> Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 18:40:43 +0100
> From: Pascal Richard <[log in to unmask]>
> Phillip Helbig wrote:
> I think there is another issue involved here. Most folks don't know
> what precision they actually need. They try out something and it works.
> The problem is, what one gets is the smallest data type which complies
> with the constraints. Perhaps this is, say, 64 bits on one machine.
> Obviously, this might not work if a 32-bit type is available. So much
> for portability. In this example, REAL MIGHT suffer from the same
> problem (though note that the default size of REAL is not necessarily
> the same as "the number of bits the machine is"---it is on Cray, it
> isn't on VMS); my point is that KIND doesn't solve all portability
> problems.
But it considerably reduces them.
There is a discussion of this issue in "Writing Portable Software",
published in the Fortran Forum last year.
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