Difference between int* p() and int (*p)()?

A pointer is a variable whose value is the address of another variable, i.e., direct address of the memory location. Like any variable or constant, a pointer must be declare before storing any variable address. The general form of a pointer variable declaration is:

Syntax:

type *var_name;

Here, type is the pointers base type. It must be a valid C/C++ data type and var-name is the name of the pointer variable. The asterisk * is being used to designate a variable as a pointer. Following are the valid pointer declaration for their respective data type:

int *ip;
float *fp;
double *dp;
char *cp;

In this article, the focus is to differentiate int* p() and int (*p)().

int* p(): Here "p" is a function that has no arguments and returns an integer pointer.

int* p()
returntype function_name (arguments)

Below is the program to illustrate the use of int* p():

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int (*p)(): Here "p" is a function pointer which can store the address of a function taking no arguments and returning an integer. *p is the function and 'p' is a pointer.

Below is the program to illustrate the use of int (*p)():

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