Re: Fortran 9x: time for a decision

[Steven G. Johnson]

I should also add that I'm willing to implement this in autoconf (say next weekend; I'll be gone this week) if Akim et al. agree that it (or something similar) is the way to go.

Regarding automake, I would think that the ordinary behavior would be to use $F77 for {.f, .F, .for, .f77} and $FXX for everything else (.f90, .f95, etc. [*]). However, if the configure.ac calls AC_PROG_FXX and not AC_PROG_F77, then automake should use $FXX for everything. Rationale:

-- if the user calls AC_PROG_F77, $F77 should be used for backwards compatibility, and to provide a way to use the F77 compiler for old codes in mixed-dielect projects.

-- it is good to support using $FXX for everything, especially for cases where the F77 and FXX compilers may not be compatible.

-- it is good to allow users of the simple .f extension to employ the newer compilers and language features if they choose. Free .f from the tyranny of 1977! =)

-- AC_PROG_FXX(77) will give the F77 compiler anyway.

Steven

[*] Does anyone know what filename extension is proposed, if any, for Fortran 2000? .f2k? I don't know how people can continue this trend indefinitely, at least with the Windows cultural bias of at most 3-character extensions.