Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!ames!hc!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Pointer examples and 8x
Message-ID: <13971@lanl.gov>
Date: 4 Jul 89 22:18:59 GMT
References: <673hallidayd@yvax.byu.edu>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 39

From article <673hallidayd@yvax.byu.edu>, by hallidayd@yvax.byu.edu:
> Are we allowed to use (note the double colon)
> 
>       TYPE (NODE), POINTER :: FUNCTION ...

Since FUNCTION is an attribute of the thing being declared and not part
of the thing being declared, the only consistent way to allow double colon
on function declarations would be:

      TYPE (NODE), POINTER, FUNCTION :: ...

By the way, I think the commas in the above ought to be optional.  After
all, in Fortran 77, the following declaration is legal (in fact commas 
_aren't_ allowed):

      INTEGER FUNCTION TEST (A...

With the double colon this becomes:

      INTEGER FUNCTION :: TEST (A...

I think commas should be optional before the double colon in _all_
declarations.

> [...]                                                       (A further
> note here concerning ambiguities, when the double colon form of declaration
> is used let's allow the user defined type to be used without the
> TYPE(user_type_name) construct---in fact, I would not mind if user defined
> type names are only allowed to be used in the double colon form of
> declaration statement.)

I completely agree here.  I would much prefer to see the following
differrences from the proposed syntax:

>>>       TYPE (NODE), POINTER :: HEAD, NEWNODE
      NODE POINTER :: HEAD, NEWNODE
>>>       TYPE (NODE), POINTER :: PTR
      NODE POINTER :: PTR
etc.