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From: silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Is the INCLUDE statement standard?
Summary: Nope
Message-ID: <1990Aug30.105748.19204@cs.dal.ca>
Date: 30 Aug 90 10:57:48 GMT
References: <1990Aug29.160951.19827@athena.mit.edu>
Sender: silvert@cs.dal.ca.UUCP (Bill Silvert)
Reply-To: bill%biomel@cs.dal.ca
Organization: Habitat Ecology Div., Bedford Inst. of Oceanography
Lines: 29

In article <1990Aug29.160951.19827@athena.mit.edu> oliver@athena.mit.edu (James D. Oliver III) writes:
>Title pretty much says it all.  I want to know, before I go replacing
>multitudes of common block and parameter statements, whether this is a
>standard command.  I don't see mention of it in any FORTRAN 77 references,

Alas, it is not.  This is my opinion the greatest problem with F77.
One of the basic rules of good programming is that you do not rewrite
identical code all over the place, and the INCLUDE statement makes this
possible.  Editing multiple copies of a COMMON block without introducing
errors is always a risky proposition to undertake.

Most compilers support INCLUDE, but with different formats.  Some
variants are:
	include file
	include 'file'
	$include:'file'
along with variants of the F-90 (?) USE command.  The only compiler I've
had to use which does not support INCLUDE is the CDC Fortran, which is a
real pain for that reason.

Since I have to write portable code, I don't use any extensions -- but
the INCLUDE statement is so essential that it is the one exception.


-- 
William Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division, Bedford Inst. of Oceanography
P. O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2Y 4A2.  Tel. (902)426-1577
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