(j3.2006) Change in F2008 regarding elemental procedures

[Rasmussen, Craig E]

I don't recall this happening but I just noticed a change between F2003 and F2008 regarding the execution order of an elemental procedure applied to an array.

F2003:

"as would have been obtained if the scalar function had been applied separately, in any order, ..."

F2008:

"as would have been obtained if the scalar function had been applied separately, in array element order, ..."


My question is whether this is intended and if so, why.  For DO CONCURRENT we specify that "executions may occur in any order" (8.1.6.6.2).  So this change surprises me because I can't think of a reason why order should be specified for calling a pure elemental procedure.

Although I guess I can see how order would be important if an array is updated in place, but shifted:

      real :: A(100)
      A(1:10) = elemental_function(A(2:11))

So perhaps I've answered my own question.

-craig