rpc's comments on Fortran 2008, part 2

Title: the official interpretations should be examined

The Fortran standard should be written in such a manner that
a reader who is not a member of the committee should be able
to understand it without needing to read the interpretations
issued against Fortran 90, Fortran 95, and Fortran 2003.

The committee should examine the interpretations issued
against the previous Fortran standards to see that those
interpretations are reflected in the text of the new standard.
Many of those interpretations were requested by senior members
of the committee, a succession of interpretations were
considered and rejected before the final interpretation was
issued, and yet the text of the standard was left unchanged.
Given that the unmodified text raised questions in the minds
of members of the committee, that text can reasonably be
supposed to be confusing to readers who are not members of
the committee.


Title: generic resolution

Consider the program

PROGRAM MAIN
INTERFACE COS
REAL FUNCTION MYCOS(X)
END FUNCTION
END INTERFACE
CALL SUBR
CONTAINS
SUBROUTINE SUBR
INTRINSIC COS
PRINT *, COS(0.0)
END SUBROUTINE
END

REAL FUNCTION MYCOS(X)
MYCOS = 2.0
END

When compiled using the compilers provided by Sun,
Cray, Intel, HP, and PathScale, the program prints
2.0. When compiled using the compilers provided by
IBM, NAG, and GCC, the program prints 1.0.
Interpretations 90/000082 and 90/000086 require the
latter interpretation. Text should be added to the
standard itself clarifying this point.


Title: File position and the left tab limit

I filed request for interpretartion 95/000027. The
interpretation issued by the committee is clear, but
it is not reflected in the text of the standard. The
standard does not clearly state that the character
position within the current record is part of the
file position. Questions regarding the character
position have been asked about Fortran 90, Fortran 95,
and Fortran 2003.

Paragraph 3 of Section 9.3.4.1 should state that if
a record file is positioned within a record, the
character position within the record is part of the
file position.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A few syntax questions
    ... I think putting them in the 'action-stmt' syntax rule ... If I were to redo the bnf from scratch, ... I guess that means that a standard conforming compiler is supposed to overflow. ... I am hoping that F2003 features will regain some respect for Fortran in CS departments,, and not just be coinsidered an old archaic language for old programs, but such strong support of archaic Fortran standards is a major reason why Fortran popularity continues to dwindle. ...
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  • Re: Form k = i + j and test for overflow.
    ... Last night you suggested I was forgetting that overflow violates ... the Fortran standard. ... test that wouldn't work on the most common of implementations. ... that conforms to the Fortran standard. ...
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  • Re: conditional compile for gFortran (GCC?): newbie question
    ... The official standard for a Fortran pre-processor is Part 3, "Conditional Compilation", informally known as CoCo. ... As I mentioned in a message in this thread yesterday, there are free implementations of CoCo available on the Internet. ... Obviously, CPP and its derivatives are widely used for Fortran, but I am not sure that the usage is so universal that it counts as a "de-facto standard", except perhaps in the Unix world. ... the capabilities and behavior of the Fortran pre-processor would be under the control of either the C or C++ committee. ...
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  • Re: FOR070.DAT files appearing
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    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Any F2003 help translating C++ map syntax?
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