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From: Richard Maine <Richard.Maine@nasa.gov>
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Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 11:16:28 -0700
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Subject: (SC22WG5.3028) Statement separation/termination
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Malcolm Cohen writes:
 > Walt Brainerd said:
 > >    X = Y &
 > >    ; P = Q

 > The original text of 3.3.1.2 was somewhat unclear, and in any case was
 > altered by interpretation 121, which I believe was included in
 > corrigendum 3.
...
 >      A ";"
 >      must not appear as the first nonblank character on a line.'

Ah.  I'd forgotten that this was an f90 interp; thought it was an
f95 one.   Since we apparently don't have an inconsistency between
f90 (with corrigenda applied), f95, and f2k, I now agree that this
wouldn't be something to fix in the fcd public comment stage.  It
isn't an error, it isn't an incompatibility, and it isn't new.
I had advised Walt to submit it as a proposed fcd comment based
on my mistaken belief that it was an f90 incompatibility.

I still do think this is a silly restriction that ought to be fixed
in the next release after f2003.  The restriction just doesn't make
any sense.  It doesn't follow from any of the preceding discussion
in the interp.

The only way I can make any sense at all out of it is by assuming
that someone forgot about the case Walt shows when writing the
restriction.  In f90, we didn't have notes, so explanatory material
was just put in the normative text.  This reads to me like a bit
of such explanatory material, trying to explain an effect of the
rules...but getting it wrong...and doing so in normative text.

So I'd propose getting rid of this apparently arbitrary restriction
in f2003+x.  Replace it by a note explaining that the other rules
imply that a semicolon isn't allowed as the first nonblank character
of a noncontinuation line (which does follow from the other rules
and is what I suspect it was intended to say).

Not the world's highest priority proposal, even for f2003+x.  Just
removal of a pointless and unobvious restriction.  Fortunately it
is a restriction that few people will run into and that will at
worst give a compiler error message instead of bad code (though
I'm told that many compilers just accept it anyway).

-- 
Richard Maine                |  Good judgment comes from experience;
Richard.Maine@nasa.gov       |  experience comes from bad judgment.
                             |        -- Mark Twain