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From: LEICHTER-JERRY@YALE.ARPA
Newsgroups: mod.computers.vax
Subject: Re: F$element call?
Message-ID: <8611070918.AA03300@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 7-Nov-86 04:19:08 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8611070918.AA03300
Posted: Fri Nov  7 04:19:08 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Nov-86 04:07:40 EST
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Reply-To: <LEICHTER-JERRY@YALE.ARPA>
Organization: The ARPA Internet
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    I have an application were the f$element function would exactly fit the
    bill.  However, I need to use such a function from within a Fortran
    program.  Alas, there is no LIB$ELEMENT call....  Someone suggested using
    LIB$SPAWN to run the F$ELEMENT call, but is is  unclear how arguments can
    be passed to and from the calling program; also spawning is said to be a
    burden on a uVAX....
Spawning a subprocess to use F$ELEMENT is killing flies with an elephant
gun.  F$ELEMENT is a pretty trivial function - it should amount to a couple
of lines of code in any language at all comfortable with strings.  In portable
FORTRAN IV, it might be a little tough, but in any recent FORTRAN?

Why not write it once as a callable function in whatever language you are most
comfortable with, and be done with it?
							-- Jerry
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