(j3.2006) Question about 29113

[Van Snyder]

On Thu, 2014-10-02 at 17:00 +0900, Malcolm Cohen wrote:
> >In any case, "in use by another Fortran entity" isn't quite what we
> >want,
> 
> It very much is what we want.
> 
> > since thereby one cannot do the following (perhaps spread over
> >several scoping units):
> >
> > call c_f_pointer ( cptr, fptr1 )
> > ...
> > call c_f_pointer ( cptr, fptr2 )
> 
> Right.  Don't do that.  It is not conforming.  This is a minimal
> extension to 
> allow a particular case.

This gratuitous prohibition, that is not helpful, is potentially
hurtful.

If you have a program larger than a trivial one, developed by several
teams, including software for which you do not have source, and a
contractual obligation to remove all extensions and nonconformances, and
a processor detects this at runtime ten years after the software is
deployed, the expense, for no benefit, could be substantial.

Why cannot we replace "not in use by another Fortran entity" with "not
the C address of a Fortran entity"?

This is not a new feature request.  This is an integration issue of the
category that we promised to repair on page v of N1904.