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

[Steve Lionel]

Malcolm, that isn't what I was suggesting. I was suggesting that what be
deprecated was having two specifications of bounds or lengths with one
overriding the other. I would definitely NOT be in favor of deprecating the
lengths on type names!

Steve

On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 8:37 PM Cohen Malcolm <malcolm at nag-j.co.jp> wrote:

> >Ugh.   I would have been happy never being aware of this wart.   Don?t
> >think I?ve ever seen it in actual code.
>
> A not uncommon style used to be to put all the length specs on the
> variables
> instead of on the type name, e.g.
>
>           CHARACTER A*10,B*4,C*99
>
> This has obvious advantages if you are declaring character variables with
> lots of different lengths.
>
> I don't think there is anything wrong with this.  I do not support making
> this obsolescent at this time.
>
> Re DIMENSION and CODIMENSION, in my opinion it is the attribute on the
> type-spec that is obsolescent, not the one in the entity-decl.  I'd much
> rather deprecate those!  We can deprecate the DIMENSION and CODIMENSION
> statements while we are at it, they serve no other purpose than to promote
> unsafe programming practices.
>
> >I'm not aware of any other
> >place in the language where such overriding is allowed.
>
> The way ASYNCHRONOUS and VOLATILE work (unlike every other specification
> statement, they override the host associated entity's lack of those
> attributes instead of creating a local entity) is much more confusing than
> this.
>
> >a paper that has to be passed by a majority?
>
> It's WG5, and it's far too late to make technical changes that are not
> fixes.  This is not a fix.  And WG5 is supposed to operate by consensus,
> not
> the tyranny of the majority.
>
> WG5 has already made several things obsolescent/deleted this time around.
> I
> fully expect us to consider making more things obsolescent next time.
> Maybe
> even delete some things, though that makes little difference to most
> vendors
> other than the wording of the warning message.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> .............Malcolm Cohen, NAG Oxford/Tokyo.
>
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-- 
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