charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) (04/29/89)
In article <307@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> georg@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (georg.k.karawas) writes: > The book 'Numerical Recipes in C' should contain a routine > for matrix inversion. As it was already pointed in other > articles, it is a hassle to work with pointers. > A better solution might be to take a 'canned' FORTRAN routine > from a standard package, like LINPACK, and call it from C. > Be careful though that C stores arrays row-by-row. > UNIX f77 compilers can produce object code which can be linked > with a C calling program. Yes this is the right answer and it applies even more so to algorithms more complicated than matrix inversion for which reinventing the wheel would be crazy. I worry about portability though. I hate to tell sombody I'm giving software to "This is portable except the calls of FORTRAN from C and C from FORTRAN; they work on our machines; you'll have to figure out how to make them work on yours. Here is a copy of message <14081@mimsy.UUCP> in comp.lang.c by Chris Torek that tells how to do it on a VAX running BSD 4.x. Have fun." Is there anything in pANS C, Fortran 8x, and POSIX that will alleviate this situation? It's very annoying, especially these days when all of the really high quality numerical stuff is still in FORTRAN and all of the good user interface stuff is in C.
BVAUGHAN@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Barbara Vaughan) (04/29/89)
In article <1399@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu>, charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) writes: > >In article <307@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> georg@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (georg.k.karawas) writes: (many lines deleted) > >Is there anything in pANS C, Fortran 8x, and POSIX that will alleviate this >situation? It's very annoying, especially these days when all of the really >high quality numerical stuff is still in FORTRAN and all of the good user >interface stuff is in C. This is especially true in my field, demography, where there is an abundant literature of excellent Fortran programs, originally written for mainframe computers (cards in, paper out). I have found a way to do high quality user interfaces in Fortran, using a Fortran- callable library of programs called Spinlab. This is available for Lahey F77L compilers, with plans for an MS Fortran version in the future. (Maybe this exists already; I haven't checked lately.) This library contains assembly language routines for screen addressing, keyboard monitoring, scrolling, windows, everything needed to create top quality user interfaces. I bought it from the author, but I think Lahey is now licensed to sell it. Barbara Vaughan
feg@clyde.ATT.COM (Forrest Gehrke) (05/01/89)
In article <1399@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu>, charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) writes: > > In article <307@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> georg@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (georg.k.karawas) writes: > > > The book 'Numerical Recipes in C' should contain a routine > > for matrix inversion. As it was already pointed in other > > articles, it is a hassle to work with pointers. > > Is there anything in pANS C, Fortran 8x, and POSIX that will alleviate this > situation? It's very annoying, especially these days when all of the really > high quality numerical stuff is still in FORTRAN and all of the good user > interface stuff is in C. If portability and compatibility with ANSI C are foremost, then you probably would be best off with "Numerical Recipes in C" (assuming you aren't interested in re-inventing). If you go this route, the publisher sells a couple of diskettes with the drivers and the C functions for everything listed in the book (plus a number of general utilities used by their routines). (The information in the book about these diskettes isn't exactly clear because they call 'em by the same name--but there are TWO diskettes, one for about $30 and the other $25). The text itself is about $45. They also publish a smaller book which goes into more specific details about their routines. If numerical programming in C is your thing, I think this is well worth the price. --Forrest Gehrke
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (05/02/89)
>Is there anything in pANS C, Fortran 8x, and POSIX that will alleviate this >situation? No, because: 1) the proposed C 89 standard says little if anything about FORTRAN (or is that "Fortran" now?); 2) I suspect the Fortran 8x standard will say little if anything about C; 3) the C 89 standard and probably the Fortran 8x standard will probably say very little indeed about calling sequences, or other compiler-dependent and machine-dependent implementation details; 4) POSIX doesn't say anything about them either. >It's very annoying, especially these days when all of the really >high quality numerical stuff is still in FORTRAN and all of the good user >interface stuff is in C. This is a "quality of implementation" issue, and was left to the marketplace; avoid the "there oughta be a law" syndrome.
cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (05/02/89)
In article <1523@auspex.auspex.com>, guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes: > >Is there anything in pANS C, Fortran 8x, and POSIX that will alleviate this > >situation? > > No, because: > > 1) the proposed C 89 standard says little if anything about > FORTRAN (or is that "Fortran" now?); > > 2) I suspect the Fortran 8x standard will say little if anything > about C; > > 3) the C 89 standard and probably the Fortran 8x standard will > probably say very little indeed about calling sequences, or > other compiler-dependent and machine-dependent implementation > details; > > 4) POSIX doesn't say anything about them either. > > >It's very annoying, especially these days when all of the really > >high quality numerical stuff is still in FORTRAN and all of the good user > >interface stuff is in C. > > This is a "quality of implementation" issue, and was left to the > marketplace; avoid the "there oughta be a law" syndrome. There are two problems. Each implementation of a language will have its calling sequence. This problem is unavoidable, and can be a major headache. About the only thing that can be done about this is to a) have the various calling sequences in the #include files, or otherwise, so that any language can call in any of the sequences, and in addition, b) have system subroutines which can translate between calling sequences. This can even be a problem with ONE language. Programs in Fortran compiled with one calling sequence on the CDC 6x00 could not call programs written in the other with arguments, and so there was a problem with the use of library routines. Neither was ever implemented, and the machines have been phased out. The bigger problem is names. This seems to have started recently. In the systems I have used before UNIX, the statement SUBROUTINE ABC(X,Y,Z) caused an object program with entry point ABC to be produced. Now, a C statement abc(x,y,z) would produce a program with entry point _abc on most implementations. I have seen the Fortran statement above produce one of ABC, abc, _abc_, _ABC_, and probably more occur. These name alterations not only occur in the presentation of the name to the system, but in the names of all subroutines called, blocks used, and global variables. I have not seen an object code editor which can modify the files so that this problem can be handled. It should be considered essential that any user be able to access any object program compiled by any processor by proper use of the calling sequence and return, and this means knowing the system name of the program and being able to instruct the compiler that a program with that name is to be called. A C program cannot now call abc, and a Fortran program from a processor which prepends and postpends _ cannot call the C program presented to C as pdq. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)
chpf127@ut-emx.UUCP (John W. Eaton) (05/03/89)
feg@clyde.ATT.COM (Forrest Gehrke) writes: > charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) writes: >> >> ... It's very annoying, especially these days when all of the really >> high quality numerical stuff is still in FORTRAN and all of the good user >> interface stuff is in C. > > If portability and compatibility with ANSI C are foremost, then > you probably would be best off with "Numerical Recipes in C" As has aleady been mentioned here, the Numerical Recipes in C code is *not* portable [a bit of a problem with pointer arithmetic. See <13239@mimsy.UUCP> (26 Aug 88)]. > (assuming you aren't interested in re-inventing). Well, re-inventing isn't even the real issue in many cases. It's that the algorithms given in Numerical Recipes (as the authors even admit) are really just starting points and examples, not to be confused with high quality numerical software (whatever *that* means :-). Heck, the Fortran (correct spelling? :-) routines don't even use dummy work work vectors, but allocate some arbitrary amount of fixed storage for scratch space. Will there ever be a set of numerical routines in C which is as complete, standard, available, well tested, inexpensive, etc. as those currently available in Fortran? > [ A plug for the Numerical Recipes in C diskettes deleted ...] > > --Forrest Gehrke -- John Eaton chpf127@emx.cc.utexas.edu Department of Chemical Engineering The University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas 78712
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (05/03/89)
>There are two problems. Each implementation of a language will have its >calling sequence. This problem is unavoidable, and can be a major headache. ... >The bigger problem is names. No, there are at least three problems. The third problem is the representation of the language's data types, unless you consider that a subclass of the first problem. Passing a C character string to a routine expecting a FORTRAN character string may not work, nor will passing an integer value by reference, FORTRAN-style, to a routine expecting it to be passed by value, C-style. >It should be considered essential that any user be able to access any >object program compiled by any processor by proper use of the calling >sequence and return, and this means knowing the system name of the program >and being able to instruct the compiler that a program with that name is >to be called. Well: 1) that's not something within the purview of either the C or FORTRAN standard, since it requires particular implementation choices to be made for both languages; it falls between two chairs, and touches on an area that standards committees often try to avoid constraining, namely implementations. It's not within the purview of POSIX, either. 2) given the "third problem", you may have to write a "jacket" routine to translate data types, which means that it may not necessarily be useful merely to patch up the name-space problem, since you can't just call, say, the UNIX "open" routine from FORTRAN in the same way you can call it from C. I don't have Stu Feldman's paper on F77 handy, so I don't know if he put in the prepended underscore, in part, to allow you to have a jacket for the C routine "foobar" written in C and called "foobar_" from within C and thus "foobar" from within FORTRAN, that does any requisite data type translations.
cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (05/04/89)
In article <1544@auspex.auspex.com>, guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes: > >There are two problems. Each implementation of a language will have its > >calling sequence. This problem is unavoidable, and can be a major headache. > > ... > > >The bigger problem is names. > > No, there are at least three problems. The third problem is the > representation of the language's data types, unless you consider that a > subclass of the first problem. Passing a C character string to a > routine expecting a FORTRAN character string may not work, nor will > passing an integer value by reference, FORTRAN-style, to a routine > expecting it to be passed by value, C-style. I see this as part of the calling sequence problem. Certainly, for a Fortran program to call a C program which expects values rather than references, the Fortran program must pass the parameters as it knows how C expects to find them. This might involve considerable work with complicated data structures, but presumably these matters are problems of the language and not of the implementation. > >It should be considered essential that any user be able to access any > >object program compiled by any processor by proper use of the calling > >sequence and return, and this means knowing the system name of the program > >and being able to instruct the compiler that a program with that name is > >to be called. > > Well: > > 1) that's not something within the purview of either the C or > FORTRAN standard, since it requires particular implementation > choices to be made for both languages; it falls between two > chairs, and touches on an area that standards committees > often try to avoid constraining, namely implementations. > It's not within the purview of POSIX, either. I have used several operating systems before UNIX. On all of them, a name was a name was a name. The program cards and subroutine cards in Fortran produced names in the object file identical to what appeared on the card. Entry names and COMMON block names likewise. Assembler-produced programs did the same thing. If I was going to use an Algol program it would still be the same. The calling sequence was a problem, even between Fortrans. But not the names. Speaking of names, why should one not be able to name a main program? > 2) given the "third problem", you may have to write a "jacket" > routine to translate data types, which means that it may not > necessarily be useful merely to patch up the name-space > problem, since you can't just call, say, the UNIX "open" > routine from FORTRAN in the same way you can call it from C. There is no reason why the calling sequence for a subroutine to be called from Fortran shoulc be the Fortran calling sequence. But the Fortran compiler should, if necessary, have a patch to produce the necessary calling sequence. > I don't have Stu Feldman's paper on F77 handy, so I don't know if he put > in the prepended underscore, in part, to allow you to have a jacket for > the C routine "foobar" written in C and called "foobar_" from within C > and thus "foobar" from within FORTRAN, that does any requisite data type > translations. This assumes that the writer of the C program writes it so it can be called "foobar" from within Fortran on this particular type of system. On our extinct system, we did have a version of F77, but it did not use underlines at all. Now suppose that we have an excellent program "foo" written in C, and the object file is in the library. Why should I not be able to use this program from Fortran without recompiling it. Or even if I have a full graphics package of subroutines, why should this not be callable from any processor regardless of its name? A calling sequence requiring data editing is relatively easy. On every implementation I have used, I do know how to hack the .s program to change the names, but can every user of a subroutine I provide be required to do so? -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)
tim@crackle.amd.com (Tim Olson) (05/04/89)
In article <1278@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: | I have used several operating systems before UNIX. On all of them, a name | was a name was a name. The program cards and subroutine cards in Fortran | produced names in the object file identical to what appeared on the card. | Entry names and COMMON block names likewise. Assembler-produced programs | did the same thing. If I was going to use an Algol program it would still | be the same. The calling sequence was a problem, even between Fortrans. | But not the names. If an underscore is not prepended (or the names changed in some standard unique way), then you run into the problem of potential name-space conflicts with the assembly-level "helper" routines that almost always exist. These routines include "start" (the beginning of crt0, which gets control and sets everything up for your program), help for non- or undersupported intrinsics like unsigned modulo, short multiplies, etc. If this were not done, then a user would just get mysterious "multiply-defined" errors from the link of his program. -- Tim Olson Advanced Micro Devices (tim@amd.com)
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (05/04/89)
