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From: Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Preprocessor Overheads
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2017 15:56:27 -0800
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supercat@casperkitty.com writes:
[...]
> The purpose of a "void*" is to be a "pointer to any type".

Do you have a citation for that assertion?

The purpose of void* is to permit a round-trip *conversion* from
foo* to void* and back to yield the original pointer value, for an
object type foo.

That's why assigning a foo* to a void* (or any equivalent operation:
argument passing, initialization, return) *converts* the foo* value to
void*.  That code that implements that conversion may or may not be
trivial.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc.
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"