How to express the fact that arguments don't escape?

[N.M. Maclaren]

On Aug 15 2009, Richard Guenther wrote:
> 
> It's of course one area where the Fortran choice of passing everything by
> reference pessimizes it quite a bit compared to other frontends ...

Can the back-end distinguish traditional call by reference (as in Algol 60
and 68) from call by pointer value (and in C and C++)?  The former does
not have the same pessimisation problem, and is actually what Fortran needs
for 'ordinary' objects.

The difference could be useful for the C++ STL and possibly Ada, but I have
forgotten the little of the latter that I once knew and so am not sure.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email:  nmm1@cam.ac.uk
Tel.:  +44 1223 334761    Fax:  +44 1223 334679