *
          => pointer(s) to...      

2. Keep doing this in a spiral/clockwise direction until all tokens have been covered.
3. Always resolve anything in parenthesis first!

Example #1: Simple direction

                     +-------+
                     | +-+   |
                     | ^ |   |
                char *str[10];
                 ^   ^   |   |
                 |   +---+   |
                 +-----------+

Question we ask ourselves: What is str?

“str is an…

• We move in a spiral clockwise direction starting with ‘str’ and the first character we see is a ‘[’ so, that means we have an array, so…

  “str is an array 10 of…

• Continue in a spiral clockwise direction, and the next thing we encounter is the ‘*’ so, that means we have pointers, so…

  “str is an array 10 of pointers to…

• Continue in a spiral direction and we see the end of the line (the ‘;’), so keep going and we get to the type ‘char’, so…

  “str is an array 10 of pointers to char”

We have now “visited” every token; therefore we are done!

Example #2: Pointer to Function declaration

                     +--------------------+
                     | +---+              |
                     | |+-+|              |
                     | |^ ||              |
                char *(*fp)( int, float *);
                 ^   ^ ^  ||              |
                 |   | +--+|              |
                 |   +-----+              |
                 +------------------------+

Question we ask ourselves: What is fp?

“fp is a…

• Moving in a spiral clockwise direction, the first thing we see is a ‘)’; therefore, fp is inside parenthesis, so we continue the spiral inside the parenthesis and the next character seen is the ‘*’, so…

  “fp is a pointer to…

• We are now out of the parenthesis and continuing in a spiral clockwise direction, we see the ‘(‘; therefore, we have a function, so…

  “fp is a pointer to a function passing an int and a pointer to float returning…

• Continuing in a spiral fashion, we then see the ‘*’ character, so…

  “fp is a pointer to a function passing an int and a pointer to float returning a pointer to…

• Continuing in a spiral fashion we see the ‘;’, but we haven’t visited all tokens, so we continue and finally get to the type ‘char’, so…

  “fp is a pointer to a function passing an int and a pointer to float returning a pointer to a char”

Example #3: The “Ultimate”

                      +-----------------------------+
                      |                  +---+      |
                      |  +---+           |+-+|      |
                      |  ^   |           |^ ||      |
                void (*signal(int, void (*fp)(int)))(int);
                 ^    ^      |      ^    ^  ||      |
                 |    +------+      |    +--+|      |
                 |                  +--------+      |
                 +----------------------------------+

Question we ask ourselves: What is ‘signal’?

Notice that signal is inside parenthesis, so we must resolve this first!

• Moving in a clockwise direction we see ‘(’ so we have…

  “signal is a function passing an int and a…

• Hmmm, we can use this same rule on ‘fp’, so… What is fp? fp is also inside parenthesis so continuing we see an ‘*’, so…

  fp is a pointer to…

• Continue in a spiral clockwise direction and we get to ‘(‘, so…

  “fp is a pointer to a function passing int returning…”

• Now we continue out of the function parenthesis and we see void, so…

  “fp is a pointer to a function passing int returning nothing (void)”

• We have finished with fp so let’s catch up with ‘signal’, we now have…

  “signal is a function passing an int and a pointer to a function passing an int returning nothing (void) returning…

• We are still inside parenthesis so the next character seen is a ‘*’, so…

  “signal is a function passing an int and a pointer to a function passing an int returning nothing (void) returning a pointer to…

• We have now resolved the items within parenthesis, so continuing clockwise, we then see another ‘(‘, so…

  “signal is a function passing an int and a pointer to a function passing an int returning nothing (void) returning a pointer to a function passing an int returning…

• Finally we continue and the only thing left is the word ‘void’, so the final complete definition for signal is:

  “signal is a function passing an int and a pointer to a function passing an int returning nothing (void) returning a pointer to a function passing an int returning nothing (void)”

The same rule is applied for const and volatile. For Example:

const char *chptr;

Now, what is chptr??

“chptr is a pointer to a char constant”

How about this one:

char * const chptr;

Now, what is chptr??

“chptr is a constant pointer to char”

Finally:

volatile char * const chptr;

Now, what is chptr??

“chptr is a constant pointer to a char volatile.”

Practice this rule with the examples found in K&R II on page 122.

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Copyright © 1993,1994 David Anderson

This article may be freely distributed as long as the author’s name and this notice are retained.