Meaning of asterisk in these examples

Question

what is the meaning of the asterisk after a variable, for example here in the function _tempnam ? :

_CRTIMP char* __cdecl __MINGW_NOTHROW _tempnam (const char*, const char*);

I always see this in function arguments.

Are you aware of the concept of pointers containing the address of variables of an existing type? If not the answers will probably boil down to "read that up". If yes I do not really understand what your question is. — Yunnosch, Jan 06 '21 at 16:32
It's perhaps just a subtle linguistic point, but that is not an 'asterisk after a variable'. It is an 'asterisk after a type'. In a variable definition such as `char *a, *b;` you would say that the asterisk precedes the variable name. — William Pursell, Jan 06 '21 at 16:38
This is most basic C knowledge. I'm not sure if this is the right place for asking this. — Jabberwocky, Jan 06 '21 at 16:39
This is suspiciously similar to the very recent question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65598191/what-is-the-meaning-of-asterisk-parameter-on-stdcall-function — Eugene Sh., Jan 06 '21 at 16:40
@EugeneSh. well, at least this is tagged with correct language... — Antti Haapala -- Слава Україні, Jan 06 '21 at 16:41

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 06 '21 at 16:36

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These are pointers, a central C concept you should know about if you want to use this language. Some informations here.

answered Jan 06 '21 at 16:36

limserhane

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Clear, short, true and still kind and via appropriate link helpful. I failed to think of an answer like this. Good work. – Yunnosch Jan 06 '21 at 16:40

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 06 '21 at 16:36

_tempnam is a function.
That function takes two parameters.

The first parameter is a pointer to a char.
Any char referenced by that pointer cannot be written-to (it is const).

The second parameter is a pointer to a char.
Any char referenced by that pointer cannot be written-to (it is const).

The return value of the function is a pointer to char.

The rest of the declaration suggests that the function is a C-Runtime-Implementation (CRTIMP), called using the C-calling convention, and does not throw any exceptions.

Meaning of asterisk in these examples

2 Answers2