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Date:   Mon, 3 Sep 2018 15:38:04 -0600
From:   Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
To:     Heinrich Schuchardt <xypron.glpk@gmx.de>
Cc:     linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/1] docs: kernel-doc: fix parsing of function pointers
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On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 22:29:00 +0200
Heinrich Schuchardt <xypron.glpk@gmx.de> wrote:

> >>  	    # pointer-to-function
> >>  	    $arg =~ tr/#/,/;
> >> -	    $arg =~ m/[^\(]+\(\*?\s*([\w\.]*)\s*\)/;  
> 
> m/[^\(]+\(\*?\s*([\w\.]*)\s*\)/;
>            ^
> Here we allow for 0..1 asterixes.
> 
> If there is no asterix it is not a function pointer. Why should we care
> for this case?

GCC seems to allow that asterisk (asterix is an indomitable Gaul :) to be
missing; not sure if that's officially allowed by the language or not.  I
also don't know if any code in the kernel elides it, but *somebody* at
some point made it optional, presumably with some reason.  It would be
instructive to take out that "?" and see what changes happen in a docs
build; I'll try to find a moment to do that.

jon