Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!interet!jim
From: jim@interet.UUCP (User)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: f2c is almost great
Keywords: f2c, Fortran, benchmarks, computer language translation
Message-ID: <5@interet.UUCP>
Date: 1 Oct 90 17:13:16 GMT
Organization: Interet, Maplewood, NJ
Lines: 27

Here are some f2c versus Fortran benchmarks.  They were provided
by Nhuan Doduc, Framentec-Cognitech, Paris, France.  The program
is a thermohydraulic model, uses double precision arithmetic,
is compute bound, uses negligible IO, and is only 2% vectorizable.

    R Values using f2c and Fortran (larger R is faster)
    ===================================================

Computer                 R f2c      R Fortran      Relative
--------                 -----      ---------      --------
Solbourne Series 5         235            265          89 %
Sun 4/110                   61             74          82
Sun 4/260                   81             95          85
Sun 4/20 SLC                93            103          90
Sun 4/60 SparcStation I    107            119          90
Sun 4/370                  164            234          70

Note that the f2c translation is about 84% as fast as Fortran.

Nhuan Doduc wrote me to say:
"I would suggest only 2 conclusions: (1) f2c is SOLID since the doduc source is
VERY UGLY (it has broken many compilers) and (2) the doduc is a good candidate
for evaluating the progress of the work done on f2c, that is if f2c workers
want to improve their product."

Jim Ahlstrom         uunet!interet!jim
Nhuan Doduc          ndoduc@framentec.fr or ndoduc@cognitech.fr