Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!eos!eugene
From: eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Unaligned data and old FORTRAN
Keywords: RISC alignment FORTRAN validation suite
Message-ID: <3212@eos.UUCP>
Date: 15 Apr 89 01:14:35 GMT
References: <13998@sequent.UUCP> <98036@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <748@key.COM>
Reply-To: eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Calif.
Lines: 48


 In article <748@key.COM> sjc@key.COM (Steve Correll) writes:
 >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: (I think Henry wrote this:)
 >> 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".
 
Experience: tested the Pascal VS [Sale 1978 on] on the Univac 1100 series
compiler, and used the FCVS on both the Cray Y-MP and ETA-10Q.  Am fully
aware of the ACVS, and a few developments which aren't public. I was an
ANSI committee member [not the same as an ANSI member].

Jeff, the FCVS doesn't do anything as sophisiticated as unaligned accesses.
It merely tests for comformance to a standard (ANSI...1978).  The Pascal VS
had a bit more.  ACVS is a considerably more rigourous than either.
There are a few clever things, but nothing as clever as I was once told.

Standards are simply pieces of paper which are gentleman's agreements.
They aren't blueprints.  Standards are typically after the fact documents.
Don't expect every machine and compiler to pass.  These test are not
cut and dry.  They are not strictly all pass-fail.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
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