dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) (04/20/88)
I have been watching the warm (i.e. heated) discussion regarding
the noalias / volatile debates, however before I throw in my $0.02 worth
could someone explain what noalias does. I gather that volatile tells
the compiler that a variable can be modified asynchronously (e.g. in
an interrupt handler routine, or the variable is in fact an I/O
port), which depending on your point of view (religion, choice of
text editor :-) may or may not be a good thing. So what does noalias
do?
(So go on - Flame me for my ignorance, I want to test our new fire
extinguisher system :-) :-)
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dg@lakart.UUCP - David Goodenough +---+
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+---+eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) (04/23/88)
In article <56@lakart.UUCP>, dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) writes: > however before I throw in my $0.02 worth >could someone explain what noalias does. One of the major problems with 'noalias' is that, beyond your rather general idea of what it's for, it seems no two mortals have every succeeded in agreeing on exactly what it implies. The level of complexity and ill-definedness of the issues 'noalias' attempts to address is sufficient to confuse even wizard-level systems programmers and compiler jocks...yea, even unto the elect ranks of ANSI committee members. Those of us arguing against the committee's latter attempts to turn a potentially useful standard into an exercise in compiler theology maintain that this confusion is in itself sufficient reason to reject 'noalias'. -- Eric S. Raymond (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews) UUCP: {{uunet,rutgers,ihnp4}!cbmvax,rutgers!vu-vlsi,att}!snark!eric Post: 22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718
gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (04/25/88)
In article <56@lakart.UUCP> dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) writes: >So what does noalias do? Nothing. It has been removed from the proposed standard. Let's please save net bandwidth by dropping any further "noalias" discussion.
sarima@gryphon.CTS.COM (Stan Friesen) (04/25/88)
In article <226fc1d7:9492@snark.UUCP> eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) writes: > >One of the major problems with 'noalias' is that, beyond your rather general >idea of what it's for, it seems no two mortals have every succeeded in agreeing >on exactly what it implies. > Yeah, I just finished reading the relevant portions of the Draft Standard, and I STILL don't know what it means! And I thought I could read any piece of legalese ever written! HELP, I need a translator. -- Sarima Carandolandion sarima@gryphon.CTS.COM aka Stanley Friesen rutgers!marque!gryphon!sarima Sherman Oaks, CA
mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (04/25/88)
>In article <56@lakart.UUCP> dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) writes: >>So what does noalias do? >Nothing. It has been removed from the proposed standard. >Let's please save net bandwidth by dropping any further "noalias" >discussion. Wow!