C uses "&" for the address-operator because 'ampersand sounds like "address"'

Re:C uses "&" for the address-operator because 'ampersand so... by fanf2 on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @09:24AM (#37831757)

The prefix * in C comes from prefix ! in BCPL. C’s weird a[b] == b[a] is also a hidden BCPLism.

BCPL has infix ! as well as prefix ! so you write an array index expression like array!index instead of array[index]. Infix ! is commutative like addition and [] in C.

You declare structures in BCPL by defining a constant for the offset of each member, so you can write object!MEMBER somewhat like C object->member. The semantics of -> in early C were very similar to BCPL infix ! except that members had types as well as offsets, but like BCPL there was nothing to tie a particular member to a particular structure as there is in modern C.

There’s a certain elegance to BCPL’s syntax that you don’t get from prefix-only or postfix-only indirection operators. C might have been better if it had stuck closer to BCPL in this respect, but sadly * conflicts with infix multiplication.

Some readers might also have used BCPL-style syntax for WIMP programming in BBC BASIC on RISC OS.

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Re:C uses "&" for the address-operator because 'ampersand so... by teo_zero on Wednesday October 11, 2023 @01:19AM (#37841173)

> sadly * conflicts with infix multiplication.

I don't think it does. There's no ambiguity in parsing any expression that uses it in both se se.

It does conflict with division, though, because /* starts a comment!

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