From owner-freebsd-current Mon Dec 21 22:41:42 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id WAA07473 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Mon, 21 Dec 1998 22:41:42 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from troutmask.apl.washington.edu (troutmask.apl.washington.edu [128.95.76.54]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id WAA07468 for ; Mon, 21 Dec 1998 22:41:40 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from sgk@troutmask.apl.washington.edu) Received: (from sgk@localhost) by troutmask.apl.washington.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA46833 for freebsd-current@freebsd.org; Mon, 21 Dec 1998 22:49:20 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from sgk) From: Steve Kargl Message-Id: <199812220649.WAA46833@troutmask.apl.washington.edu> Subject: Fortran conundrum To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 22:49:19 -0800 (PST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message