[Info-vax] GCC for VMS, was: Re: fortran compiler roadmap?

[Paul Sture]

In article <1M7ZAYOW3XKf at eisner.encompasserve.org>,
 koehler at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) wrote:

> In article <kl4b2h$n6h$1 at Iltempo.Update.UU.SE>, Johnny Billquist 
> <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
> > 
> > I also seem to remember that strings in Fortran 77 under VMS could 
> > actually be dynamic in length, but I might be remembering wrong. Too 
> > long since I worked on that.
> 
>    Native Fortran strings still don't support dynamic lengths, even in
>    the 2008 standard (there was a proposal, but I guess it didn't pass).
>    The only work around is allocated variables, but those don't
>    automagically change allocation.
> 
>    VMS Fortran compilers don't have an extension that I know of to
>    enable dynamic length strings.

I could certainly have made use of dynamic length strings at one point, 
but got used to using substrings instead.

>    But VMS programmers, in any language, can take adavantage of LIB$
>    and STR$ routines that do dynamic length strings.  And there are
>    dynamic length string library implementations in Fortran, using 
>    allocated variables and user defined types, if you look around the
>    'net.

True, but in our homespun multithreading environment you were better off 
keeping as many variables as possible in global sections, for 
performance reasons .

-- 
Paul Sture