Curious GCC error messages

I'm curious as to the error messages issued from the following function declarations:

Code:

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int return_array() [];

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Code:

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int return_array() ();

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Quote:

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error: `return_array' declared as function returning an array

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Quote:

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error: `return_array' declared as function returning a function

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I wouldn't ever think the compiler would check for the return type of a function after parameter list.

It probably has an internal function, determine_token_type(), which parses "int array[10]" as well as "int function() [10]".

[edit] As well, Java allows returning arrays, so perhaps they wrote it with other languages in mind. [/edit]