function returning pointer to itself

[Scott M. King]

In article <664 at goofy.megatest.UUCP> djones at megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones) writes:
>From article <7725 at watdragon.waterloo.edu), by smking at lion.waterloo.edu (Scott M. King): (me)
>) In article <5485 at batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu) olson at tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (olson) writes:
>))Does the new C standard have a natural way to declare a
>))function that returns a pointer to itself
>)
>) void *(*
>) main() )()
>) {
>) 	return main;
>) }
>) 
>) Ugly eh???
>
>Ugly? Yes. Correct?  No.  Don't feel too bad, though.

Oh, don't worry, I don't feel too bad. My declaration *is* correct.
It declares a function returning a pointer to
			a function returning a generic pointer.
However, you could just as easily have any number of levels of indirection
in such a declaration. Ie, the function could be declared as
	a function returning a pointer to
	a function returning a pointer to
	...	(any number of times)
	a function returning a generic pointer (void *)
as in
void *(*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*main())())())())())())())())();

Or, the function could similarly be declared as

	void *
main();

since you can quite easily convert any pointer to a void * and back without
loss of information.
--

Scott M. King