From:	MERC::"uunet!CRVAX.SRI.COM!RELAY-INFO-VAX" 16-JAN-1993 18:17:07.89
To:	info-vax@kl.sri.com
CC:	
Subj:	Re: Recursion in Vax Fortran


In article <1993Jan15.073032.26465@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>, 
bena@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Ben Aveling) writes:
|>
|>Does anyone know if Digital plan to make Vax fortran support 
|>recursion like all the Unix boxes do ?
|>
|>( I hear there will be recursion in Fortran 90, but what of 
|>  Fortran 77 ? )
|>

Yup.  Coming soon (well, maybe, March) to a VAX near you.  Since I previously
posted a list of new features in VMS V6.0, I may as well do it for my own
product, so here you go. (Section references are to the release notes, of which
this is an excerpt. Note also that we're changing the product name to
DEC Fortran Version for OpenVMS VAX Systems.)

          DEC Fortran V6.0 offers the following major enhancements and
          changes as compared to VAX FORTRAN-HPO Version 1.3:

          o  Generation of reentrant (or recursion-capable)
             code and automatic (stack-based) allocation of data
             (Section 1.5.9)

          o  The ability to read and write numeric data in non-native
             formats using unformatted I/O (Section 1.5.5)

          o  An option to generate specially optimized code, which
             can significantly reduce the number of pagefaults
             and improve application performance, for loops which
             traverse large arrays (Section 1.5.11)

          o  Improved generated code for references to dummy
             arguments and variables in COMMON (Section 1.5.13)

          o  Improved generated code for operations involving COMPLEX
             variables (Section 1.5.12)

          o  Improved generated code for intrinsic functions
             (Section 1.5.14)

          o  Vectorization of DO loops with INTEGER*2 loop control
             variables (Section 1.5.16)

          o  Vectorization of additional intrinsic functions (AMOD,
             ATAN2, ATAND2, SIGN) and vectorization of COMPLEX
             intrinsic functions (Section 1.5.14)

          o  Reporting of uninitialized variables (Section 1.5.15)

          o  Removal of need for /CONTINUATIONS compile command
             qualifier (Section 1.5.1.2)

          o  Removal of need for /HPO compile command qualifier
             and FORTRAN-HPO Product Authorization Key (PAK)
             (Section 1.5.1.3)

          o  Change in default from /WARNINGS=ALIGNMENT to
             /WARNINGS=NOALIGNMENT (Section 1.5.1.1)

          o  Support for the definition of the logical name
             FORT$LIBRARY as a search list (Section 1.5.2)

          o  Support for the definition of the logical name
             FORT$INCLUDE to specify a default location for INCLUDE
             files (Section 1.5.3)

          o  An increase of the limit on the number of named COMMON
             blocks from 250 to 508. (Section 1.5.20)

          o  The ability to provide diagnostics for language
             features not supported by DEC Fortran on Alpha AXP (TM)
             platforms. (Section 1.5.22)

          o  Support for NTT Technical Requirement TR550001,
             Multivendor Integration Architecture (MIA) Version
             1.1, Division 2, Part 3-2, Programming Language FORTRAN
             (Section 1.5.21)

          In addition, DEC Fortran provides the following enhanced
          features of VAX FORTRAN-HPO Version 1.3 as compared to
          VAX FORTRAN Version 5.9:

          o  Automatic decomposition of DO loops for parallel
             execution on VAX multiprocessor systems (Section 1.5.7)

          o  Automatic vectorization of DO loops for execution on
             VAX processors that support the VAX Vector Architecture
             (Section 1.5.8)

          o  Inline code expansion of the Basic Linear Algebra
             Subroutines (BLAS) Level 1 and Level 1 Extended
             (Section 1.5.10)

          o  The /WARNINGS=TRUNCATED_SOURCE qualifier which enables
             warnings for source lines which are longer than the
             statement field width (Section 1.5.1)

          o  The /TERMINAL=STATISTICS qualifier which enables
             informational messages about each compiled program unit
             to be displayed to the terminal (Section 1.5.1)
       
--

Steve Lionel                    lionel@quark.enet.dec.com
SDT Languages Group
Digital Equipment Corporation
110 Spit Brook Road
Nashua, NH 03062