On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 8:06 AM, Robert Kern <robert.k...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 04:42, David Cournapeau <da...@silveregg.co.jp>
> wrote:
>
> > I don't really know the assumptions made by f2py otherwise: is it
> > prevalent for most fortran compilers to pass most things by reference ?
>
> I think that's part of the standardized semantics, yes. That said,
> some things in the C API like how to pass the length of a character
> string are not standardized and are sometimes passed by value.
>
>
Old Fortran didn't use stacks, all the data was collected into a section of
memory and the subroutine referenced that memory location; think of it as an
anonymous common. The addition of stack variables and the possibility of
recursion was an innovation and originally required a special declaration
that the variable was local, i.e., on a stack. I don't know how modern
Fortran is implemented but using references has a long tradition in the
language.

Chuck
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