(j3.2006) Why is the Passed-Object Argument Explicit?

Van Snyder Van.Snyder
Tue Feb 4 18:48:36 EST 2014


On Tue, 2014-02-04 at 14:36 -0800, Damian Rouson wrote:
> >> 
> >> On Feb 4, 2014, at 1:49 PM, Craig Dedo <craig at ctdedo.com> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> Everyone:
> >>>            Yesterday, on the Intel Visual Fortran (IVF) Developers Forum, Jim Dempsey asked this question:
> >>> [Quote]
> >>> Do you know why the Fortran standards committee did not choose to make the ?this? arg implicit?  (like most other OO languages)
> >>> [End of quote]
> 
> 
> I don?t know the history of the decision, but I can share two reasons that I like it:
> 
> 1. I can name the argument whatever I like.
> 2. I can specify argument attributes such as ?intent(in)? or ?pointer?.

A third reason:  You can bind the same procedure to different types,
with (necessarily) different passed-object dummy arguments.





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