BRITISH COMPUTER SOCIETY FORTRAN SPECIALIST GROUP
Minutes of a meeting held on
Friday, 8th February 1974 at
BCS Headquarters, 29 Portland
Place, London W1 at 10.30 am.
Present: Mr I.D. Hill (Acting Chairman) MRC Computer Unit
Mrs E. Aylmer-Kelly University of York
Mr B.J. Banes Rolls Royce, Bristol Engine Div
Mr S.J. Bell Computer Weekly
Mr E.O. Bodger IBM, W.T. Systems Aid Centre
Mr P.D. Bond Philips Industries
Mr A. Bruce Government Communications HQ
Mr F. Chambers Logica Ltd
Mr P.A. Clarke Rothamsted Experimental Station
Mr J.C. Cullen B.P.
Mr M.R. Dolbeare B.P.
Mr J.P. Holland Tunnel Cement Ltd
Dr C.B.A. Price Honeywell I.S. Ltd
Mr K. St Pier G.E.C.
Mr T.L. van Raalte A.W.R.E. Aldermaston
Mr A.J.H. Walter Atlas Computer Laboratory
Mr D. Winstanley University of Birmingham
Mr D.T. Muxworthy (Secretary) Edinburgh R.C.C.
Apologies Mr B.H. Shearing (Chairman) Alcock Shearing & Partners
for Dr A.C. Day University College, London
Absence
ACTION
1. APPOINTMENT OF As Mr Shearing was indisposed Mr Hill agreed
ACTING CHAIRMAN to chair the meeting.
2. APPROVAL OF The minutes of the meeting of 9th November 1973
MINUTES were approved. (The Chairman of the American
Standards Fortran Committee, X3J3, had asked for
a clarification of section 2: this should have
made clear that it referred to publication of
the eventual draft Standard, with the approval
of X3J3, and not to publication of the current
FORTREV document).
3. MATTERS ARISING a. There was no information about any contact
with the editor of the Computer Journal
concerning publication of the draft BHS
American Standard for Fortran.
b. Mr Hill and Mr F. Parker of Newcastle
University had written to the editor of the
Journal Algorithms Supplement concerning
(errors in Algorithm 78 (August 1973 pp 273-
276); no reply had been received. Mr Hill
was to take up the matter with Mr Shepherd. IDH
c. Mr Clarke had sent his report on using the
U.S. Navy Fortran compiler testing programs
to Captain Hopper. She had replied that
responsibility for the programs had been
transferred to the Federal COBOL Compiler
Testing Service (Department of the Navy,
ADP Equipment Selection Office, Washington
DC 20376), and that the National Bureau of
Standards were understood to have a "much
better" set of Fortran tests. {The
contact is Mrs F.E. Holberton, National
Bureau of Standards, Bldg 225, Room BBQQ,
Gaithersburq, Md 20224).
4. CHAIRMAN'S This agenda item was omitted because of
REMARKS Mr Shearing's absence.
5. PARTICIPATION The Group had been invited to participate in
IN EUROCOMP Eurocomp to be held at Brunei University on
May 13-17, 1974. It had been suggested that
the Group might make a presentation, as at
Datafair 73, or arrange a static exhibition.
It was decided that a presentation should not
be made unless the new draft Standard was
available, and little interest was shown in
mounting an exhibition, although expert help
was thought to be available from the organizers.
It was decided to appeal to members of the Group All
to contact the Secretary if they wished to help
arrange a Fortran event at Eurocomp and to post-
pone discussion until the next meeting.
6. SCHNECK-ANGEL A member of the Group, Mr D.T. Hall, had
OPTIMIZING suggested that the Group, per se, obtain a copy
COMPILER of the Schneck-Angel Fortran-to-Fortran Opti-
mizing Compiler (Computer Journal, November 1973,
pp 322-330). Mr Hall offered to help verify it
and suggested that the Journal Algorithms
Supplement might use it for published algorithms.
