Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:10066 comp.std.c:7
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.std.c
Subject: Re: Noalias trivia question
Summary: My opinion on the Darnell syntax
Message-ID: <3946@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: 12 May 88 05:05:46 GMT
References: <56@lakart.UUCP> <1164@maccs.UUCP> <270@sdrc.UUCP> <871@sun.mcs.clarkson.edu> <7832@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Followup-To: comp.std.c
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 18

In article <7832@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) ) writes:
>[If you need noalias-style optimizations for vectorization]
>You should discuss this with your compiler vendor.  First ask for good
>global data access analysis (although it's unlikely that you'll get it),
>then ask for a compiler flag for special treatment of [] parameters, then
>ask for a __keyword.

Please, let's not have "int a[]" mean "int * noalias a" in formal parameters,
even as a non-conforming extension.  Logically, what that declaration should
mean is "array of int", with the whole array passed by value%.  Ask your
vendor for a magic keyword, a pragma, a new flavor of assert(), or whatever,
but let's reserve array notation for what it should have meant in the first
place.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint
Followups to comp.std.c.
________
% Although to be meaningful, it would need an explicit size.