08-209r4
To: J3
From: Steve Lionel
Date: August 11, 2008
Subject: Comment J32001 from Jerry DeLisle
Reference: 08-007r2:2008/03/11

Comment 1:

9.5.6.12 NEWUNIT= specifier in the OPEN statement:

Paragraph 2 needs some clarification.
Is it really intended that the NEWUNIT unit number be negative?
I presume this is intended to avoid conflicts with legacy codes.

Also, the wording of the paragraph reads as if this is a set of
constraints or restrictions.  I suggest the sentence be broken into
at least two sentences to clarify.  The first sentence should make
the assertion that the unit be a negative number (if that is indeed
the case).  The second sentence should then state what the unit number
shall not be.

For example:

2 A NEWUNIT value is a negative number.  A NEWUNIT value shall not be;
equal to -1, any of the named constants ERROR_UNIT, INPUT_UNIT,
or OUTPUT_UNIT from the intrinsic module ISO FORTRAN ENV (13.8.2),
any value used by the processor for the unit argument to a defined
input/output procedure, nor any previous NEWUNIT
value that identifies a file that is currently connected.

J3's Response:

J3 agrees that the language could be clarified.

Edit:
In 9.5.6.12p2,p205, replace the paragraph with:

"A NEWUNIT value is a negative number.  A NEWUNIT value shall not be:
equal to -1, any of the named constants ERROR_UNIT, INPUT_UNIT,
or OUTPUT_UNIT from the intrinsic module ISO FORTRAN ENV (13.8.2),
any value used by the processor for the unit argument to a defined
input/output procedure, nor any previous NEWUNIT value that identifies
a file that is currently connected."

Comment 2:

10.7.2.3.3 E and D editing:

Please explicitly state that the d precision specifier in Ew.d can not
be zero. Currently we are deducing this from the relation given in
sub-part 8:

-d < k <= 0

For any value of k, d can not be zero and have this relation satisfied.
This is a rather obscure way to come to the conclusion that d can not
be zero.  The standard could be improved by being more specific and
just stating "d shall not be zero"

J3's Response:

For input, E, EN, ES and D are all equivalent to the F edit descriptor
and a zero value for <d> is valid for F. Therefore, it would be incorrect
to place such a restriction into the standard. Since it is possible to
deduce from the current text that <d> cannot be zero on output, J3's
decision is to leave the text as it is.