Mr Walter said that the Atlas Laboratory had
requested a copy of the program but had as yet
received no reply; they intended to verify it
and then to use it when appropriate. There was
no suggestion that it become standard. Subject
to agreement by the authors, the Atlas Laboratory
would make the program available to other
installations.
There was scepticism about the claims for improve-
ment in running times made for the compiler and it
was demonstrated that optimization at source level
could lead to an increase in the number of machine
instructions generated and executed. It was not
thought appropriate to bring the program to the
attention of the Algorithms Editor.
7. BSI FORTRAN There was some confusion over the status of
ACTIVITIES the Fortran representative on the BSI
Programming Languages Committee DPE/13.
Mr Shearing had been informed that he had
replaced Dr Day, other members of DPE/13
had been informed that Dr Day was no
longer a member but Dr Day himself had
received no communication. This was under-
stood to be related to Dr Day's
resignation from the BCS although by
membership of other societies with
reciprocal agreements there was no impedi~
ment to his representinq the PCS on
DPE/13.
It was decided that the Secretary should DTM
seek a clarification from Mrs Leach.
There was some urgency in resolving the
matter as an ISO Fortran meeting was to be
held in May 1974. A vote was held to
record the meeting's opinion: if the Group
has the power to nominate or recommend a
member of DPE/13 (which was earlier under-
stood to be the case) then a motion that that
nominee be Dr Day was approved unanimously.
8. ECMA FORTRAN Minutes of the ECMA Fortran Committee, TC8,
STANDARDS meetings of October 8-10 and December 10-12
ACTIVITIES 1973 were available. Mr van Duin of
Philips-Electrologica and Mr Maisey of ICL
were now chairman and vice-chairman
respectively. Their minutes mentioned
favourably an exchange of documents with
this Group.
TC8 continued to consider in detail the
proposals of the American Standards
Fortran Committee, X3J3, and to communicate
with X3J3. The questions of EXTERNAL &
GENERIC and of input-output were ones of
current interest.
9. ANSI FORTRAN Minutes of the American Standards Fortran
ACTIVITIES Committee, X3J3, meeting of November 13-16
1973 were considered and relevant pages
are shown in Appendix I to these minutes.
It was pointed out that in allowing real
and double precision DO-loop control
variables Fortran was opposing the trend
in Algol, from Algol 60 to Algol W and
Algal 68.
10. ROOMS FOR FUTURE The Society now wished Specialist Groups
MEETINGS not to meet in BCS Headquarters. A
majority of members present expressed
reluctance to move and the Secretary was DTM
asked to establish whether it was possible
to continue to use the present room.
Barnard's Inn was no longer available as
an alternative.
11. OTHER BUSINESS a. Some ideas were put forward for
publicizing the draft American Standard
when it appeared, including publication
in the Journal, a one-day conference BHS/DTM
and a two-day workshop. It was
suggested that information be sent to
Computer Weekly so that an article
could appear in "Software File".
b. A list of about 50 differences between
WATFOR as implemented on the ICL
System 4 and the ANSI Standard and the
IBM Fortran(G) compiler has been
compiled by, and is available from,
Mr Clarke.
12. DATE OF NEXT The next meeting will be held on Friday, 15
MEETING March 1974 at 10.30 am at BCS Headquarters,
29 Portland Place, London W.1. It was
decided to hold a meeting after a
relatively short interval because a number
of items, notably Eurocomp and the BSI
representative, need to be resolved
quickly, because Mr Shearing was thought
to have further information on these and
because it was thought that minutes of the
next X3J3 meeting would then be available.
[The appendices of the X3J3 minutes were not included in the FSG minutes.]
1. Opening Remarks
The thirty-eighth meeting of X3J3 was called to order at 10:00 a.m. by
chairman Engel.
2. Procedural Items
2.1 Attendance
See Appendix B.
