Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sgi!key!sjc
From: sjc@key.COM (Steve Correll)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Unaligned data and old FORTRAN
Keywords: RISC alignment FORTRAN validation suite
Message-ID: <748@key.COM>
Date: 9 Apr 89 05:52:22 GMT
References: <13998@sequent.UUCP> <98036@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: Key Computer Labs, Fremont, CA
Lines: 26

In article <98036@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, khb@fatcity.Sun.COM (fatcity) writes:

Jeff Berkowitz writes:
> Does the F77 validation suite actually force oddly aligned access...?

Keith H. Bierman writes:
> There is no x3j3 equivalent of Ada validation. There are suites which
> purport to validate a compiler, but they have no x3j3, ansi, or iso
> standing. 

Readers who understand Ada validation better than I may compare for themselves:

  In the US Fortran community, "the F77 validation suite" usually means the one
  put out by the US government National Technical Information Service, and
  "validation" usually means paying the National Bureau of Standards (recently
  renamed the National Institute of Standards and Technology for variety's
  sake) to send an official out to test your compiler with that suite and give
  you a certificate. You can call your compiler "Fortran" without doing this,
  but a federal agency (or even a private customer) may require it as a
  condition of sale.

  To complete this brief tour of US government agencies, the General Services
  Administration formerly administered validations, so people refer to the same
  thing as both "the GSA suite" and "the NBS suite".
-- 
...{sun,pyramid}!pacbell!key!sjc 				Steve Correll