Why is the C++ variable declaration syntax inconsistent?

Question

when I declare C++ variables, I do it like this:

int a,b,c,d;

or

string strA,strB,strC,strD;

I.e., first the type then a comma separated list of variable names.

However, I declare pointers like this:

int *a,*b,*c,*d;

and references like this:

int &a,&b,&c,&d;

To be consistent it should be

int* a,b,c,d;

and

int& a,b,c,d;

Why is it not consistent?

Answer 1

The best answer I've seen as to why things like * apply to variables and not to types is the idea that declaration should follow use.

Basically, how you declare a variable should look similar to how you use a variable.

For example,

int *a, b;
...
*a = 42;
b = 314159;

...the use of a and b looks similar to the declaration of a and b.

There's even a citation for this behavior from Dennis Ritchie, one of the creators of C:

Analogical reasoning led to a declaration syntax for names mirroring that of the expression syntax in which the names typically appear...In all these cases the declaration of a variable resembles its usage in an expression whose type is the one named at the head of the declaration.

• Dennis Ritchie, The Development of the C Language. History of Programming Languages-II ed. Thomas J. Bergin, Jr. and Richard G. Gibson, Jr. ACM Press (New York) and Addison-Wesley (Reading, Mass), 1996; ISBN 0-201-89502-1.