To: J3                                                     J3/18-210
From: Bill Long & Daniel Chen
Subject: Ballot Comment GB056
Date: 2018-June-12


Ballot Comment
--------------

In their DIS Ballot for draft N2146 of Fortran 2018, the GB comment
056 reads:

"The term "simply contiguous dummy variable" is undefined. Moreover as
described in NOTE 18.22 it is inconsistent with the current standard."


with the suggested edits:

In paragraph 5 change "simply contiguous dummy argument" to "dummy
argument which has the CONTIGUOUS attribute, or is an assumed-length
CHARACTER array and not a pointer, assumed-shape, or assumed-rank,".

Make the same change in paragraph 6.

Delete paragraph 7.

Delete NOTE 18.22

Add a new NOTE 18.22:

"If an interoperable C procedure whose Fortran interface has a dummy
argument which has the CONTIGUOUS attribute, or is an assumed-length
CHARACTER array and not a pointer, assumed-shape, or assumed-rank, is
invoked from C, the invoking routine is responsible for the contents
of the C descriptor which therefore might not describe a contiguous
data object."


Discussion
----------

Subgroup in principle agrees with the comment. We also modified the
edit as:

1. "simply contiguous dummy argument" can be replaced by "dummy
argument that is simply contiguous" so both terms are defined.

2. An interoperable assumed-length CHARACTER array cannot be
allocatable or pointer; An interoperable CHARACTER array that is
allocatable or pointer must have deferred length, so we removed the
"a pointer, ".



Edit to N2146
-------------

Page 490, 18.3.7 Interoperability of procedures and procedure
interfaces,

para5,
Change "simply contiguous dummy argument" to "dummy argument that is
simply contiguous".

Make the same change in paragraph 6.

Delete paragraph 7.

Delete NOTE 18.22

Add a new NOTE 18.22:

"If an interoperable C procedure whose Fortran interface has a dummy
argument which has the CONTIGUOUS attribute, or is an assumed-length
CHARACTER array and not assumed-shape, or assumed-rank, is invoked
from C, the invoking routine is responsible for the contents of the C
descriptor which therefore might not describe a contiguous data
object."