J3/01-311R1

To:      J3
From:    Larry Meadows
Date:    August 20, 2001
Subject: Square brackets for array constructors
References: 01-124R1, Issue #119

01-124R1 allows square brackets to be used to delimit
array constructors, in place of (/ and /).

This usage conflicts with the usage of square brackets
to delimit interval constants in Sun's Fortran product.

This usage does not conflict with the usage of square
brackets in Co-array Fortran, but there is some sentiment
that it is visually distracting.

While intervals are not a standard, they do have a growing
following. Furthermore, the use of square brackets for array
constructors seems to be gratuitous; to quote from 01-124R1:

"Issue 119 advocates to put some use to the square brackets
that have been added to the Fortran alphabet -- namely to
enclose array constructors."

It is also not possible to semantically disambiguate the
use of square brackets for interval constants vs. array
constructors in all cases; consider:

      INTERVAL I(2)
      I = [1,2]
      END

Is I(1) equal to [1.0,2.0] or [1.0,1.0] ?

This use of square brackets adds no new functionality to
the language and conflicts with Sun's interval extension. It
should be removed.

Edits:

[60:30] Delete
[60:33-34] Delete
[61:27] Change '[' to '(\' and ']' to '/)' three times
[61:36] Change '[' to '(/' and ']' to '/)'