Specifiers

This section explains the decl-specifiers portion of declarations. (The syntax for declarations is given at the beginning of this chapter.)

Syntax

decl-specifiers :

decl-specifiers_opt decl-specifier

decl-specifier :

storage-class-specifier
type-specifier
fct-specifier
friend
typedef
__declspec ( extended-decl-modifier-seq )

The Microsoft-specific keyword, __declspec, is discussed in Extended Attribute Syntax in Appendix B.

The decl-specifiers portion of a declaration is the longest sequence of decl-specifiers that can be construed to be a type name. The remainder of the declaration is the name or names introduced. The examples in the following list illustrates this concept:

Declaration	*decl-specifiers*	*name*
`char *lpszAppName;`	`char *`	`lpszAppName`
`typedef char * LPSTR;`	`char *`	`LPSTR`
`LPSTR strcpy( LPSTR, LPSTR );`	`LPSTR`	`strcpy`
`volatile void *pvvObj;`	`volatile void *`	`pvvObj`

Because signed, unsigned, long, and short all imply int, a typedef name following one of these keywords is taken to be a member of declarator-list, not of decl-specifiers.

Note Because a name can be redeclared, its interpretation is subject to the most recent declaration in the current scope. Redeclaration can affect how names are interpreted by the compiler, particularly typedef names.