Martin suggested we update the Coding Conventions to describe the expected style for function declarations with a pointer return types, and for overloaded operators. Below is the patch.
As an aside, regarding the space convention in casts: a crude grep search yields about 10,000 instances of the "(type)x" kinds of casts in GCC sources and 40,000 of the preferred "(type) x" style with the space. That's a consistency of only 80%. Is it worth documenting a preference for a convention that's so inconsistently followed? Martin Index: htdocs/codingconventions.html =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/codingconventions.html,v retrieving revision 1.85 diff -u -r1.85 codingconventions.html --- htdocs/codingconventions.html 30 Sep 2018 14:38:46 -0000 1.85 +++ htdocs/codingconventions.html 26 Nov 2018 17:59:21 -0000 @@ -803,12 +803,17 @@ <td><code>- x</code></td> </tr><tr> <td class="left">cast</td> - <td class="right"><code>(foo) x</code></td> - <td><code>(foo)x</code></td> + <td class="right"><code>(type) x</code></td> + <td><code>(type)x</code></td> </tr><tr> - <td class="left">pointer dereference</td> - <td class="right"><code>*x</code></td> - <td><code>* x</code></td> + <td class="left">pointer cast</td> + <td class="right"><code>(type *) x</code></td> + <td><code>(type*)x</code></td> +</tr> +</tr><tr> + <td class="left">pointer return type</td> + <td class="right"><code>type *f (void)</code></td> + <td><code>type* f (void)</code></td> </tr> </table> @@ -992,6 +997,21 @@ <a href="codingrationale.html#overoper">Rationale and Discussion</a> </p> +<p> +Note: in declarations of operator functions or in invocations of +such functions that involve the keyword <code>operator</code> +the full name of the operator should be considered as including +the keyword with no spaces in between the keyowrd and the operator +token. Thus, the expected format of a declaration of an operator +is<pre> + T &operator== (const T & const T &); +</pre> +and not for example<pre> + T &operator == (const T & const T &); +</pre> +(with the space between <code>operator</code> and <code>==</code>). +</p> + <h4 id="Default">Default Arguments</h4>