I've ported some Fortran code from Fortran PowerStation(4.0) to the Fortran 11(2003) compiler. In order to maintain double and real values between the old and new compiler, I changed properties>fortran>data>"Default Read Kind" from 4 to 8. Now the problem is that the global variables are not maintaining data from one file to other.
Suppose I create a real*8 variable called abc in one file as a global variable (COMMON/test/abc). It is modified in one file and used in another file. When inspecting the value of the abc variable in the second file, it is found not to contain the modified data. This happens only when I change "Default Real Kind" to 8.
Are there any other options I need to modify from the properties window?
Please give a solution. Thanks in advance.
I'm a bit unclear about what compiler you are using, what modifications you have made and so forth, so my answer is a bit hesitant.
I'm not sure that changing the default real kind from 4 to 8 does maintain values as you think it does. You seem to think that real(kind=4) on your old compiler means the same as real(kind=8) on your new compiler. This may be true, but it seems a bit unlikely to me.
However, don't fall into the trap of thinking that real(kind=4) must mean a 4-byte IEEE compliant floating-point number, or that real(kind=8) must mean an 8-byte IEEE fp number. This is true for most compilers, certainly for all the compilers I've used recently, but it's not required by the Fortran standard. Your old compiler may have meant something different from what your new compiler means.
Finally, I usually experience problems with common blocks when I change real number sizes in Fortran programs. The best solution is to replace common blocks with module variables. If you can't do that, check the common declarations very carefully, bearing in mind that common is an instruction to the compiler about how to lay variables out in memory. If you change the size of a variable in one declaration of the common block but not in another you will have problems.
Regards
Mark
Related
We have some (a huge libray or 40+ modules) old Fortran code than needs updating and compiling with a more recent compiler.
Is there anyway to set gFortran to allow for the $STORAGE:2 metacommand as used by old MS Fortran 5.1?
According to: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/51471
The $STORAGE:n metacommand allocates "n" bytes of memory for all INTEGER and LOGICAL variables. For example, when an application specifies the $STORAGE:2 metacommand and declares an INTEGER variable B, the compiler allocates two bytes for B instead of four. The $STORAGE metacommand does not affect memory allocation when a declaration includes an explicit length specification, such as an INTEGER*2 or INTEGER*4.
I wish it was a simple matter of rewriting the variable declarations to use integer*2. However the programmer who wrote it, uses tons of implicit variable declarations and many EQUIVALENCE statements everywhere that are troublesome to deal with:
$STORAGE:2
CHARACTER*2 ABC
EQUIVALENCE (ABC,ITT)
There is no way I know in modern compilers to do this for 16 bit integers.
Compilers usually allow promoting integer kinds by a command line switch, but I don't recall any modern free compiler to allow a change to 16 bit ones.
I would suggest rewriting the variable declarations to use integer*2 instead instead of the directive.
I am working on a ~40 years old Fortran spaghetti code with lots of variables that are implicitly declared. So there is not a simple way to even know what variables exist in the code in order to initialize their values. Now, is there a way to tell the compiler (for example Intel Fortran) to initialize all variables in the code to a specific default value (e.g., -999) other than zero or a very large number, as provided by Intel compiler?
gfortran provides some options for this. Integers can be intialized with -finit-integer=n where n is an integer. For real numbers you can use -finit-real=<zero|inf|-inf|nan|snan>. Together with -ffpe-trap=denormal this can be very helpful, to get uninitialized reals.
You probably want :
ifort -check uninit
Note per the man page this only checks scalars
Also, based on some quick testing it is a pretty weak check. It doesn't catch this simple thing for example:
program test
call f(i)
end
subroutine f(j)
write(*,*)j
end
returns 0 ..
I suppose its better than nothing though.
