Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pacbell!att-ih!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!hirchert
From: hirchert@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: F8X response, MODULE vs. INCLUD
Message-ID: <50500035@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 10 Mar 88 18:59:00 GMT
References: <5714@ames.arpa>
Lines: 30
Nf-ID: #R:ames.arpa:5714:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:50500035:000:1820
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!hirchert    Mar 10 12:59:00 1988


Professor McDonald writes
>>I do not consider INCLUDE an adequate replacement for MODULE/USE.  I would not
>>object to having INCLUDE in addition to MODULE/USE, but most people seem to
>>object to the redundancy inherent in that kind of combination.
>
>>Kurt W. Hirchert      National Center for Supercomputing Applications
>
>There is still a positive need for INCLUDE that is not met by MODULE/USE.
>That is inclusion of such things as code fragments and other things which
>don't fit the allowed syntax of a module. It is not redundant. INCLUDE
>allows ANYTHING in it, even just part of a statement. This is very important
>since F8x does not have macros or defines.

1. The MIL-STD-1753 INCLUDE statement (which is what many vendors have chosen
   to implement) does NOT allow the inclusion of partial statements.
2. In many (but not all) cases, included code fragments can be replaced by
   references to internal or module procedures.  If the compiler supports
   in-line expansion of such procedures (as most compilers do for statement
   functions), efficiency need not be lost.  (However, it would probably be
   inefficient to expand all internal procedures in-line, and Fortran 8x 
   provides no standard way to indicate which should and which shouldn't.
   I never claimed that Fortran 8x was perfect.)
3. I did not mean to give the impression that I thought INCLUDE was 100%
   redundant with respect to MODULE/USE.  I would suggest that, in practice,
   it is something like 99% redundant.  (In other words, most uses of INCLUDE
   are not for the purposes Professor McDonald is concerned about.)  The
   issue is whether the 99% redundancy is justified by the 1% of nonredundancy
   (or by the need to "standardize existing practive").

Kurt W. Hirchert   National Center for Supercomputing Applications