# Fortran 2008 Overview

Fortran 2008 Overview

# Fortran 2008 Overview

## 1 Introduction

This document describes those parts of the Fortran 2008 language which are not in Fortran 2003, and which are now supported by Release 5.3 of the NAG Fortran Compiler.

## 2 Overview of Fortran 2008

The new features of Fortran 2008 that are supported by the NAG Fortran Compiler can be grouped as follows:

• the BLOCK construct,
• aditional intrinsic functions for bit manipulation,
• miscellaneous and convenience features.

## 3 The BLOCK construct

This construct allows declarations of entities within executable code. For example,

  Do i=1,n
Block
Real tmp
tmp = a(i)**3
If (tmp>b(i)) b(i) = tmp
End Block
End Do

Here the variable tmp has its scope limited to the BLOCK construct, so will not affect anything outside it. This is particularly useful when including code by INCLUDE or by macro preprocessing.

All declarations are allowed within a BLOCK construct except for COMMON, EQUIVALENCE, IMPLICIT, INTENT, NAMELIST, OPTIONAL and VALUE; also, statement function definitions are not permitted.

BLOCK constructs may be nested; like other constructs, branches into a BLOCK construct from outside are not permitted. A branch out of a BLOCK construct “completes” execution of the construct.

Entities within a BLOCK construct that do not have the SAVE attribute (including implicitly via initialisation), will cease to exist when execution of the construct is completed. For example, an allocated ALLOCATABLE variable will be automatically deallocated, and a variable with a FINAL procedure will be finalised.

## 4 Additional intrinsic functions for bit manipulation

• The elemental intrinsic functions BGE, BGT, BLE and BLT perform bitwise (i.e. unsigned) comparisons. They each have two arguments, I and J, which must be of type Integer but may be of different kind. The result is default Logical.

For example, BGE(INT(Z'FF',INT8),128) is true, while INT(Z'FF',INT8)>=128 is false.

• The array reduction intrinsic functions IALL, IANY and IPARITY reduce arrays using bitwise operations. These are exactly the same as SUM and PRODUCT, except that instead of reducing the array by the + or * operation, they reduce it by the IAND, IOR and IEOR intrinsic functions respectively. That it, each element of the result is the bitwise-and, bitwise-or, or bitwise-exclusive-or of the reduced elements. If the number of reduced elements is zero, the result is zero for IANY and IPARITY, and NOT(zero) for IALL.
• The elemental intrinsic functions LEADZ and TRAILZ return the number of leading (most significant) and trailing (least significant) zero bits in the argument I, which must be of type Integer (of any kind). The result is default Integer.
• The elemental intrinsic functions MASKL and MASKR generate simple left-justified and right-justified bitmasks. The value of MASKL(I,KIND) is an integer with the specified kind that has its leftmost I bits set to one and the rest set to zero; I must be non-negative and less than or equal to the bitsize of the result. If KIND is omitted, the result is default integer. The value of MASKR is similar, but has its rightmost I bits set to one instead.
• The array reduction intrinsic function PARITY reduces Logical arrays. It is exactly the same as ALL and ANY, except that instead of reducing the array by the .AND. or .OR. operation, it reduces it by the .NEQV. operation. That is, each element of the result is .TRUE. if an odd number of reduced elements is .TRUE..
• The elemental intrinsic function POPCNT(I) returns the number of bits in the Integer argument I that are set to 1. The elemental intrinsic function POPPAR(I) returns zero if the number of bits in I that are set to 1 are even, and one if it is odd. The result is default Integer.

The intrinsic module ISO_FORTRAN_ENV contains additional named constants as follows.

• The additional scalar integer constants INT8, INT16, INT32, INT64, REAL32, REAL64 and REAL128 supply the kind type parameter values for integer and real kinds with the indicated bit sizes.
• The additional named array constants CHARACTER_KINDS, INTEGER_KINDS, LOGICAL_KINDS and REAL_KINDS list the available kind type parameter values for each type (in no particular order).

## 6 Miscellaneous and convenience features

• In a structure constructor, the value for an allocatable component may be omitted: this has the same effect as specifying NULL().
• In a STOP statement, the stop-code may be any scalar constant expression of type integer or default character. (In the NAG Fortran Compiler this also applies to the PAUSE statement, but that statement is no longer standard Fortran.)
• ENTRY statements are regarded as obsolescent.
• An empty internal subprogram part, module subprogram part or type-bound procedure part is now permitted following a CONTAINS statement. In the case of the type-bound procedure part, an ineffectual PRIVATE statement may appear following the unnecessary CONTAINS statement.
• A type-bound procedure declaration statement may now declare multiple type-bound procedures. For example, instead of
      PROCEDURE,NOPASS :: a
PROCEDURE,NOPASS :: b=>x
PROCEDURE,NOPASS :: c

the single statement
      PROCEDURE,NOPASS :: a, b=>x, c

will suffice.
• The NEWUNIT= specifier has been added to the OPEN statement; this allocates a new unit number that cannot clash with any other logical unit (the value will be a special negative value). For example,
      INTEGER unit
OPEN(FILE='output.log',FORM='FORMATTED',NEWUNIT=unit)
WRITE(unit,*) 'Logfile opened.'

The NEWUNIT= specifier can only be used if either the FILE= specifier is also used, or if the STATUS= specifier is used with the value 'SCRATCH'.
• Fortran 2008 extends the rules that are used for generic resolution and for checking that procedures in a generic are unambiguous. The new rules are that
• a dummy procedure is distinguishable from a dummy variable;
• an ALLOCATABLE dummy variable is distinguishable from a POINTER dummy variable that does not have INTENT(IN).

## 7 References

The Fortran 2008 standard, IS 1539-1:2010(E), is available from ISO as well as from many national standards bodies. A number of books describing the new standard are available; the recommended reference book is “Modern Fortran Explained” by Metcalf, Reid & Cohen, Oxford University Press, 2011 (ISBN 978-0-19-960141-7).