[jamessu]

His point was that you aren't interpreting the `const' the same way the compiler does.

To the compiler, this:

    const int *a;
    a = NULL; // perfectly OK
    *a = 0;   // does not compile

Is a pointer to a constant int, not a constant pointer to an int.

You're probably confusing it with this:

    int *const a;
    a = NULL; // does not compile
    *a = 0;   // perfectly OK

Which is a constant pointer to a regular int.

Of course you can combine both as follows:

    const int *const a;
    a = NULL; // does not compile
    *a = 0;   // does not compile

Which is a constant pointer to a constant int (which, of course, makes no sense at all in this case since 'a' is uninitialized and cannot be initialized without an unsafe cast, but it's a perfectly valid statement in C).

[Terribledactyl]

I think we're in violent disagreement. I fully understand what my code did, but people I've worked with and gone to school have been tripped up by statements like these. Stuff like this is all over exams.

[jamessu]

I agree that we disagree. Your comment elsewhere:

> It's all about the underhanded trick(s) with the pointers, yours will never compile. I'm forcing clang to do horrible things.

Indicates, to me, that you see this as a strange behaviour that you're forcing the compiler into when in fact this is exactly the intended (and expected) semantics of const.