分类: C/C++
2008-10-24 20:38:53
void f (const int* pci, int *pi;); // is *pci immutable?
{
(*pi)+=1; // not necessarily: n is incremented by 1
*pi = (*pci) + 2; // n is incremented by 2
}
int n;
f( &n, &n);
In this example, both pci and pi point to the same variable, n. You can't change n's value through pci but you can change it using pi. Therefore, the compiler isn't allowed to optimize memory access for *pci by preloading n's value. In this example, the compiler indeed shouldn't preload n because its value changes three times during the execution of f(). However, there are situations in which a variable is accessed only through a single pointer. For example:
FILE *fopen(const char * filename, const char * mode);
The name of the file and its open mode are accessed through unique pointers in fopen(). Therefore, it's possible to preload the values to which the pointers are bound. Indeed, the C99 standard revised the prototype of the function fopen() to the following:
/* new declaration of fopen() in */
FILE *fopen(const char * restrict filename,
const char * restrict mode);
Similar changes were applied to the entire standard C library: printf(), strcpy() and many other functions now take restrict pointers:
int printf(const char * restrict format, ...);
char *strcpy(char * restrict s1, const char * restrict s2);
C++ doesn't support restrict yet. However, since many C++ compilers are also C compilers, it's likely that this feature will be added to most C++ compilers too.
www.devx.com/tips/Tip/13825