To: J3 09-115 From: John Reid Subject: Interpretation re namelist output Date: 2009 January 26 NUMBER: F03/xxxx TITLE: Subobjects in namelist output KEYWORDS: NAMELIST DEFECT TYPE: Error STATUS: J3 consideration in progress QUESTION: Was it intended to disallow vendors to provide namelist output that includes a subobject designator followed by a value? ANSWER: No, it was intended that vendors should have the same choice as users writing namelist input as to whether to provide the name of an object followed by a list of values that give the value of the object or to provide a sequence of subobject designators, each followed by a list giving the value of the subobject. DISCUSSION: At the start of clause 10.10.2 (Namelist Output) of the Fortran 2003 standard, as amended by Corrigendum 3, is the text "The form of the output produced is the same as that required for input, except for the forms of real, character, and logical values, and output produced with user-defined derived-type output". There is no exception for the freedom on input to use subobject designators. The text in the second paragraph of clause 10.10.2.2, says "The name of each namelist group object list item is placed in the output record followed by an equals and a list of values of the namelist group object list item.". The intention here was to use "name" in the generalized sense of name or designator, as in paragraph 1 of clause 10.10.1.1: "If a namelist group object is an array, the input record corresponding to it may contain either the array name or the designator of a subobject of that array, using the syntax of object designators (R603). If the namelist group object name is the name of a variable of derived type, the name in the input record may be either the name of the variable or the designator of one of its components, indicated by qualifying the variable name with the appropriate component name." Because of the meaning attached to "name", in the rest of the standard, it should not be used in this way in clause 10.10.2.2. EDIT: [247:27] In 10.10.2.2, Namelist output records, paragraph 2, change "The name" to "The name or designator". SUBMITTED BY: John Reid HISTORY: