Hi Moez,
adding "use plplot" to your program is the only requirement. The other module,
plf95demolib, merely makes a number of auxiliary routines availalble.
One of the things that is different between F77 and F95 is the use of
assumed-shape arrays wherever possible. The advantages over the F77 form are:
- Less arguments
- Less chance of getting the size of the array wrong
That said, plline and plpoin in the F95 bindings have the signature:
call plline( x, y )
call plpoin( x, y, code )
whereas with the F77 bindings you had:
call plline( n, x, y )
call plpoin( n, x, y, code )
(n the number of points to plot)
The F95 form requires that the arrays x and y are array whose size is known,
either:
real x(n)
real x(:) ! Note that an asterisk declares an assumed-size array, where the
size information is not available directly
or in the call:
call plline( x(1:n), y(1:n) ) ! Just an example
Do you use assumed-size arrays? Then the simplest way out is probably to use
the "real x(n)" form, as you need to know the size of the useable part of the
array anyhow. There are other possibilities too, see below.
(Side note on the evolving language standard: array expressions are helpful to
the compiler as it is easier to determine all manner of optimisations, such as
vector instructions and parallellisations. In that respect new features in the
language standard are very useful. But it is up to the programmer to use these
features or not.)
What follows is - for the moment - thinking out loud, others will have to agree
on this.
If you want to help out with the maintenance, we would welcome that. One thing
I can imagine is a "transition module", making it easier for people to move
from the F77 to the F95 bindings. I do not think we really want to go back to
maintaining two separate bindings, however. The transition module I am thinking
of could implement the now deprecated F77 API as follows:
module plplot_f77
use plplot
implicit none
interface plline
module procedure plline_f77
end interface
contains
subroutine plline_f77( n, x, y )
integer :: n
real(kind=plflt), dimension(n) :: x, y
call plline( x, y )
end subroutine plline
end module
This way you use the module plplot_f77 instead of plplot - that being the only
(!) change to your programs, and you get the old-style F77 bindings back. This
module would provide an additional set of interfaces, but the main code is
still based on F95, so that we have only one code base instead of two.
While typing this, I thought of one problem you may encounter. Code like (not
uncommon in F77 code):
real x(10), y(10)
call plline( 9, x(2), y(2) )
would lead to protest from the compiler - x(2) and y(2) are scalars, whereas
the routine expects arrays. Such code would have to be changed to:
real x(10), y(10)
call plline( 9, x(2:), y(2:) )
to instruct the compiler to use the proper array sections.
Regards,
Arjen
From: Moez Kilani [mailto:moez.kil...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 29, 2013 11:54 PM
To: Arjen Markus
Subject: Re: [Plplot-general] fortran 77
Many thank for the answer Arjen,
Indeed I have started using plplot three years ago.
I have written some packages for my computations but
wasn't aware that you have stopped support for the language.
My focus is on the computation itself, not on the programming language.
My interest in fortran 77 is its simple syntax and constructs.
I know that modern languages have lot new and sophisticated
features, but I don't agree to the continuous changes in the standards.
I am trying to write a simple code with fortran 95 bindings, without success for
the moment. Precisely, I use this compilation command
gfortran -o file file.f `pkg-config --cflags --libs plplotd-f95`
and the compiler complains that for
"plline" and "plpoin"
there is no specific subroutine for the generic ... at ..
Also in the example programs the module
use plf95demolib
is used, but cannot see how to install it.
Last, I definitely thing that maintaining support for fortran 77 is worthwhile
and would give some
of my time to help the development team. Is that possible ?
Regards and best wishes for 2014 !
Moez
2013/12/27 Arjen Markus
<arjen.mar...@deltares.nl<mailto:arjen.mar...@deltares.nl>>
Hello Moez,
support for FORTRAN 77 has been deprecated for a coupe of years now. The reason
for this is twofold:
- All Fortran compilers we know of support Fortran 90/95 and later. So
we decided to put our limited resources into the newer standards. The newer
standards have a large number of advantages in comparison to FORTRAN 77, such
as the use of arrays and array sections and checking the argument lists against
the definition. This greatly reduces the number of mistakes you can make.
- When this was announced several years ago, we did not receive any
complaints.
Could you explain in some detail what makes you use FORTRAN 77, instead of
FORTRAN 95 or newer? There may be a relatively simple path to using the F95
bindings - you can still use most F77 constructs with an F95 compiler (with the
exception of some very old features, F95 is a "superset" of F77, though most
compilers will still support all of F77). You would only have to learn a few
basic things regarding F95 to continue using PLplot.
Regards,
Arjen
From: Moez Kilani [mailto:moez.kil...@gmail.com<mailto:moez.kil...@gmail.com>]
Sent: Friday, December 27, 2013 1:04 PM
To: plplot_general
Subject: [Plplot-general] fortran 77
Dear developers,
I no longer find the source code for the examples in fortran 77 !
this is my favourite language and I am wondering if will be removed from the
list supported languages in plplot !
Moez
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