GNU Objective-C supports the @encode syntax that allows you to
create a type encoding from a C/Objective-C type. For example,
@encode(int) is compiled by the compiler into "i".
@encode does not support type qualifiers other than
const. For example, @encode(const char*) is valid and
is compiled into "r*", while @encode(bycopy char *) is
invalid and will cause a compilation error.