To: J3 J3/21-195 From: Malcolm Cohen Subject: US-27 Date: 2021-October-20 In WG5 N2170, Resolutions from the August 2019 Meeting in Tokyo, WG5 resolved to do US27. US27: Syntax to specify that the target of a dummy argument pointer is not to be changed (INTENT applies to the pointer, not its target. On examining and debating this feature, J3/DATA subgroup concluded that a pointer that did not permit modification of its target was a feature that was valuable independently of it being a dummy argument, and thus should not be part of the INTENT attribute. Further discussions and development suggested that a modification of the POINTER attribute itself would be appropriate. However, we did not reach consensus on the syntax and some of the edge cases in the time we had allowed for development of this feature. At this time, the feature is not sufficiently developed for inclusion in this revision of the standard, and attempting to put it in at the last minute would likely leads to problems and inconsistencies, even assuming we could reach consensus on the basics. Therefore, we recommend that this feature not be part of this revision (Fortran 202x), but should be considered for the next revision (F202y). A discussion indicating our current thinking on the technical details can be found at https://j3-fortran.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=30 ===END===