The not-a-knot piecewise interpolatory cubic polynomial (Q1200215)

A \(C^ 2\)-cubic spline taking prescribed values at the equidistant knots \(\{x_ j\}_{j=0}^ k\) has two degrees of freedom which could be supplicated by requiring the \(C^ 3\)-continuity at \(x_ 1\) and \(x_{k- 1}\) [see \textit{C. R. de Boor}, Convergence of cubic spline interpolation with the not-a-knot conditions, Math. Res. Center Preprint Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison (1984)]. In the present paper this idea is extended to all the interior knots to obtain a piecewise interpolatory cubic polynomial on a uniform mesh with mesh size \(h\) which has the order of convergence as \(O(h^ 4)\). The method is shown to be more computationally convenient.