From bill@amber.ssd.csd.harris.com Wed Nov 4 08:14:16 1992 Received: from travis.csd.harris.com by dkuug.dk with SMTP id AA27953 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4j for ); Wed, 4 Nov 1992 19:14:14 +0100 Received: from amber.ssd.csd.harris.com by travis.csd.harris.com (5.61/harris-5.1) id AA13290; Wed, 4 Nov 92 13:14:19 -0500 Received: by amber (5.61/CX/UX-5.0) id AA05687; Wed, 4 Nov 92 13:14:16 -0500 Date: Wed, 4 Nov 92 13:14:16 -0500 From: bill@amber.ssd.csd.harris.com (Bill Leonard) Message-Id: <9211041814.AA05687@amber> To: JLS@liverpool.ac.uk Cc: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk In-Reply-To: Lawrie Schonfelder's message of Wed, 04 Nov 92 12:22:16 GMT <199211041422.AA20929@dkuug.dk> Subject: (SC22WG5.242) Re: S20/58 X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 > Date: Wed, 04 Nov 92 12:22:16 GMT > From: Lawrie Schonfelder > X-Sequence: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk 242 > X-Charset: ASCII > X-Char-Esc: 29 > On Tue, 3 Nov 92 15:47:13 GMT jkr@UK.AC.RUTHERFORD.DIRECTORY said: > I am only now getting time to look at my ballot on issues such as this > and I am sorry to say that I think this is the wrong way to resolve this > admitted confusion. Allowing B N in a format in free-form is like > allowing INT GER in the keyword. I think an error was made in not > properly extending the blank significance rules into the multicharacter > edit descripters I will almost certainly vote no on this one, either in > its original or in John's changed form, unless someone can convince me > otherwise. This would require that the runtime system, which is where FORMATs are interpreted, would have to know how the source was compiled. Even worse, though, this would bring up some tough questions in dealing with FORMATs that are constructed at runtime. As just one example, consider the following: SUBROUTINE SUB(X, Y, S) REAL X, Y CHARACTER*(*) S CHARACTER*(80) FMT FMT='(B N,' // S // ')' WRITE(6, FMT) X, Y END PROGRAM RUNTIME_FORMAT CHARACTER*(50) S S = 'F10.3, B Z, F12.4' CALL SUB(123.45, 987.65, S) END Now suppose that subroutine SUB is compiled in fixed-format, and program RUNTIME_FORMAT is compiled using free-format. How should one interpret the format string FMT when the WRITE statement is executed? No matter what your answer, this would be a nightmare for users to have to know, in cases like this, not only how to call SUB but also what source-form it was compiled in. Making blanks in FORMATs significant is a completely unnecessary change. There is no ambiguity involved, so why do it? It would only make life infinitely harder for both implementors and users. Bill Leonard Harris Computer Systems Division 2101 W. Cypress Creek Road Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309 bill@ssd.csd.harris.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prism: A place for light waves that commit minor refractions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------