NAG Ping - Issue 13 (March 2004)

This issue covers:

• The NAGWare f95 Compiler - Release 5
• Calling NAG C Library Routines from Java - Using the Java Native Interface
• A Sneak Peek at New Fortran Standards - Should Finance House Quants Really Care?
• Data Visualization - Climateprediction.net
• Tech Tip - NAGWare f95 Compiler
• Product News - New Implementations
• Your privacy - our policy
• Subscribe/Unsubscribe - Manage Your Account
• About The NAG Ping
• Contact us / Copyright information

The first and only compiler to implement the object oriented features of the new Fortran 2003 Standard, Release 5 of NAGWare f95 Compiler, has been introduced by NAG. The new release continues our improvement of performance and error checking. Among the F2003 features included in Release 5 of the NAGWare f95 Compiler are support for: type extensions (both polymorphic variables and type selection), rank-remapping pointer assignment, and the VOLATILE attribute. In addition, NAGWare f95 Compiler Release 5 has enhanced checking for dangling pointers, undefined variables detection, and illegal recursions.

Release 5 of NAGWare f95 Compiler is now available for Unix, Linux, and MacOSX platforms. The Unix and Linux versions are the first NAG compilers to provide a debugger with a Graphical User Interface. The OSX version leverages some of the libraries in Apple’s veclib in order to improve performance. All versions of Release 5 of NAGWare f95 Compiler include performance improvements in the run-time efficiency of various intrinsic functions. The compiler is available for trial.

Although written in C, the functionality in NAG’s C Library can be accessed from other languages. On PCs, DLL versions of the library can be exploited in many ways, including calling from Microsoft Excel, Visual Basic, or Borland Delphi. Consequently, NAG C Library users often ask if they can call it from Java.

Apart from avoiding rewriting numerical code in Java, using existing C code has another advantage. Java is portable -- compiled programs run on any machine with a Java Virtual Machine (VM). To accomplish this, the Java compiler does not compile to a machine-dependent assembler, but to machine-independent bytecode that is interpreted at run time by the VM. Although the interpreter is efficient, no interpreted program runs as fast as programs compiled to assembler code. For applications that perform CPU-intensive operations on large amounts of data, this can be significant, and moving those operations from Java into compiled libraries can cut execution time.

Read the entire article here [pdf].

Some of the more prominent quantitative analysts working for international banking institutions are strictly Fortran users now and have been for quite some time. There are compelling reasons why Fortran is likely to grow in relevance in the coming years, especially in light of the new standards being finalized by both the U.S. and international standards committees charged with formalizing Fortran 2003. Evolving Fortran standards also underline the reality that multi-language applications are the new norm, and for good reasons.

The entire article, written by Malcolm Cohen of NAG and published in the January/February issue of Financial Engineering News (FEN), can be read here [pdf].

Climateprediction.net is a high-profile e-Science research experiment aimed at the accurate modeling of changes in the world's climate over the next fifty years. It is a public-resource computing project, with thousands of participants all over the world who are using the spare capacity of their desktop PCs to run the project's climate simulator. NAG has been involved in climateprediction.net for the past eighteen months and has developed the real-time visualization component of the model which enables users to track the progress of their simulation as cloud cover and temperature changes over the surface of the globe.

One component of the project produced by NAG software, the image of the cloud-covered globe, has been very popular with news media in their coverage of the project. It has also been incorporated into the project logo on the website. To find out more about the project - including how to participate in it - please visit http://www.climateprediction.net. For more information about NAG's visualization software IRIS Explorer please go to http://www.nag.com/ie.

The NAGWare f95 Compiler provides access to a large number of Posix system calls. Two popular examples of these are facilities to get command line arguments and the ability to execute operating system commands. Access to the Posix functions is by use of the appropriate built-in module.

In order to find out the number of command line arguments (by calling IARGC) and to get the arguments themselves (by calling GETARG) it is first necessary to use the F90_UNIX_ENV module, e.g.

USE F90_UNIX_ENV, ONLY : IARGC,GETARG

Similarly the SYSTEM routine, which passes a string to the command processor for execution, is in the F90_UNIX_PROC module.

Seven modules providing more than 60 Posix procedures covering directories, files, environment and processes are available. These are fully documented in the online manual at http://www.nag.com/nagware/NP/doc_index.asp.

NAG f95 Compiler

• Free BSD (Version 5.0)
• Sun SPARC Solaris (Version 5.0)
• Intel-32 Linux (Version 5.0)
• Mac OSX (Version 5.0)
• Windows - using Cygwin gcc (Version 4.2)

For more information about the availability of the NAGWare f95 Compiler on other platforms, or for information about the functionality of the NAGWare f95 compiler, please see www.nag.com/nagware/np.asp. Remember, you can download a free, fully functional trial.

NAG C Library Mark 7

• MD-64 Linux-64 using the gcc compiler
• Intel-32 Windows using the Borland C++ Builder 5 and 6 compiler
• Sun SPARC Solaris 64
• HP9000/700
• IBM RISC
• Microsoft Windows (Microsoft C/C++ compiler)
• Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER

For more information about the availability of NAG's C Library on other platforms, or for information about the functionality of NAG's C Library, please see www.nag.com/numeric/cl/CLdescription.asp. Remember, you can download a free, fully functional trial.

NAG Fortran Library, Mark 20

• Sun SPARC Solaris using the Workshop 5+ compiler
• AMD-64 Linux-64 using the NAGWare f95 Compiler
• AMD-64 Linux-64 using the PGI f77 v.5 compiler
• Intel-32 Windows using the Lahey Fortran 95 compiler
• Sun SPARC Solaris using the NAGWare f95/Gnu Compiler
• HP Alpha Linux using the NAG f95 Compiler
• Intel-32 Windows using the Intel Fortran Compiler (v.7.0)
• Intel-64 Windows using the Intel Fortran Compiler (v.7.0)

For more information about the availability of NAG's Fortran Library on other platforms, or for information about the functionality of NAG's Fortran Library, see www.nag.com/numeric/fl/FLdescription.asp. Remember, you can download a free, fully functional trial.

NAG SMP Library, Release 2

• Intel-64 using the Intel Fortran compiler (there are two versions one utilizing SGI SCSL, and the other Intel MKL, underlying math libraries)
• Sun SPARC Solaris 64

For more information about the availability of NAG's SMP Library on other platforms, or for information about the functionality of NAG's SMP Library, see www.nag.com/numeric/fl/FSdescription.asp. Remember, you can download a free, fully functional trial.

NAG Fortran 90 Library, Mark 4

• IBM Power AIX
• Apple Power MAC OS X
• Intel-32 Windows

For more information about the availability of NAG's Fortran 90 Library on other platforms, or for information about the functionality of NAG's Fortran 90 Library, see www.nag.com/numeric/FN/FNdescription.asp. Remember, you can download a free, fully functional trial.

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The NAG Ping is an occasional newsletter of technical tips, product information and discussions of technical computing topics. Its principal audience is in North America though it has readers throughout the world. It is the sister publication of the NAGNews, produced by our colleagues at NAG Ltd primarily for those in Europe and elsewhere outside North America.

The NAG Ping is named in memory of Mike Muuss, formerly of the Army Research Laboratory. Among the creative and useful works of his life was the "ping" program to test network connection. It was written by Mike in 1983 to help diagnose problems on his network. The name is tied to Mike's earlier work in sonar modeling and echolocation. To learn more, click here.

Contact us at at ping@nag.com or http://nag.com/contact_us.asp#northamerica.

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