2.2 Agenda
See Appendix C for the approved agenda.
2.3 Membership
1. At the start of the meeting, the membership consisted of twenty-
four members and the chairman. At the start of the meeting,
sixteen voter members were present.
2. Dave Dillon was welcomed and approved as the alternate member
for Ragan. T.J. Callaghan was approved as a second alternate
member for Erriksson after the membership rules were amended
to allow more than one alternate member (See 4.12).
3. Weldon is on provisional status at this meeting.
2.4 Previous Minutes - 37th Meeting (X3J3/46)
After several changes and corrections, the minutes of the thirty-
seventh meeting were approved. The outline for voting procedures
was corrected according to information received from Bob Brown at
CBEMA.
3. Reports
3.1 Chairman's Report
The chairman received a letter from Bob Brown at CBEMA correcting
the outline of voting procedures given to X3J3 at the last meeting.
The minutes of the meeting have been corrected.
Information about TC8 activities and a number of proposals
developed by TC8 have been sent to the voter and alternate members
of X3J3 by TC8 (See Appendix J).
The chairman has prepared an article for Datamation magazine as an
outgrowth of the responses to Thorlin's article on DO-loops.
Other members of X353 are encouraged to submit articles and papers
concerning our work to magazines and conferences.
The chairman has a copy of the responses made to the comments
received during a COBOL letter ballot.
The chairman commented on the persistency of the FORTRAN language
over the years and circulated several documents to illustrate this
point.
The chairman read a note from Stu Lovell that informed us of the
illness and death of his wife. The committee wishes to express
their sympathy and their hope that Stu will be able to rejoin us
at future meetings.
3.2 Editorial Committee
The editorial committee reported that a (73-10-26) version of
FORTREV was mailed last week to the active members and the 29 people
that replied to our survey and requested a copy. This version
contains many changes and has essentially all changes that have been
jointly approved by each group and the editorial committee. The
editor submitted two pages of suggested additional changes for
consideration by the appropriate group at this meeting. During
this meeting, the editorial committee met with Groups 1, 5 and 6.
Due to the small number of approved changes and a request from the
chairman, an updated version of FORTREV will not be distributed
before the January meeting.
3.3 Report of Mail Survey
The secretary reported the following results of the mail survey:
Approx. No. of Letters Sent 98
Replies 74
Requested FORTREV 29
Did Not Request Fortrev 45
Address Changes 19
Requested Removal 2
3.4 FORTRAN Data Manipulation Language
Greenfield reported that CODASYL has 15-20 people willing to work on
a data manipulation language to interface with FORTRAN. See
Appendix W in X3J3/46.
4. Actions Taken by the Committee
4.1 Input/Output Clarifications
Gibson moved, Matheny seconded, to adopt item 1 in Appendix G which
allows FMT=* and UNIT=u forms in list-directed I/O statements. The
motion passed (17-0).
Gibson moved, Matheny seconded, to adopt item 3 in Appendix G which
requires that the sequential auxiliary statements designate a unit
connected to a sequential file. The motion passed (17-1).
Gibson moved, Matheny seconded, to adopt item 4 in Appendix G which
would remove the END= specification from direct access READ and
WRITE statements and change all direct access end-of~file conditions
to error conditions. The motion passed (11-8).
Gibson moved, Matheny seconded, that in an "inquire by unit" state-
ment, the logical entity op becomes defined to false if the designated
unit is not connected to a file. This of itself does not cause an
error condition. See Appendix G, item 5. The motion passed
(21-0).
4.2 ENTRY and FUNCTION Statements with No Arguments
Karp moved, Greenfield seconded, to adopt Appendix G of X3J3/46
which would allow the additional form of "ENTRY name ( )" in function
subprograms. Klein suggested that the two forms of an ENTRY state-
ment with no arguments be considered separately. The part of the
proposal that allows the form with the empty parentheses in function
subprograms passed (18~0). The part of the proposal that continues
to allow the form without the empty parentheses passed (l3~?), so the
effect of the two votes is to adopt the proposal as stated in
Appendix G of X3J3/46.
