In article <10136 at pt.cs.cmu.edu> hjelm at g.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Mark Hjelm) writes: -What is the correct parse of: - int *const *volatile a; -a is a volatile pointer to a const pointer to an int or -a is a const pointer to a volatile pointer to an int? The former. C declaration style is "contextual", so that whatever is closest to the identifier happens first.