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From: zdenko@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Zdenko Tomasic)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Character aliases are Satanic extensions
Summary: integers are safer than reals, but still nonportable
Keywords: Using SAP inclusions
Message-ID: <2718@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Date: 1 Jun 89 03:19:37 GMT
References: <598@mbph.UUCP> <599@mbph.UUCP> <600@mbph.UUCP>
Sender: news@csd4.milw.wisc.edu
Reply-To: zdenko@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Zdenko Tomasic)
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Lines: 19


Real/double precision/complex types are susceptable to normalization
but integer ones are not, i.e. if you really must store characters in
noncharacter types use integer type.

On the other hand the integer size is implementation dependent, so
doing the above is nonportable (there are machines with 2,4,6,8,10,..
etc bytes per integer).

It is exactly for the latter reason that the CHARACTER type is
invented. It pushes implementation part of the problem onto the compiler
writer, so the source does appear implementation independent, i.e.
portable (e.g. CHARACTER*11 will always behave as storing 11 characters
regardless of the underlying word size).
--
___________________________________________________________________
Zdenko Tomasic, UWM, Chem. Dept., P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201
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