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From: session@uncw.UUCP (Zack C. Sessions)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Read dimension
Message-ID: <1012@uncw.UUCP>
Date: 24 Feb 91 19:43:33 GMT
References: <61477@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Organization: Univ. of North Carolina at Wilmington
Lines: 29

xiaofei@acsu.buffalo.edu (Xiaofei Wang) writes:

>I have this question for a long time:

>main program 

>parameter(m=10,n=5)
>real a(m,n)
>call subroutine(a,b)
>end

>I don't want to put m=10 n=5 to the program, I would like to
>read into the program. so that I don't have to change program
>every time. However a(m,n) has to be defined before read. 
>-- 
>xiaofei@acsu.buffalo.edu / rutgers!ub!xiaofei / v118raqa@ubvms.bitnet

I am most familiar with VAX FORTRAN, but I think this applies to
standard FORTRAN also, and that is, dynamic dimensioning simply is
not supported by the language. You can dynamically define an array,
but only in a subroutine, and the array is a passed argument.

Best you can do with FORTRAN is define the arrays as large as they
ever can get, then input the "current working value", then include
some code which performs your own array-bounds checking. This isn't
too much of a pain, especially on a virtual memory machine.

Zack Sessions
...!ecsvax!uncw!session