On Mon, 2016-04-25 at 15:20 +0000, Bill Long wrote:
> Correct. There was a proposal for Fortran 2008 to include a “BITS”
> data type that would have enabled something like this. However, in an
> attempt to reduce the size of the changes to the standard, it was
> dropped. While there were no actual technical problems with the
> proposal, it was seen as too much effort for the benefit received.
> Weighing against it was the difficulty of implementing any change to
> the typing system.
Actually there were technical problems with the proposal, or at least
controversy concerning the direction. A significant reason for its
demise was that it was based upon using a kind type parameter rather
than a length type parameter to specify the bit string length.
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