One of the new features in the recently approved C standard C99, is the restrict pointer qualifier. This qualifier can be applied to a data pointer to indicate that, during the scope of that pointer declaration, all data accessed through it will be accessed only through that pointer but not through any other pointer. The 'restrict' keyword thus enables the compiler to perform certain optimizations based on the premise that a given object cannot be changed through another pointer. Now you're probably asking yourself, "doesn't const already guarantee that?" No, it doesn't. The qualifier const ensures that a variable cannot be changed through a particular pointer. However, it's still possible to change the variable through a different pointer. For example:
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);
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