use the GNU C may_alias attribute if available, and fallback to naive
byte-by-byte loops if __GNUC__ is not defined.
this patch has been written to minimize changes so that history
remains reviewable; it does not attempt to bring the affected code
into a more consistent or elegant form.
to deal with the fact that the public headers may be used with pre-c99
compilers, __restrict is used in place of restrict, and defined
appropriately for any supported compiler. we also avoid the form
[restrict] since older versions of gcc rejected it due to a bug in the
original c99 standard, and instead use the form *restrict.