Edit: Gfortran 6 now supports these extensions :)
I have some old f77 code that extensively uses UNIONs and MAPs. I need to compile this using gfortran, which does not support these extensions. I have figured out how to convert all non-supported extensions except for these and I am at a loss. I have had several thoughts on possible approaches, but haven't been able to successfully implement anything. I need for the existing UDTs to be accessed in the same way that they currently are; I can reimplement the UDTs but their interfaces must not change.
Example of what I have:
TYPE TEST
UNION
MAP
INTEGER*4 test1
INTEGER*4 test2
END MAP
MAP
INTEGER*8 test3
END MAP
END UNION
END TYPE
Access to the elements has to be available in the following manners: TEST%test1, TEST%test2, TEST%test3
My thoughts thusfar:
Replace somehow with fortran EQUIVALENCE.
Define the structs in C/C++ and somehow make them visible to the FORTRAN code (doubt that this is possible)
I imagine that there must have been lots of refactoring of f77 to f90/95 when the UNION and MAP were excluded from the standard. How if at all was/is this handled?
EDIT: The accepted answer has a workaround to allow memory overlap, but as far as preserving the API, it is not possible.
UNION and MAP were never part of any FORTRAN standard, they are vendor extensions. (See, e.g., http://fortranwiki.org/fortran/show/Modernizing+Old+Fortran). So they weren't really excluded from the Fortran 90/95 standard. They cause variables to overlap in memory. If the code actually uses this feature, then you will need to use equivalence. The preferred way to move data between variables of different types without conversion is the transfer intrinsic, but to you that you would have to identify every place where a conversion is necessary, while with equivalence it is taking place implicitly. Of course, that makes the code less understandable. If the memory overlays are just to save space and the equivalence of the variables is not used, then you could get rid of this "feature". If the code is like your example, with small integers, then I'd guess that the memory overlay is being used. If the overlays are large arrays, it might have been done to conserve memory. If these declarations were also creating new types, you could use user defined types, which are definitely part of Fortran >=90.
If the code is using memory equivalence of variables of different types, this might not be portable, e.g., the internal representation of integers and reals are probably different between the machine on which this code originally ran and the current machine. Or perhaps the variables are just being used to store bits. There is a lot to figure out.
P.S. In response to the question in the comment, here is a code sample. But .... to be clear ... I do not think that using equivalence is good coding pratice. With the compiler options that I normally use with gfortran to debug code, gfortran rejects this code. With looser options, gfortran will compile it. So will ifort.
module my_types
use ISO_FORTRAN_ENV
type test_p1_type
sequence
integer (int32) :: int1
integer (int32) :: int2
end type test_p1_type
type test_p2_type
sequence
integer (int64) :: int3
end type test_p2_type
end module my_types
program test
use my_types
type (test_p1_type) :: test_p1
type (test_p2_type) :: test_p2
equivalence (test_p1, test_p2)
test_p1 % int1 = 2
test_p1 % int1 = 4
write (*, *) test_p1 % int1, test_p1 % int2, test_p2 % int3
end program test
The question is whether the union was used to save space or to have alternative representations of the same data. If you are porting, see how it is used. Maybe, because the space was limited, it was written in a way where the variables had to be shared. Nowadays with larger amounts of memory, maybe this is not necessary and the union may not be required. In which case, it is just two separate types
For those just wanting to compile the code with these extensions: Gfortran now supports UNION, MAP and STRUCTURE in version 6. https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=56226
I'm new to Fortran and just doing some simple things for work. And as a new programmer in general, not sure exactly how this works, so excuse me if my explanation or notation is not the best. At the top of the .F file there are common declarations. The person explaining it to me said think of it like a struct in C, and that they are global. Also in that same .F file, they have it declared with what type. So it's something like:
COMMON SOMEVAR
INTEGER*2 SOMEVAR
And then when I actually see it being used in some other file, they declare local variables, (e.g. SOMEVAR_LOCAL) and depending on the condition, they set SOMEVAR_LOCAL = 1 or 0.
