(j3.2006) Future deprecation of overriding character length, dimension and codimension

[Clune, Thomas L. GSFC-6101]

Ugh.   I would have been happy never being aware of this wart.   Don?t think I?ve ever seen it in actual code.

(Deleting several mean-spirited suggestions I had for actions to take on such users.)


> On Feb 22, 2017, at 9:11 AM, Steve Lionel <steve at stevelionel.com> wrote:
> 
> The standard currently allows character lengths, dimensions and 
> codimensions to be multiply specified in a declaration. For example:
> 
> character(len=10), dimension(30)            :: foo2*50(20)
> ! or
> character*10     , dimension(30)            :: foo3*50(20)
> ! or
> real, codimension [3,*] :: foo4[10,*]
> 
> 17-007 8.2:
> 
> p1 The type and type parameters are those specified by 
> declaration-type-spec, except that the character length type parameter 
> may be overridden for an entity by the appearance of * char-length in 
> its entity-decl.
> 
> p2 The type declaration statement also specifies the attributes whose 
> keywords appear in the attr-spec, except that the DIMENSION attribute 
> may be specified or overridden for an entity by the appearance of 
> array-spec in its entity-decl, and the CODIMENSION attribute may be 
> specified or overridden for an entity by the appearance of coarray-spec 
> in its entity-decl.
> 
> This can be very confusing and I would like to see such "overriding" 
> deprecated in a future (2020?) standard so that processors are required 
> to have the capability of diagnosing this. I'm not aware of any other 
> place in the language where such overriding is allowed. Thoughts?
> 
> Steve
> 
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