Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 22:49:19 -0800 (PST) From: Steve Kargl <sgk@troutmask.apl.washington.edu> To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Fortran conundrum Message-ID: <199812220649.WAA46833@troutmask.apl.washington.edu>
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As I promised Mike Smith, I have been looking over the Fortran
situation in -current. From the last round of email, we had
essentially 3 opinions:
(1) Status quo
f77 (f2c+gcc) works for the majority of those who use Fortran.
If someone wants more speed, power, or features, then they can
choose to install gcc_2.8.x and g77+0.5.23, egcs-1.1.1,
or purchase a commericial product.
Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this plan. First,
our version of f2c has suffered some bitrot. I've been
merging the latest source available from netlib into my local
src tree. Second, there are some underlying assumptions involving
size of various types which may break under the DEC alpha port
(this is documented in http://www.netlib.org/f2c/readme). Third,
an upgrade of the core compiler technology may force a removal
of the current Fortran language spec in gcc.
(2) Upgrade to g77 -- g77 produces "better" code than f2c+gcc, and it
is designed to integrate smoothly with the core compiler technology
when an upgrad finally occurs.
Unfortunately, g77+0.5.23 is designed to work with gcc+2.8.x, and
the author(s) of g77 warn to not even try to back port g77 to any
earlier version of gcc.
(3) Rip Fortran out of the base distribution.
This seem to be the logical choice (provided f2c can be converted
to a port). I have been merging our f2c and the sources from netlib
with the intend to produce a port. There is, however, one major
caveat that needs to be address. /usr/bin/f77 is a driver program
which sets up an execution of our Fortran-aware gcc frontend
(see src/gnu/usr.bin/cc/f77). I have been unsuccessful in moving this
driver out of src/gnu, and still retain its functionality.
Thus, I recommend removal of f2c and libf2c, but we retain our
current f77 and Fortran-aware gcc. I'll work on providing a
a patch to gnu/usr.bin/cc/f77 (and its man page) to deal with
the moving of f2c to the ports collection.
Comments?
--
Steve
finger kargl@troutmask.apl.washington.edu
http://troutmask.apl.washington.edu/~clesceri/kargl.html
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