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

[Bob Koehler]

In article <kl6n2f$7bl$1 at speranza.aioe.org>, glen herrmannsfeldt <gah at ugcs.caltech.edu> writes:
> Bob Koehler <koehler at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org> wrote:
>  
>>   But DEC supported passing character constants to integer, real, ...
>>   variables, as we had always done in Fortran-IV.  That took a linker
>>   fixup as in the calling routine the compiler would generate pass by
>>   descriptor, but in the receiving routine it would be expecting pass
>>   by reference.
> 
> I think you pretty much have to do that to support Fortran 77, which
> should remain back compatible. Well, I suppose strictly only for 
> Hollerith constants, but for compilers that supported them, 
> apostrophe delimited constants were usual.

   I thought so, too.  But I've heard from folks who's compiler didn't
   support it and I don't know if the standard requires that kind of
   upward compatability, or if it's just because DEC believed in upward 
   compatability.