Alternatives to C++ Reference/Pointer Syntax

Question

What languages other than C and C++ have explicit reference and pointer type qualifiers? People seem to be easily confused by the right-to-left reading order of types, where char*& is "a reference to a pointer to a character", or a "character-pointer reference"; do any languages with explicit references make use of a left-to-right reading order, such as &*char/ref ptr char? I'm working on a little language project, and legibility is one of my key concerns.

It seems to me that this is one of those questions to which it's easy for a person but hard for a search engine to provide an answer. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Stroustrup is on record as saying the declaration syntax is "an experiment that failed". Unfortunately, C++ has to go along with it for C compatibility. The original idea was that a declaration looked like a use, for example:

char * p;  // declare
* p;       // use (dereference)

but this quickly falls apart for more complex declarations. Many people (at least many Pascal programmers) prefer the syntax:

variable : type;

where type is something like:

array of char

which is about as readable as you are going to get, and is left-to-right.

Answer 2

Pascal enforces aliasing of types. You cannot declare:

myvar: ref to array of struct{..pointer to char.}

You have to declare each step in the chain separately in the TYPE block.

Improves readability (if you don't mind some scrolling up and down), probably provides easier parsing, too.

Answer 3

In contrast, the approach of Perl 5 is read left-to-right when dereferencing:

$i = 10;  # Scalar
say $i;

$j = \$i;  # Scalar reference
say $$j;

@a = (1, 2, 3);  # Array
$b = \@a;  # Array reference
say $a[0];
say $$b[0];  # prints same thing

But, unlike C/C++, the sigil used against the variable name determines the type that will be read (scalar vs. array vs. hash)

say "Array size: " . scalar(@a);
say "Array size: " . scalar($@b);  # dereference with $, access as @ (array)

Answer 4

I think this is defunct but it might be of use to you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significantly_Prettier_and_Easier_C%2B%2B_Syntax