To: J3 J3/19-113 From: Van Snyder Subject: CONTIGUOUS (not on the work plan) Date: 2019-January-16 The Problem =========== The CONTIGUOUS attribute isn't precise enough. If an actual argument is of rank greater than one, and is an array section that is contiguous in some early dimensions but not all of them, applying the CONTIGUOUS attribute to an assumed-shape dummy argument causes copy-in / copy-out. Example ======= real :: A(m_max, n_max) call S1 ( A(1:m,:) ) ! m < m_max call S2 ( A(1:m,:) ) ! m < m_max call S3 ( A, m_max, m, n_max ) subroutine S1 ( X ) real, intent(in) :: X(:,:) ! Do something using X, say using X(:,i) subroutine S2 ( X ) real, intent(in), contiguous :: X(:,:) ! Do something using X, say using X(:,i) subroutine S3 ( X, M_Max, M, N ) integer, intent(in) :: M_Max, M, N real, intent(in) :: X(M_Max,N) ! Do something using X(1:m,1:n) The example using S1 runs measurably slower than the example using S3. The example using S2 runs considerably slower than the example using S1. Proposal ======== Allow an optional integer in the CONTIGUOUS attribute specification, to specify how many dimensions are contiguous. E.g., subroutine S4 ( X ) real, intent(in), contiguous(1) :: X(:,:) ! Do something using X, say using X(:,i) I would expect the example using S4 would run about as fast as S3.