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

[Ken Fairfield]

On Wednesday, April 24, 2013 11:23:21 AM UTC-7, glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
[...]
> OK, I have never thought about this one before. Does Fortran 77 allow
> Hollerith constants as actual arguments to CHARACTER dummy arguments?

No.  You probably know that already from discussions over
in c.l.f.  That VAX Fortran allowed it was/is an extension
that allowed old programs to work under the new compiler.

But as Bob said in another follow-up, Hollerith was already
gone as of the F77 standard.

Also note that in the port of the Fortran compiler to Alpha,
this backward compatibility (with ancient source code) was
lost.  You "can't do that" on an Alpha (or Itanium).

> 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.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "apostrophed constants".
That *is* the way you write a character constant, right?  If you
mean assigning that character constant to a numerical variable
(all that was available pre-F77), that is simply non-standard.
VAX Fortran may have allowed it as an extension, but...

    -Ken