Then there is another conditional later down the line that will say something like
IF (SOMEVAR_LOCAL. eq. 1)
SOMEVAR(PARAM) = 1;
(Again I apologize if this is not proper Fortran, but I don't have access to the code right now). So it seems to me that there is a "struct" like variable called SOMEVAR that is of some length (2 bytes of data?), then there is a local variable that is used as a flag so that later down the line, the global struct SOMEVAR can be set to that value. But because there is (PARAM), it's like an array for that particular instance? Thanks. Sorry for my bad explanation, but hopefully you will understand what I am asking.
Just to amplify something #MSB already mentioned: COMMON blocks tell a compiler how to lay variables out in memory. There is almost no reason to use them with modern Fortran, ie with any compiler which can cope with Fortran 90 or later, and there are good reasons to avoid them.
And to add one thing: in modern Fortran you can do approximately what C structs do with user defined types. Check your documentation for TYPE.
The first declaration has SOMEVAR as a scalar integer of two bytes. The usage you show has SOMEVAR has an array -- based on it being indexed. This is possible to do in Fortran via "sequence association" but it is poor practice. In one file you could declare SOMEVAR as INTEGER*2 and two bytes are allocated to this scalar. In another file you could declare it as INTEGER*1 SOMEVAR(2), and two bytes are reserved, this time for an array of two elements, each of one byte. Using the same common block in both files can cause these two variables to overlap, byte by byte -- sequence association. Many years ago, when memory was very small, programmers did this to reduce memory usage, knowing that different subroutines were using variables at different times. The reasons to do this today are very, very limited. Mostly one shouldn't because it is liable to be confusing.
You can also setup sequence association with the EQUIVALENCE statement. Again, best avoided. The modern replacement for the times that one must do "tricky" things that needed the EQUIVALENCE statement is the TRANSFER function.
I am having trouble understanding Fortran 90's kind parameter. As far as I can tell, it does not determine the precision (i.e., float or double) of a variable, nor does it determine the type of a variable.
So, what does it determine and what exactly is it for?
The KIND of a variable is an integer label which tells the compiler which of its supported kinds it should use.
Beware that although it is common for the KIND parameter to be the same as the number of bytes stored in a variable of that KIND, it is not required by the Fortran standard.
That is, on a lot of systems,
REAl(KIND=4) :: xs ! 4 byte ieee float
REAl(KIND=8) :: xd ! 8 byte ieee float
REAl(KIND=16) :: xq ! 16 byte ieee float
but there may be compilers for example with:
REAL(KIND=1) :: XS ! 4 BYTE FLOAT
REAL(KIND=2) :: XD ! 8 BYTE FLOAT
REAL(KIND=3) :: XQ ! 16 BYTE FLOAT
Similarly for integer and logical types.
(If I went digging, I could probably find examples. Search the usenet group comp.lang.fortran for kind to find examples. The most informed discussion of Fortran occurs there, with some highly experienced people contributing.)
So, if you can't count on a particular kind value giving you the same data representation on different platforms, what do you do? That's what the intrinsic functions SELECTED_REAL_KIND and SELECTED_INT_KIND are for. Basically, you tell the function what sort of numbers you need to be able to represent, and it will return the kind you need to use.
I usually use these kinds, as they usually give me 4 byte and 8 byte reals:
!--! specific precisions, usually same as real and double precision
integer, parameter :: r6 = selected_real_kind(6)
integer, parameter :: r15 = selected_real_kind(15)
So I might subsequently declare a variable as:
real(kind=r15) :: xd
Note that this may cause problems where you use mixed language programs, and you need to absolutely specify the number of bytes that variables occupy. If you need to make sure, there are enquiry intrinsics that will tell you about each kind, from which you can deduce the memory footprint of a variable, its precision, exponent range and so on. Or, you can revert to the non-standard but commonplace real*4, real*8 etc declaration style.
