restrict qualification

If we have two pointer arguments of the same type, the compiler can’t make any assumption and will always have to assume that the change to *e may change *f:

void fun(float* e, float* f) {
    float a = *f
    *e = 22;
    float b = *f;
    print("is %g equal to %g?\n", a, b);
}

float fval = 4;
float eval = 77;
 fun(&eval, &fval);

all goes well and something like

is 4 equal to 4?

is printed. If we pass the same pointer, the program will still do the right thing and print

is 4 equal to 22?

This can turn out to be inefficient, if we know by some outside information that e and f will never point to the same data object. We can reflect that knowledge by adding restrict qualifiers to the pointer parameters:

void fan(float*restrict e, float*restrict f) {
    float a = *f
    *e = 22;
    float b = *f;
    print("is %g equal to %g?\n", a, b);
}

Then the compiler may always suppose that e and f point to different objects.