The authors deal with the problem of detecting pointer aliases in parallel or vectorized language compilers. Rather than tackling the problem in general, they use Pascal and Fortran 90. Aliases pose a problem in any language, and moving to the parallel and vectorization languages makes the problem more complex.

The paper describes the problem in general and then tackles it in the Pascal case. Pointers in Pascal are more restricted than in a language such as C. First, an algorithm that produces a general analysis is described, then linear linked structures are handled completely. After this, the authors discuss vectorization of loops that use list operations. Then they tackle tree structures. Results of test runs using a V-Pascal compiler running on a HITAC S-820/80 are presented and explained. The sample programs tested are given in an appendix.

Given the importance of the parallel/distributed paradigm in computing, and the use of dynamic data structures, the algorithms presented here are important for future compiler construction. The emergence of languages such as Java, without the extensive use of pointers, might change some of these needs.