DECLARATIONS AS STATEMENTS.

In a C++ program, a declaration can be placed wherever a statement can appear, which can be anywhere within a program block. Any initializations are done each time their declaration statement is executed. Suppose we are searching a linked list for a certain key:

int IsMember (const int key)
{
       int found = 0;
       if (NotEmpty())
       {
               List* ptr = head;
               // Declaration

               while (ptr && !found)
               {
                       int item = ptr->data;
                       // Declaration

                       ptr = ptr->next;
                      
                       if (item == key)
                               found = 1;
               }
       }
       return found;
}

By putting declarations closer to where the variables are used, you write more legible code.