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Fortran 77, when the latest version is Fortran 2018? It was the first relevant search result. Feel free to look for more recent resources on the topic, eg http

by cygx 7y ago

Fortran 77, when the latest version is Fortran 2018? It was the first relevant search result. Feel free to look for more recent resources on the topic, eg https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571066104803967 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S157106610... (still a bit dated). Naturally if one goes outside what the standard allows, everything goes. Which makes the Fortran situation essentially the same as the C one once you've typed out `restrict`.

pjmlp 7y ago
Not really, because the standard is what defines the language, just because GNU Fortran does non conforming stuff it doesn't mean that for example PGI Fortran would do the same non conforming behavior. By the same measure I can assert that C++ is a memory safe language given that Visual C++ enables bounds checking and iterator invalidation in the standard library by default.
- cygx 7y ago
  The C language standard makes certain guarantees, such as no out-of-bounds array access, or no modification of memory accessed through a restrict-qualified expression by other means. If such things happen during program execution, the program does not conform to the standard, and its runtime behaviour becomes undefined. This is exactly the same situation you have with Fortran, which makes certain guarantees about, say, the aliasing of function arguments. If all such cases could be detected ahead of time, it would be impossible for programmers to write non-conforming programs. This is not possible. I repeat, there is no essential difference between the Fortran and C situation. The best one could argue is that given that the Fortran guarantees are universal (instead of limited to restrict-qualified pointers), a Fortran programmer is less likely to write an incorrect program, but that's it.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    I guess we have different ways to interpret ISO standards documents, so let's leave at it.

by cygx 7y ago

pjmlp 7y ago

Not really, because the standard is what defines the language, just because GNU Fortran does non conforming stuff it doesn't mean that for example PGI Fortran would do the same non conforming behavior. By the same measure I can assert that C++ is a memory safe language given that Visual C++ enables bounds checking and iterator invalidation in the standard library by default.

cygx 7y ago
The C language standard makes certain guarantees, such as no out-of-bounds array access, or no modification of memory accessed through a restrict-qualified expression by other means. If such things happen during program execution, the program does not conform to the standard, and its runtime behaviour becomes undefined. This is exactly the same situation you have with Fortran, which makes certain guarantees about, say, the aliasing of function arguments. If all such cases could be detected ahead of time, it would be impossible for programmers to write non-conforming programs. This is not possible. I repeat, there is no essential difference between the Fortran and C situation. The best one could argue is that given that the Fortran guarantees are universal (instead of limited to restrict-qualified pointers), a Fortran programmer is less likely to write an incorrect program, but that's it.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  I guess we have different ways to interpret ISO standards documents, so let's leave at it.