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From: Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++
Subject: New and improved version of cdecl
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:39:43 -0700
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This is cross-posted to comp.lang.c and comp.lang.c++.
Consider redirecting followups as appropriate. 

cdecl, along with c++decl, is a tool that translates C or C++
declaration syntax into English, and vice versa.  For example :

    $ cdecl
    Type `help' or `?' for help
    cdecl> explain const char *foo[42]
    declare foo as array 42 of pointer to const char
    cdecl> declare bar as pointer to function (void) returning int
    int (*bar)(void )

It's also available via the web site <https://cdecl.org/>.

The original version of cdecl was posted on comp.sources.unix, probably
in the 1980s.

"ridiculous_fish" added support for Apple's blocks syntax.  That
version, 2.5, is the one that's most widely available (it's provided by
the "cdecl" package on Debian and Ubuntu) and used by the cdecl.org
website.

There's a newer fork of cdecl, available in source code at

https://github.com/paul-j-lucas/cdecl/

It supports newer versions of C and C++ and adds a number of
new features.  See the README.md file, visible at the above URL,
for more information.  (It doesn't support Apple's block syntax.)

There doesn't seem to be a binary distribution, but the latest
source tarball is at

https://github.com/paul-j-lucas/cdecl/releases/download/cdecl-18.5/cdecl-18.5.tar.gz

It can be built on Unix-like systems with the usual "./configure;
make; make install" sequence.  To build from a copy of the git repo,
run "./bootstrap" first to generate the "configure" script.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */