Reading function definitions in C

Question

I'm a Java dev, and for some reason I'm studying C at the moment. The thing is I'm having some trouble reading function definitions. Could you give me a hint with this one for instance:

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

Thanks guys!

Answer 1

You should learn the right-to-left rule. This page contains good examples.

signal is a function taking as arguments:

• an integer
• a pointer to function taking int and returning nothing

and returning a pointer to a funcction taking int and returning nothing.

Answer 2

An example of 'cdecl' in action. I think its available for Linux or source can be downloaded & built.

cdecl> explain char *(*fptab[])()
declare fptab as array of pointer to function returning pointer to char
cdecl>