(j3.2006) (SC22WG5.3591) Assumed-type and Assumed-rank extensions for C Interop TR.

[Van Snyder]

On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 14:55 -0500, Bill Long wrote:
> 
> Van Snyder wrote:
> >
> > RANK() was proposed for Fortran 90 in about 1986.  I argued against it, 
> > back when I didn't appreciate the difference between specification and 
> > initialization expressions, and it disappearred.  I don't know whether 
> > it was my arguments that made the difference, or others objected as 
> > well, and more eloquently and effectively than I did.
> >   
> 
> I imagine that RANK() might have been rejected for f90 because the rank 
> of an object was blatantly obvious from its declaration as an array (or 
> scalar).   The assumed-rank concept is new here, and fails to come under 
> that argument.  Whether a new intrinsic is needed now seems like a valid 
> discussion point.  I left it out on the minimal changes principle, 
> rather than because I thought it was defective.

To interface to HDF, I need a rank-1 array of the same extent as the
rank of another one.  I use size(lbound(X)).  I'd like to make this the
value of a parameter, but at least one processor insists I can't do this
because X is of assumed shape (the lower bound isn't specified, so it's
1).  So I make it the dimension of a variable S, then get its value
using size(S).

As Malcolm says, this might more properly fall into the category of
"processor has bugs" than "vendors disagree."

Van