To: J3                                                     J3/18-140
From: Steve Lionel
Subject: Pointers should be disassociated by default
Date: 2018-February-15

Reference: 18-007

19.5.2.2 says, "Unless a pointer is initialized (explicitly or by
default), it has an initial association status of undefined." This
contrasts with ALLOCATABLE objects which have a default state
of unallocated.

Intrinsics such as ASSOCIATED are not permitted to be used on
pointers with an undefined association status, and this often leads
to subtle errors in Fortran applications.

The proposal is to make the default association status of pointers
be "disassociated" instead of "undefined". It remains possible for
a pointer's association status to become undefined as described in
19.5.2.4.