Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!udel!gatech!hao!ames!umd5!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Pragmas
Message-ID: <7012@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 9 Jan 88 09:50:21 GMT
References: <17196@topaz.rutgers.edu> <6920@brl-smoke.ARPA> <14460@think.UUCP> <3313@ihlpf.ATT.COM> <10110@mimsy.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 14

In article <10110@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
>I think the two best arguments against noalias are 0) it is late
>to be adding keywords and 1) it does little for a good compiler.

0) I think the fact that "noalias" appeared as a keyword came as a
shock, which helps explain some of the initial reaction against it.
However, supposing that it really did address a serious need (which
is a matter of opinion), another type qualifier is clearly the best
way to add the capability.

1) To the contrary, I think "noalias" will always be ignored by a
poor compiler but will be exploited to the max by a good one.  It
allows use of vector instructions under some common circumstances,
for example.