This book makes a point of only putting one pointer definition on a line, and initializing each pointer at the point of definition whenever possible. Because of this, the formatting style of “attaching” the ‘*’ to the data type is possible:

as if int* were a discrete type unto itself. This makes the code easier to understand, but unfortunately that’s not actually the way things work. The ‘*’ in fact binds to the identifier, not the type. It can be placed anywhere between the type name and the identifier. So you could do this:

which creates an int* u, as before, and a non-pointer int v. Because readers often find this confusing, it is best to follow the form shown in this book.