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

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

Bob Koehler <koehler at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org> wrote:
> 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.

OK, I have never thought about this one before. Does Fortran 77 allow
Hollerith constants as actual arguments to CHARACTER dummy arguments?

Otherwise, the DEC Fortran IV compilers allowed apostrophed constants
for so long that I think VAX compilers would have to support them, even
if the standard didn't require it.

-- glen