What is wrong with the following piece of code (at compile-time)?

int a(int p);
int b(float p);

int (*which_funct(s))()
char *s;
{
  if (!stricmp(s,"A"))
    return(a);
  if (!stricmp(s,"B"))
    return(b);

cc (on a Sun) doesn't complain at all. Neither does VAX-11 C. gcc
however gives an error about the last line (line 10) - incompatible
types. I've been told that it is because I didn't specify (in the
definition of which_funct()) what type of argument the function to
which I'm trying to return a pointer takes. But, what if I want to
return functions which take different arguments, like in the above
example? I want which_funct() to return a pointer to either function
A, which takes an int, or function B, which takes a float. What should

Mike Levin

Because int (*)() (the return type) matches neither int (*)(int) (the
type of a) or int (*)(float) (the type of b).

It may be that gcc complains about b and not a because the argument
type doesn't match what would occur in the presence of default
promotions for an old-style argument list for b, but this isn't the
case for a.

Cast them.  return((int (*)())a) and return((int (*)())b) should work
just fine.

Of course, you must cast the returned pointer back to the correct type
before actually calling through it.

                                        der Mouse