函数指针和typedef

昨天在读一个SDK的sample，看到一句特别奇怪的用了typedef（C++ Primer P60）的语句。看了很久，查了资料才知道是做什么的。

	typedef void (*PFuncOnTouchGesture)(const TouchGesture & tg,void * call_object);

问了大神之后，给我发了wikipedia的链接，看了一下属于 Using typedef with function pointers这一种用法，就是给函数指针重新命名的意思吧。

函数指针(C++ Primer P221)的定义也不是很清楚，

函数指针指向的是函数而非对象。函数的类型，是由返回类型和形参类型共同决定的，要想定义一个指向特定类型的函数的函数指针，就用指针替换函数名即可。

看这一句语句，函数指针是 void (*PFuncOnTouchGesture)(const TouchGesture &tg,void *call_object); 就是指向一个返回类型为void，形参类型为const TouchGesture &tg,void *call_object的函数。

下面代码是没有使用typedef来定义函数指针的类型别名的情况：

int do_math(float arg1, int arg2) {
    return arg2;
}

int call_a_func(int (*call_this)(float, int)) {
    int output = call_this(5.5, 7);
    return output;
}

int final_result = call_a_func(&do_math);

This code can be rewritten with a typedef as follows:

typedef int (*MathFunc)(float, int);

int do_math(float arg1, int arg2) {
    return arg2;
}

int call_a_func(MathFunc call_this) {
    int output = call_this(5.5, 7);
    return output;
}

int final_result = call_a_func(&do_math);

Here, MathFunc is the new alias for the type. A MathFunc is a pointer to a function that returns an integer and takes as arguments a float followed by an integer.

When a function returns a function pointer, it can be even more confusing without typedef. The following is the function prototype of signal(3) from FreeBSD:

void (*signal(int sig, void (*func)(int)))(int);

The function declaration above is cryptic as it does not clearly show what the function accepts as arguments, or the type that it returns. A novice programmer may even assume that the function accepts a single int as its argument and returns nothing, but in reality it also needs a function pointer and returns another function pointer. It can be written more cleanly:

typedef void (*sighandler_t)(int);
sighandler_t signal(int sig, sighandler_t func);

再回到这里

typedef void (*PFuncOnTouchGesture)(const TouchGesture & tg,void * call_object);

PFuncOntouchGesture就是一个 指向某种特定类型的函数的指针的别名，实际就是一种类型的别名。这种类型代表了一类的指向函数的指针。有点绕来绕去了。