In article <1278@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: >I see this as part of the calling sequence problem. Certainly, for a >Fortran program to call a C program which expects values rather than >references, the Fortran program must pass the parameters as it knows >how C expects to find them. This might involve considerable work with >complicated data structures, but presumably these matters are problems >of the language and not of the implementation. Woo, woo, let's also insist on a LISP compatible interface. Let's also make C set up the run-time I/O support, activation contexts, garbage collection, etc. needed by other languages just in case we use them.. >I have used several operating systems before UNIX. On all of them, a name >was a name was a name. The program cards and subroutine cards in Fortran >produced names in the object file identical to what appeared on the card. >Entry names and COMMON block names likewise. Assembler-produced programs >did the same thing. If I was going to use an Algol program it would still >be the same. The calling sequence was a problem, even between Fortrans. >But not the names. I don't suppose you ever named any of your functions Q8Q...? Name clashes among external identifiers has been a practical problem ever since the invention of the link editor. UNIX had several constraints that caused the external name mapping conventions that it had. One of them was a pre-existing assembler that had no way to prevent names such as "r0" the register from being confused with "r0" the external datum. This caused the C compiler to give external identifiers an unmistakable form. When preexisting assembly code was not an issue, as with the 3B series, the opposite approach of giving registers etc. unique name formats such as "%0" was followed and external identifiers were left alone. C and Fortran external identifiers could not be mixed (such as in implementing Fortran run-time support in C), due to differences in behavior expected for the same names. For example, SUBROUTINE FOPEN. >Speaking of names, why should one not be able to name a main program? Why add unnecessary complexity?
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (05/04/89)
>I see this as part of the calling sequence problem. Certainly, for a >Fortran program to call a C program which expects values rather than >references, the Fortran program must pass the parameters as it knows >how C expects to find them. This might involve considerable work with >complicated data structures, Uhh, this tends to involve extensions to the language, as in VMS C's "%VAL", etc. (or whatever the syntax is). If you have a C routine that expects an integral value, and you want to call it from a Fortran routine, "considerable work with complicated data structures" ain't going to cut it. >but presumably these matters are problems of the language and not of >the implementation. The "value vs. reference" is a problem of the language. However, the "Fortran character strings vs. C character strings" problem, which is a *separate* part of this problem (it has nothing to do with value vs. reference), is a matter of the implementation - C strings' implementation tends to be constrained by the language definition (although there could conceivably be surprises, if the implementor works hard enough :-)), but Fortran strings' implementation aren't necessarily so constrained. For example, a quick check of the 4.3BSD F77 libraries indicate that its "f77" (and, I suspect, most other UNIX "f77" implementations, since many of them are derived from Feldman's) passes a Fortran string type by passing a pointer to a character array (well, to its first element) followed by an integral string length. Said character arrays can be blank-padded at the end (I think this may be language-definition-related). This is *not* what a typical C routine expects to see as a string. I don't know that there is a way in "standard Fortran" to pass a string in a way that a naive C routine would find acceptable, and that will work on all Fortran and C implementations (if somebody thinks there is, they should exhibit it in detail, otherwise I'm not inclined to believe them). You could add an extension to Fortran to pass "C-style strings", but not all Fortrans will necessarily support this; you'd have to get it added to the language. However, once you've done that, you now have questions like "how do I pass a standard I/O stream pointer to a C routine that expects it?" Standard Fortran doesn't have structures, much less an "address of" operator, so passing a standard I/O stream pointer - defined in most UNIX standard I/O implementations, at least, as a pointer to a particular type of data structure - is a bit hard.... Given the problems listed here, the "best approach" is probably to have the C routines you call from Fortran be set up to have "Fortran-generatable" calling sequences; this may mean you have to have "jacket" routines for popular C routines with non-Fortran-generatable calling sequences. This may mean, though, that the "jacket" routine may depend on the particular calling conventions of the Fortran you're using; for instance, consider a Fortran that passes strings by passing a pointer to the characters and the length vs. a Fortran that passes them by passing a pointer to a block of memory containing the length followed by the characters. Of course, moving back to the structure problem, even if your Fortran *does* support structures (I think VMS C and other ones have that as an extension), there's no guarantee from the language specs that they'll lay out data structures in the same way.... In short, your presumption is incorrect; it *is* an implementation problem. >Speaking of names, why should one not be able to name a main program? If one is speaking of names in C, why should one want to "name a main program"? What could you do given that facility that you can't do without it?
cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (05/04/89)
In article <10201@smoke.BRL.MIL>, gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes: > In article <1278@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: ......................... > Woo, woo, let's also insist on a LISP compatible interface. Why not? why should Fortran or C not be able to call a compiled LISP program? > Let's also make C set up the run-time I/O support, activation contexts, > garbage collection, etc. needed by other languages just in case we use > them.. Each program better have its own I/O interface, etc. There is a point in having system ones with certain properties, but these are in the nature of additional subroutines callable by the various processors. I have had to treat a Fortran-created file in C because the Fortran where the file was being read did not have the Z format. > >I have used several operating systems before UNIX. On all of them, a name > >was a name was a name. The program cards and subroutine cards in Fortran > >produced names in the object file identical to what appeared on the card. > >Entry names and COMMON block names likewise. Assembler-produced programs > >did the same thing. If I was going to use an Algol program it would still > >be the same. The calling sequence was a problem, even between Fortrans. > >But not the names. > > I don't suppose you ever named any of your functions Q8Q...? Every system has its reserved words, including UNIX. Every compiler likewise. > Name clashes among external identifiers has been a practical problem > ever since the invention of the link editor. Agreed. And they will continue to be. Suppose several sources provide routines designed to do the same thing. You would need an object file editor to handle the problem. It should be provided. But why should Fortran, C, etc., have to have identical subroutines with different names because of the namespace clash. > UNIX had several constraints that caused the external name mapping > conventions that it had. One of them was a pre-existing assembler > that had no way to prevent names such as "r0" the register from being > confused with "r0" the external datum. So rewrite the assembler so that the register r0 would be called !0 or something similar. Suppose there is reason to call a program sp? The register conventions would not allow this. There are enough currently illegal notations that one of them could be used for registers, where the problem is, rather than having everyone else do it. > This caused the C compiler to > give external identifiers an unmistakable form. When preexisting > assembly code was not an issue, as with the 3B series, the opposite > approach of giving registers etc. unique name formats such as "%0" > was followed and external identifiers were left alone. This approach should have been followed everywhere. Such changes to assemblers are easy. Even patches are easy, if a binary program editor is supplied. > C and Fortran external identifiers could not be mixed (such as in > implementing Fortran run-time support in C), due to differences in > behavior expected for the same names. For example, SUBROUTINE FOPEN. So two functions with the same name should not appear in different libraries? > >Speaking of names, why should one not be able to name a main program? > > Why add unnecessary complexity? Because there can be reasons to refer to programs and entry points by name when desirable. Because people have used one program to operate on another. Because there are times when the same load process needs to load more than one program which can be a "main" program. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)
karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) (05/05/89)
In article <25509@amdcad.AMD.COM> tim@amd.com (Tim Olson) writes: >If an underscore is not prepended ... you run into the problem of potential >name-space conflicts with the assembly-level "helper" routines [e.g. "start"] Actually, collision with register names and/or assembler instructions is the stronger reason. On machines where this isn't a problem, the helper routines are typically written using the assembler's larger namespace, e.g. ".start". Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint
charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) (05/06/89)
Most of the discussion about this has gotten very far away from what I see as the real problem (perhaps mistakenly). A lot of comments have been to the effect that there's no portable way to make it so that *any* Fortran, C, or Lisp (!) program can be called from any other. I just want an answer to a much simpler problem. How to write an intellegent C program (no strings or structures in arguments, no call by value, etc.) that calls a Fortran subroutine or is called by one. I know there is no portable answer to this now. But shouldn't there be? This is often essential if one is to avoid reinventing the wheel at the cost of years of work.
chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (05/06/89)
In article <1415@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu> charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) writes: >I just want an answer to a much simpler problem. How to write an >intellegent C program (no strings or structures in arguments, no call >by value, etc.) that calls a Fortran subroutine or is called by one. >I know there is no portable answer to this now. But shouldn't there >be? Perhaps there should. But note that a Fortran compiler might use an entirely different run-time environment (e.g., perhaps no stack at all) than a C compiler, even on the same machine. It is clear that no one language standard can constrain any *other* language, and that therefore no one standard (for Fortran, C, PL/I, APL, Lisp, DDL, rog-o-matic, or whatever) can require inter-language calls. It requires an inter-language standard to do this. Good luck on getting together an inter-language standard ... you will certainly need it. -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) Domain: chris@mimsy.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris
amanda@iesd.dk (Per Abrahamsen) (05/06/89)
In article <1415@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu> charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) writes:
... How to write an intellegent C program [...] that calls a
Fortran subroutine or is called by one. I know there is no portable
answer to this now. But shouldn't there be?
Something like
extern "<language>" subrutine();
where <language> is any supported language?
C++ offer you that...
--
Per Abrahamsen, amanda@iesd.dk, {...}!mcvax!diku!iesd!amandacik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (05/06/89)
In article <17333@mimsy.UUCP>, chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes: > In article <1415@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu> > charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) writes: > >I just want an answer to a much simpler problem. How to write an > >intellegent C program (no strings or structures in arguments, no call > >by value, etc.) that calls a Fortran subroutine or is called by one. > >I know there is no portable answer to this now. But shouldn't there > >be? > > Perhaps there should. But note that a Fortran compiler might use an > entirely different run-time environment (e.g., perhaps no stack at all) > than a C compiler, even on the same machine. > > It is clear that no one language standard can constrain any *other* > language, and that therefore no one standard (for Fortran, C, PL/I, > APL, Lisp, DDL, rog-o-matic, or whatever) can require inter-language > calls. It requires an inter-language standard to do this. > > Good luck on getting together an inter-language standard ... you will > certainly need it. Even with the same language, different compilers can have different calling sequences. This problem can be handled by the process of having each compiler have access to the calling sequences of the others. The harder problem is names. Suppose I am writing a buffer refill program. I could write this in Fortran or C (I would prefer C, but it would make little difference). On vector machines, I could vectorize it (maybe). It is easy to call. How do I name it? If I give it a name in one language, how will it appear to the system? Can I call it at all? I know how to produce a .s file as an intermediate and edit that file to change the name. But what do you do if source is not provided? An object file editor should be available to do the job, but I believe is not. And the problem is greater if it is in a package. There are statistics packages with many formats. What if it is necessary for someone like Charlie to use several packages to do what he wants? This is an important question, and one which has been ignored by the computing and language people. The answer is not to make a universal calling sequence, as that prevents development. But there is no reason why names should be altered by processors, as is now the case. And the calling sequences for the processors should be public knowledge. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)
mat@mole-end.UUCP (Mark A Terribile) (05/07/89)
In article <1415@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu>, charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) writes: > ... How to write an intellegent C program (no strings or structures in > arguments, no call by value, etc.) that calls a Fortran subroutine or is > called by one. I know there is no portable answer to this now. But > shouldn't there be? > This is often essential if one is to avoid reinventing the wheel at > the cost of years of work. Well ... there is provision in C++ 2.0 for this. Exactly what languages will be supported (usually just C) is up to the implementation, but if you feel the need to write compilers that provide the capability, there is a well-thought- out syntax for the job. -- (This man's opinions are his own.) From mole-end Mark Terribile
diamond@diamond.csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond) (05/08/89)
In article <17333@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes: >It is clear that no one language standard can constrain any *other* >language, and that therefore no one standard (for Fortran, C, PL/I, >APL, Lisp, DDL, rog-o-matic, or whatever) can require inter-language >calls. It requires an inter-language standard to do this. True >Good luck on getting together an inter-language standard ... you will >certainly need it. When DEC did exactly this, around 10 years ago, luck did not seem to be part of it. Of course, they had trouble integrating C with the rest of it, because other languages only specified WHAT gets done by various language constructs, but K&R added HOW it must be done for their language. (This must be the ultimate worst mistake that K&R made in their specification of the C language.) However, some wheels do not really require re-invention, nor do they require luck if you want to read about the existing invention before doing yours. Seems a lot of people hate DEC because DEC learned their lessons before everyone else did.... -- Norman Diamond, Sony Computer Science Lab (diamond%csl.sony.co.jp@relay.cs.net) The above opinions are my own. | Why are programmers criticized for If they're also your opinions, | re-inventing the wheel, when car you're infringing my copyright. | manufacturers are praised for it?