When you start with a new compiler, it's worth looking at the compiler specific kind values so you know what you're dealing with. Search the net for kindfinder.f90 for a handy program that will tell you about the kinds available for a compiler.
I suggest using the Fortran 2008 and later; INT8, INT16, INT32, INT64, REAL32, REAL64, REAL128. This is done by calling ISO_FORTRAN_ENV in Fortran 2003 and later. Kind parameters provides inconsistent way to ensure you always get the appropriate number of bit representation
Just expanding the other (very good) answers, specially Andrej Panjkov's answer:
The KIND of a variable is an integer label which tells the compiler
which of its supported kinds it should use.
Exactly. Even though, for all the numeric intrinsic types, the KIND parameter is used to specify the "model for the representation and behavior of numbers on a processor" (words from the Section 16.5 of the standard), that in practice means their bit model, that's not the only thing a KIND parameter may represent.
A KIND parameter for a type is any variation in its nature, model or behavior that is avaliable for the programmer to choose at compile time. For example, for the intrinsic character type, the kind parameter represents the character sets avaliable on the processor (ASCII, UCS-4,...).
You can even define your own model/behaviour variations on you defined Derived Types (from Fortran 2003 afterwards). You can create a Transform Matrix type and have a version with KIND=2 for 2D space (in which the underlying array would be 3x3) and KIND=3 for 3D space (with a 4x4 underlying array). Just remember that there is no automatic kind conversion for non-intrinsic types.
From the Portland Group Fortran Reference, the KIND parameter "specifies a precision for intrinsic data types." Thus, in the declaration
real(kind=4) :: float32
real(kind=8) :: float64
the variable float64 declared as an 8-byte real (the old Fortran DOUBLE PRECISION) and the variable float32 is declared as a 4-byte real (the old Fortran REAL).
This is nice because it allows you to fix the precision for your variables independent of the compiler and machine you are running on. If you are running a computation that requires more precision that the traditional IEEE-single-precision real (which, if you're taking a numerical analysis class, is very probable), but declare your variable as real :: myVar, you'll be fine if the compiler is set to default all real values to double-precision, but changing the compiler options or moving your code to a different machine with different default sizes for real and integer variables will lead to some possibly nasty surprises (e.g. your iterative matrix solver blows up).
Fortran also includes some functions that will help pick a KIND parameter to be what you need - SELECTED_INT_KIND and SELECTED_REAL_KIND - but if you are just learning I wouldn't worry about those at this point.
Since you mentioned that you're learning Fortran as part of a class, you should also see this question on Fortran resources and maybe look at the reference manuals from the compiler suite that you are using (e.g. Portland Group or Intel) - these are usually freely available.
One of the uses of kind could be to make sure that for different machine or OS, they truly use the same precision and the result should be the same. So the code is portable. E.g.,
integer, parameter :: r8 = selected_real_kind(15,9)
real(kind=r8) :: a
Now this variable a is always r8 type, which is a true "double precision" (so it occupies 64 bits of memory on the electronic computer), no matter what machine/OS the code is running on.
Also, therefore you can write things like,
a = 1.0_r8
and this _r8 make sure that 1.0 is converted to r8 type.
To summarize other answers: the kind parameter specifies storage size (and thus indirectly, the precision) for intrinsic data types, such as integer and real.
However, the recommended way now is NOT to specify the kind value of variables in source code, instead, use compiler options to specify the precision we want. For example, we write in the code: real :: abc and then compile the code by using the compiling option -fdefault-real-8 (for gfortran) to specify a 8 byte float number. For ifort, the corresponding option is -r8.
Update:
It seems Fortran experts here strongly object to the recommended way stated above. In spite of this, I still think the above way is a good practice that helps reduce the chance of introducing bugs in Fortran codes because it guarantees that you are using the same kind-value throughout your program (the chance that you do need use different kind-values in different parts of a code is rare) and thus avoids the frequently encountered bugs of kind-value mismatch between dummy and actual arguments in a function call.