>From time to time people suggest new features they would like to see
incorporated in FORTRAN. Here is one I would like.
The current standard limits the rank of an array to 7.
I guess the historical reason was a performance issue related to the number
of index registers (7) on the IBM 7094, in its time the fastest platform
for scientific computing.
I was recently rudely reminded that this limitation is still there when I
tried to port a program to a new platform. On the original platform, the
compiler had been extended to allow more than 7 dimensions, on the new
platform not.
There are times when more than 7 dimensions is useful. I would like to see
this limit increased, e.g., to the 20 allowed by IBM's XL FORTRAN.
Cheers, Wes
Dr. W. J. Metzger Experimental High Energy Physics Group
tel. +31-24-3653127 Faculty of Natural Sciences
+31-24-3652099 (secr.) University of Nijmegen
fax. +31-24-3652191 Toernooiveld 1
telex 48228 wina nl 6525 ED Nijmegen, The Netherlands
e-mail: [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
http://home.cern.ch/metzger/ or http://www.hef.kun.nl/~wes
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