Why do function pointer definitions work with any number of ampersands '&' or asterisks '*'?

user_862620 0
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Why do the following work?

void foo() {
    cout << "Foo to you too!\n";
};

int main() {
    void (*p1_foo)() = foo;
    void (*p2_foo)() = *foo;
    void (*p3_foo)() = &foo;
    void (*p4_foo)() = *&foo;
    void (*p5_foo)() = &*foo;
    void (*p6_foo)() = **foo;
    void (*p7_foo)() = **********************foo;

    (*p1_foo)();
    (*p2_foo)();
    (*p3_foo)();
    (*p4_foo)();
    (*p5_foo)();
    (*p6_foo)();
    (*p7_foo)();
}
function-pointers c c++
5 Answers

& and * are idempotent operations on a symbol declared as a function in C which means func == *func == &func == *&func and therefore *func == **func, but they have different types, so you'll get a warning.

The parameter type of a passed function address to a function can be int () or int (*)(), and it can be passed as *func, func or &func. Calling (&func)() is the same as func() or (*func)(). Godbolt link.

* and & have no meaning on a function symbol, and instead of producing an error, the compiler chooses to interpret it as the address of func in both cases. The function does not exist as a separate pointer, like an array symbol, therefore &arr is the same as arr, because it is not a physical pointer with an address at runtime, it's a logical pointer at compiler level. Furthermore *func would read the first byte of the function code, which is an a code section, and rather than produce a compiler error or allow it to be a runtime error segmentation fault, it's just interpreted by the compiler as the address of the function.

& on a symbol declared as a function pointer however will get the address of the pointer (because it is now an actual pointer variable that manifests on the stack or data section), whereas funcp and *funcp will still be interpreted to be the address of the function.

user_71947730

If you are still not very convinced with @JamesMcNellis's answer, here is a prove. This is the AST(abstract syntax tree) from Clang compiler. Abstract syntax tree is the internal representation of the program structure inside the compiler.

void func1() {};
void test() {
    func1();
    (*func1)();
    (&func1)();

    void(*func1ptr)(void) = func1;
    func1ptr();
    (*func1ptr)();
    //(&func1ptr)();//error since func1ptr is a variable, &func1ptr is its address which is not callable.
}

AST:

//func1();
|-CallExpr //call the pointer
| `-ImplicitCastExpr //implicitly convert func1 to pointer
|   `-DeclRefExpr //reference func1

//(*func1)();
|-CallExpr //call the pointer
| `-ImplicitCastExpr //implicitly convert the funtion to pointer
|   `-ParenExpr //parentheses
|     `-UnaryOperator //* operator get function from the pointer
|       `-ImplicitCastExpr //implicitly convert func1 to pointer
|         `-DeclRefExpr //reference func1

//(&func1)();
|-CallExpr //call the pointer
| `-ParenExpr //parentheses
|   `-UnaryOperator //& get pointer from func1
|     `-DeclRefExpr //reference func1

//void(*func1ptr)(void) = func1;
|-DeclStmt //define variable func1ptr
| `-VarDecl //define variable func1ptr
|   `-ImplicitCastExpr //implicitly convert func1 to pointer
|     `-DeclRefExpr  //reference func1

//func1ptr();
|-CallExpr  //call the pointer
| `-ImplicitCastExpr //implicitly convert func1ptr to pointer
|   `-DeclRefExpr //reference the variable func1ptr

//(*func1ptr)();
`-CallExpr //call the pointer 
  `-ImplicitCastExpr //implicitly convert the function to pointer
    `-ParenExpr //parentheses
      `-UnaryOperator //* get the function from the pointer
        `-ImplicitCastExpr //implicitly convert func1ptr to pointer
          `-DeclRefExpr //reference the variable func1ptr
user_44414770

When calling foo from a pointer, even the parentheses and the asterisk can be omitted, just as directly calling the function with its original name, i.e. (*p1_foo)() is equivalent to p1_foo().

user_163431910
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