Moore moved, Saunders seconded, to allow the form "FUNCTION name" as
an additional form of the FUNCTION statement. The motion passed
(15-5).
4.3 Mixed Type Arithmetic Expression Evaluation
Ragan moved, Matheny seconded, to adopt the proposal in Appendix I
which states that the evaluation rules for expressions in assignment
statements are not affected by the type of the entity to be assigned.
The motion passed (15-3).
4.4 Rescind Array Cross-sections
Karp moved, Brender seconded, to adopt the ECMA proposal to delete
array cross~sections and array assignment statements. See Appendix
J, pages J6-J7. The motion passed (12-8).
Some arguments offered in favour of deletion were: (1) ECMA is
opposed to the feature, (2) it is not of significant help to an
optimizing compiler, (3) it may inhibit future development of array
operations (See Appendix P in X3J3/45), (4) it is not a new facility,
(5) it may lead to user confusion, and (6) it has overlap problems.
Some arguments offered against the deletion were: (1) it is a
convenience to the programmer, (2) it is a precise way of stating
actions on arrays, (3) it simplifies compiler optimization, and
(4) there are at least three implementations of the feature.
4.5 Restrict Character Associations
Karp moved, Schwebel seconded, to adopt the proposal in Appendix K
which would restrict character associations to entities of equal
length. The motion failed (2-16).
4.6 Rescind Formal Label Assignment
Karp moved, Greenfield seconded, to disallow the use of the ASSIGN
statement to assign format labels to an integer variable. See item
15 in Appendix U of X3J3/46 and page ZC5 in Appendix ZC of X3J3/42.
The motion failed (7-13).
4.7 Integer Control Variables
Karp moved, Holberton seconded, to adopt ECMA proposal 35 in Appendix
J (page J11) which would allow only integer control variables in
DO-loops. The motion failed (4-16).
Some arguments offered in favour of the motion were: (1) ECMA favours
it, (2) real and double arithmetic is imprecise, (3) incrementation
may be inaccurate, and (4) a syntax error check is lost.
Some arguments offered against the motion were: (1) real and double
control variables are useful, and (2) the language is more regular
as is.
4.8 DO-loop Branching
Karp moved, Klein seconded, to adopt the first three sentences of
proposal 4 in Appendix S of X3J3/42 which would require an "extended
range" of a DO-loop to return to the same DO-loop that branched to
that "extended range". The motion failed (1-19).
4.9 Minimum Times Through a DO-loop
Karp moved, Greenfield seconded, that the minimum times through a
DO-loop be one. See item 36 in Appendix U of X3J3/46. The motion
failed (6-15).
The primary argument in favour of the motion was that compilers can
do more optimization easier if the minimum is one. Code that is
invariant within a loop cannot be as effectively taken out of the
loop if it might not be executed at all.
Arguments offered against the motion included: (1) optimization
becomes less important as internal speeds increase, (2) users expect
zero as the minimum, and (3) users can't easily bypass I/O list items
when iteration count is zero.
4.10 GENERIC Statement
Karp moved, Klein seconded, to adopt proposal 3 in Appendix S of
X3J3/42 which would require a GENERIC statement in each program unit
that referenced any generic function. The motion failed (7-12).
Some arguments offered in favour of the motion were: (1) existing
standard programs do not expect generic functions, (2) compilers may
do more argument checking, and (3) there are at least two existing
implementations.
Some arguments against the motion were: (1) except for the external
function selection problem, an existing standard program is not
affected by the lack of a GENERIC statement, (2) it is expected that
users will like generic functions and will consider the requirement
for a GENERIC statement a nuisance and a "millstone around their
necks", and (3) use of generic functions should be encouraged because
they aid in the conversion of programs between single and double
precision.
