From ljm@slac.stanford.edu Thu Mar 23 05:28:53 1995 Received: from SCSW6.SLAC.Stanford.EDU by dkuug.dk with SMTP id AA21322 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4j for ); Thu, 23 Mar 1995 22:27:01 +0100 Received: from [134.79.128.74] (MOZART.SLAC.Stanford.EDU) by SCSW6.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (PMDF V4.3-10 #6987) id <01HOH6K7QAV4002ZJ2@SCSW6.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>; Thu, 23 Mar 1995 13:27:17 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 13:28:53 -0800 From: ljm@slac.stanford.edu (Leonard J. Moss) Subject: Re: (x3j3.1995-134) Re: Conditional Compilation in F90 X-Sender: ljm@popserv To: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk (SC22/WG5 Mailing List) Message-Id: X-Envelope-To: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 I, too, would like to add my support for conditional compilation. In fact, conditional compilation is in X3J3's JOR, with a suggested target date of 1995, and was also submitted to WG5's repository by the US (with support from Russia). The HPF folks also expressed a desire for such a facility. Since WG5 determines requirements, further discussion of this item should probably proceed on their mailing list rather than on the X3J3 list (I have included, below, a recent item on this topic for the benefit of WG5 people, and I will repost the complete text of Mr. Billen's eloquent plea to the WG5 list as well -- X3J3 folks, watch for "REPOST" in the subject line to avoid seeing it twice). I'd like to suggest that there is _no_ need to wait for F2K for this. All that's needed (IMHO) is simple conditional compilation, not a full-blown macro facility. Such a facility could be processed as a separate standard. Better yet, it would be perfectly adequate to publish it as a technical report, and this would probably expedite it's processing considerably. In fact, there's no need to even do the the design work. David Expstein's CCF propasal would do nicely, and the current Fortran Journal TOC mentions an alternative, called f90ppr, from Michel Olagnon. Both are free and can be found at the Fortran Market (http://www.fortran.com/fortran/). Here's a suggestion on how to get something in place quickly. At the Tokyo meeting, appoint a small subgroup (2-3 people) to evaluate CCF and f90ppr. Tell them to select one, make arrangements with the author for any necessary permissions, and submit it to the convenor within a month or two as a draft technical report. I don't think there's anything very controversial here, so it should be possible to handle most of the additional processing via letter ballots. What do you think -- worth a try? At 22:58 3/22/95, Robert Corbett wrote: >> X3J3/95-108 >> >> To: C. Mallory North, Jr., X3J3 Librarian >> From: James H. Billen, Los Alamos National Laboratory >> Date: March 17, 1995 >> >> This message is my formal request to the Standards Committee >> for inclusion of conditional compilation in the F90 standard. Please >> assign this request a paper number for the next meeting of the >> committee. Thank you for your assistance. >> >> Thank you for considering this request. >> __________________________________________________________ >> James H. Billen (jbillen@lanl.gov) >> Los Alamos National Laboratory > > >I want to express support for Mr. Billen's request. I have no doubt >that every Fortran vendor will eventually be forced to provide conditional >compilation. Nonetheless, those conditional compilation facilities will >only frustrate users. As Mr. Billen pointed out, the main use of >conditional compilation is to allow support of programs for multiple >platforms from a common set of source files. The various forms of >conditional compilation that vendors will provide if left to their own >devices will be incompatible. The incompatibilities will render those >facilities useless for exactly the problem users most want solved. > > Sincerely, > Bob Corbett -- Leonard J. Moss | My views don't necessarily Stanford Linear Accelerator Center | reflect those of SLAC, MS 97; P.O. Box 4349; Stanford, CA 94309 | Stanford or the DOE