Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!lanl!lambda!jlg
From: jlg@lambda.UUCP (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: NOT Educating FORTRAN programmers to use C
Message-ID: <14213@lambda.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jan 90 22:48:02 GMT
References: <21403@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Lines: 13

From article <21403@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, by faustus@yew.Berkeley.EDU (Wayne Christopher):
> [... aliasing ...}                  Do FORTRAN compilers check these
> constraints?  If not, aren't they a great source of hard-to-find bugs,
> that go away when you turn off optimization?

No, many Fortran compilers don't check these things (although the cost would
be less than an array bounds check and many compilers _do_ check this - Oh
well).  And, YES, it is a source of hard-to-find bugs.  But aliasing itself
is a source of hard-to-find bugs!  I see more C code with these kinds of
errors than Fortran code.  C supports and encourages aliasing while it's
illegal in Fortran (and users quickly learn to avoid it).

J. Giles