4.11 End Line
Marshall moved, Senn seconded, to adopt proposal 1 in Appendix L
which would change an "end line" to an "END statement" without any
substantive change in the rules. After some discussion, some argu-
ments about whether the change was editorial or not, and a defense
of X3.9-1966, Klein moved, Greenfield seconded, to table the motion.
The motion to table failed (9-11). After some further discussion,
Bailey moved, Matheny seconded, to table the motion. This motion
to table passed (11-7).
4.12 Membership Rules
Greenfield moved, Gibson seconded, to allow a voter member to have
any number of alternate members. The motion passed (13-3).
4.13 Documents to submit to ISO/TC97/SC5
Karp moved, Noll seconded, to submit X3J3/44, which is the (73-10-26)
version of FORTREV, and an updated version of X3J3/38 that is not to
include items approved at this 38th meeting to ISO/97/SC5 for their
May 1974 meeting. The deadline for submission of such documents is
in December 1973. Noll moved, Saunders seconded to amend the motion
by replacing "X3J3/44, which is the (73-10-26) version of FORTREV"
with "X3J3/44 or the latest version of FORTREV that has been distri-
buted to X3J3". The amendment failed (4-9). The motion passed
(19-0).
5. Technical Items Discussed But No Action Taken
5.1 Input/Output Clarifications
Gibson moved, Moore seconded, to adopt item 2 in Appendix G. However
the motion was withdrawn when a straw vote (16-4) indicated that the
committee wanted the syntax to include parentheses when keywords are
used. Group 4 is to rewrite the proposal.
Gibson moved, Moore seconded, to adopt item 6 in Appendix G. However,
the motion was withdrawn when the committee indicated that it wanted
a better syntax for identifying the unit or file name that was being
inquired about. Group 4 is to rewrite the proposal.
5.2 Group Reports
Group 1 report: Group 1 met with the editorial committee and agreed
to a number of editorial changes. Changing the concept of an end
line to an END statement was discussed and a proposal written. See
4.11 and Appendix L.
Group 2 report: Group 2 prepared a proposal for a modification to
the rules for the evaluation of expressions in assignment statements.
See 4.3 and Appendix I.
Group 3 report; Group 3 brought a number of proposals before the
full committee. See items 4.2, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9 and
4.10. The group expects to propose the equivalencing of dummy argu-
ments at the next meeting.
Group 4: Group 1 brought a number of input/output proposals before
the full committee. See 4.1 and 5.1. The group did some more
editorial work on section 13 and discussed changes to the proposals
that were not approved by the committee.
Group 5: Group 5 spent its time validating the current FORTREV
document and identifying problem areas. Temporary acting chairman
Engel has dictated that no changes be made to sections 14-16 before
the January meeting.
Group 6: Group 6 met with the editorial committee and discussed some
methods of producing subset documents. However, it was realized
that the committee has not yet approved any specific items for subsets,
so it is early to be producing exact subset text. The group will
prepare proposals on the content of each of the subsets.
6. Assignments
6.1 Distributor
Material to be distributed before the next meeting should reach
Greenfield by December 26, 1973. Agenda items should be sent to
Bailey.
6.2 Study Of FORTREV
A detailed examination of Section 5 of FORTREV (73-10-26) will be on
the agenda for the next meeting. All members are urged to study
section 5 and prepare written comments before the next meeting.
7. Future Meetings
Jan 14-17, 1974 Phoenix, AZ (Greenfield (617) 667-3111 X2547)
Week of Mar. 11 Dallas, Holmdel, Hampton Roads, or Washington
Week of May 13
Week of July 8
The January meeting will start at 9:30 a.m. on the first day and adjourn
at 5:00 p.m. on the last day.
8. Adjournment
The chairman thanked the members and observers for the work accomplished
and adjourned the meeting at 2:45 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
(Sgd) LLOYD W. CAMPBELL
Secretary
X3J3 FORTRAN