</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="bk01pt10ch23s02.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="chapter" title="Chapter 23. Interacting with C"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a id="manual.numerics.c"></a>Chapter 23. Interacting with C</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table of Contents</b></p><dl><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="numerics_and_c.html#numerics.c.array">Numerics vs. Arrays</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="bk01pt10ch23s02.html">C99</a></span></dt></dl></div><div class="sect1" title="Numerics vs. Arrays"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="numerics.c.array"></a>Numerics vs. Arrays</h2></div></div></div><p>One of the major reasons why FORTRAN can chew through numbers so well
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is that it is defined to be free of pointer aliasing, an assumption
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that C89 is not allowed to make, and neither is C++98. C99 adds a new
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keyword, <code class="code">restrict</code>, to apply to individual pointers. The
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C++ solution is contained in the library rather than the language
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(although many vendors can be expected to add this to their compilers
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as an extension).
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</p><p>That library solution is a set of two classes, five template classes,
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and "a whole bunch" of functions. The classes are required
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to be free of pointer aliasing, so compilers can optimize the
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daylights out of them the same way that they have been for FORTRAN.
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They are collectively called <code class="code">valarray</code>, although strictly
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speaking this is only one of the five template classes, and they are
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designed to be familiar to people who have worked with the BLAS
