dcl2inc - Online in the Cloud

PROGRAM:

NAME

dcl2inc - postprocess ftnchek .dcl files to create separate INCLUDE files

SYNOPSIS

dcl2inc *.dcl

DESCRIPTION

dcl2inc postprocessing declaration files output by ftnchek(1), replacing unique COMMON
block definitions by Fortran INCLUDE statements. For each input .dcl file, a modified
output .dcn file is produced, together with include files named by the COMMON block name,
with filename extension .inc.

In addition, dcl2inc produces on stdout a list of Makefile dependencies for the UNIX
make(1) utility. These can be appended to the project Makefile to ensure that any
subsequent changes to .inc files provoke recompilation of source files that include them.

dcl2inc warns about COMMONs which differ from their first occurrence, and simply copies
them to the output .dcn file, instead of replacing them with an INCLUDE statement. Thus,
any COMMON statements that are found in the output .dcn files should be examined carefully
to determine why they differ: they may well be in error.

Replication of identical data, and bugs arising from subsequent modification of only part
of it, is a significant reason why Fortran programming projects should require that COMMON
declarations occur in separate include files, so that there is only a single point of
definition of any global object.

Even though the Fortran INCLUDE statement was tragically omitted from the 1977 Standard,
it has long been implemented by virtually all compiler vendors, and is part of the 1990
Standard. In practice, there is therefore no portability problem associated with use of
INCLUDE statements, provided that one avoids nonportable file names. As long as the code
obeys Fortran's limit of six-character alphanumeric names, the filenames generated by
dcl2inc will be acceptable on all current popular operating systems.

Fortran's default, or IMPLICIT, variable typing is deprecated in modern programming
languages, because it encourages sloppy documentation, and worse, bugs due to misspelled
variables, or variables that have been truncated because they extend past column 72. If
all variables used are explicitly typed, and a compiler option is used to reject all
program units with untyped variables, variable spelling and truncation errors can be
eliminated.

Variable declarations that have been produced automatically by a tool like ftnchek(1) or
pfort(1) have a consistent format that facilitates application of stream editors (e.g. to
change array dimensions or rename variables), and simple floating-point precision
conversion tools like d2s(1), dtoq(1), dtos(1), qtod(1), s2d(1), and stod(1).

CAVEAT

The current version (2.9) of ftnchek(1) does not produce Fortran EQUIVALENCE statements in
.dcl files, so you must be careful to preserve them when replacing original declarations
with new ones from .dcl or .dcn files.

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