What is this strange alias syntax?

[Stewart Gordon]

On 22/05/2011 16:20, Timon Gehr wrote:
> Andrej Mitrovic wrote:
>> Should I file a bug report to kill this syntax?
>
> No. It is perfectly valid, see grammar:
> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/declaration.html

Grammar states only that it's syntactically valid, and makes no comment on semantic validity.

I suspect what Andrej actually meant is to kill treating function signatures as types in 
this way.  And possibly "enhancement request" rather than "bug".

> What is strange about this syntax in particular?
>
> int i; //declares i of type "int"
> alias int i; //defines i as type "int"
>
> int func(int); //declares func of type "function that takes int and returns int"

True, if you use "type" in a broad sense.  But it doesn't declare a variable of that type, 
and you can't use it as a type as such.  Really, function signatures and data types are 
distinct entities and ought not to be interchangeable.

> alias int func(int); //defines func as type "function that takes int and returns int"
>
> It is perfectly consistent with other uses of alias.
<snip>

I wouldn't say consistent.  The essence of an alias is that you can use it where you would 
use what it's an alias of.  But in that case, you should be able to do:

alias int func();

func main {
     return 0;
}

Stewart.