Year: 1976
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: The presence of pointer variables in high level programming languages constitutes an artifact originally introduced to support the representation of recursive data structures. Programming practice has come to rely on pointer variables for their originally intended use, and for several others as well. Their use adds to the complexity of stating algorithms by forcing one to conceptualize data representations in which storage addressing is made manifest. In addition, the use of pointer variables allows one to refer to a common data object by a multiplicity of names, a phenomenon we call the alias variable problem, Alias variables make the verification of program behavior substanially more difficult, and frustrate the goals of modular decomposition.
Author: Richard B. Kieburtz
Institutions: State University of New York, Stony Brook University
Language: English
Subfield: Software
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2074136925