Hi,
On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, 10:35pm +0100, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Peter Shenkin wrote:
>
> > I've worked on not only VMS, but also CMS. If you want
> > your code to issue system calls in these, and UNIX, too,
> > you have to have some sort of conditional compilation
> > mechanism.
>
> Ah, but that's a different question
No, it is *the* question we have been discussing.
Van was saying that C is less portable than Fortran,
and as evidence he cited large numbers of #ifdefs he
sees in C code, and large numbers of macro defs.
I responded that these are mostly to accommodate
OS system-call differences to obtain facilities that
neither Fortran nor C provide as part of the basic
language definition.
Aside from this, I see no greater portability for
Fortran than for C, and in some regards I see less
for Fortran.
I therefore expressed curiosity about what Van (or
anyone else) sees #ifdefs being used for in C that
can be done portably in native Fortran. Again,
to me, it seems that both languages need to use
some mechanism for conditional compilation to
obtain access to different system calls provided
by different OS's.
-P.
-P.
--
Peter S. Shenkin Schrodinger, Inc.
VP, Software Development 120 W. 45th St., 32nd Floor
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