Factsheet for Fortran 2003 And Future Developments

The Fortran 2003 Standard

The ISO Fortran 2003 Standard was published in November 2004, superseding the Fortran 95 Standard. There are as yet no processors available which fully conform to the revised standard although some Fortran 95 systems include individual features from Fortran 2003.

The standard is available in the UK from BSI as BS ISO/IEC 1539-1:2004, price £129 for members and £258 for nonmembers.

The final J3 draft, which differs very little from the published standard, may be downloaded from http://www.j3-fortran.org/doc/year/04/04-007.pdf. This is the base document which will be used in WG5 and J3 for future development.

There is a new edition of the well-known Metcalf and Reid book which describes Fortran 2003. This is "Fortran95/2003 Explained" by Metcalf, Reid and Cohen, Oxford University Press, price £23.95 paperback, £65.00 hardback. Other text books are in preparation but none have yet been published.

A paper describing the principal new features in Fortran 2003 may be downloaded by FTP: N1579 (PDF).

Future Development

WG5 has adopted a 'severity level' categorization scheme for proposed enhancements to Fortran in order to help manage future technical development. Codes 1 and 2 denote editorial changes only, code 3 denotes very minor technical or major editorial changes while codes 4 to 8 denote technical changes ranging from 'minor' to 'three years' work'. The categories are described in WG5 document N1594, which is available by FTP as N1594.txt.

It is planned that a first selection of requirements will be made at the WG5 meeting in May 2005, with the final selection at the following meeting in February 2006. The schedule calls for a first committee draft in September 2007 and final publication in August 2009. The full schedule is available by FTP as N1590.txt.

The requirements which have so far been registered with WG5 for consideration for incorporation in the next revision of Fortran are in WG5 document N1613, available by FTP as N1613.txt. This is open to all countries: so far only the UK and US have submitted items.

The list of features under consideration by J3 is at j3-fortran.org/doc/standing/2005/05-009.txt. At the time of writing all of these have been forwarded to WG5 and are included in N1613. A spreadsheet showing a summary of these and further items under consideration by J3 is at j3-fortran.org/doc/year/05/05-145r3.xls.

If you are unable to attend the meeting information on how you can propose requirements for the next revision of the Fortran language is available here.

Links

WG5 website

J3 website

Comments on this or any other of the Group's pages should be sent by e-mail to the BCS FSG Web Editor, Peter Crouch, at pccrouch@bcs.org.uk