I looked at how va_end() was implemented in Microsoft Visual Studio and this is how it is defined:

#define va_end(ap) ap = (va_list)0

As you can see, it’s actually a macro function that just sets the ap parameter to 0. So, at least with Microsoft Visual Studio, there’s no real practical effect of calling va_end(), outside of maybe NULLing your list in case you inadvertently try to use it again without calling va_start().

In your example, you’d have to pass list into va_end(), but va_start() should cause the list to start at the beginning of the ellipses again — so yes, nX would be the first element of the ellipses.

Interesting. Could you elaborate on what is meant by:

“Finally, to clean up when we are done, we call va_end(), with va_list as the parameter.” ??

What does va_end() actually do, does it just reset the pointer into the list to the default value? (Wouldn’t that be the same as resetting the pointer va_list to 0? Or, is there more to it?) What is the practical effect of calling va_end()? If we reference the list pointed to by va_list after calling va_end(), do we just get the first element in the ellipses again?

For example:

va_end();
va_start(list, nCount);
int nX = va_arg(list, int);

Would that set nX equal to the first element of the ellipses?