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From: staff@cadlab.sublink.ORG (Alex Martelli)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Lessons from Algol (Was: JLG's flogging of horses)
Message-ID: <198@cadlab.sublink.ORG>
Date: 8 May 90 18:22:03 GMT
References: <14358@lambda.UUCP>
Followup-To: comp.lang.fortran
Organization: CAD.LAB, Bologna, Italia
Lines: 30

>          Fortran allows both tabulated and free form output. The

...at the whim of the COMPILER, alas!  Fortran-386 by Green Hills,
release 1.8.4, under SCO Unix/386 System V, for this program:
	i4=4
	i5=5
	write(*,*) 'The answer is',i4,'not',i5
	stop
	end
outputs:

The answer is           4 not           5

while many others will indeed approximate a C's printf.  

What a pity that the Fortran standard committee should have chosen
to embark on such ambitious new language design, rather than just
concentrate on these irritating non-portabilities that make it SO
hard to build solid, portable, "sellable" applications in Fortran 77!

(Does Fortran 90, indeed, offer a simple way to emulate a printf() in a
GUARANTEED portable way?  I really hope so, at least).


[MY own opinions - NOT necessarily my employer's!]
-- 
Alex Martelli - CAD.LAB s.p.a., v. Stalingrado 45, Bologna, Italia
Email: (work:) staff@cadlab.sublink.org, (home:) alex@am.sublink.org
Phone: (work:) ++39 (51) 371099, (home:) ++39 (51) 250434; 
Fax: ++39 (51) 366964 (work only; any time of day or night).