Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: some objections to 'noalias'
Message-ID: <6909@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 5 Jan 88 21:48:17 GMT
References: <485@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 13

In article <485@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
-If the FORTRAN committee have not found a need to introduce a 'noalias'
-mechanism into that language (aliasing is quite possible in FORTRAN),
-what makes C so special?

Pointers!

-Why not simply say that the compiler is entitled to assume 'noalias'
-for everything, and that if the programmer wants unsafe aliases s/he
-should declare the variables in question to be 'volatile'?

The existing (K&R) C language does not permit the "noalias" property
(i.e. hyperoptimization) to be the default.