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (05/09/89)
In article <10228@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET> diamond@csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond) writes: >When DEC did exactly this, around 10 years ago, luck did not seem to be >part of it. DEC tried to do it, but I wouldn't call their attempt fully successful. >... other languages only specified WHAT gets done by various language >constructs, but K&R added HOW it must be done for their language. I don't know what you mean by this. Do you?
weyrich@csun1.UUCP (Orville Weyrich) (05/09/89)
From article <17333@mimsy.UUCP>, by chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek): > It is clear that no one language standard can constrain any *other* > language, and that therefore no one standard (for Fortran, C, PL/I, > APL, Lisp, DDL, rog-o-matic, or whatever) can require inter-language > calls. It requires an inter-language standard to do this. > > Good luck on getting together an inter-language standard ... you will > certainly need it. This has been a topic near and dear to me for a long time: We really should have some kind of standard for inter-language communication. Such a standard should be an add-on option to the existing language standards, and should specify PORTABLE ways of specifying how to call procedures/functions in other languages. If such a standard existed, then vendors would be able to claim that their language X and language Y compilers met the interface standard, and procurement personnel would be able specify such compatibility as a requirement. It is of course unreasonable to expect to be able to mix-n-match any arbitrary compilers from arbitrary suppliers. It is also unreasonable to expect to be able to pass anything between languages transparently. For example, if FORTRAN arrays of character can contain null values, it is unreasonable to expect to be able to pass such arrays to C, which treats nulls as "end of string". It would, however, be reasonable to define a standard structure in C which could be used to communicate string data with FORTRAN routines. Anyone interested in trying to draft such a standard (which might include proposed 'tweeks' to the language standards being mingled)? My own interest would be mainly between FORTRAN and Ada, but I am sure that there is also interest in linking FORTRAN with C and C with Ada. E-mail me if you are interested. Orville R. Weyrich, Jr. weyrich@csun1.cs.uga.edu -- Orville R. Weyrich, Jr. | UUCP : ...gatech!csun1!weyrich Department of Computer Science | INTERNET: weyrich@csun1.cs.uga.edu University of Georgia | Athens, GA 30602 USA | MA BELL : (404) 542-1082
joe@modcomp.UUCP (05/09/89)
Tim Olson writes: >If an underscore is not prepended ... you run into the problem of potential >name-space conflicts with the assembly-level "helper" routines [e.g. "start"] Of course, the conflicts can be avoided by (manually) appending the underscore to all the helper routines, rather than (automatically) to the user routines. At least, that's the way it works on our moto boxes, and I've had no problem with it.... joe korty uunet!modcomp!joe
diamond@diamond.csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond) (05/10/89)
In article <10228@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET> I wrote: >>When DEC did exactly this, around 10 years ago, luck did not seem to be >>part of it. In article <10237@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: >DEC tried to do it, but I wouldn't call their attempt fully successful. It would still be silly if someone who wants to reinvent this wheel doesn't bother to look at what DEC did. >>... other languages only specified WHAT gets done by various language >>constructs, but K&R added HOW it must be done for their language. >I don't know what you mean by this. Do you? Yeah, I think so. Strings, for example. Cobol, PL/I, Algol, Fortran-77, Snobol, etc., have string types and say what kind of operations can be done on strings. C says that a string is terminated with a '\0' byte. Instead of assigning a null string to a target, C programmers assign a '\0' byte, so the implementation of C library routines can never be speeded up. For other languages, improvements are often made to implementations. -- Norman Diamond, Sony Computer Science Lab (diamond%csl.sony.co.jp@relay.cs.net) The above opinions are my own. | Why are programmers criticized for If they're also your opinions, | re-inventing the wheel, when car you're infringing my copyright. | manufacturers are praised for it?
flint@gistdev.UUCP (05/11/89)
Dealing with blank-filled vs null terminated strings, calling conventions,
variable sizes, routine names, etc. are all a pain. The biggest pain is
when the system libraries are improperly constructed though.
An example: The main() routine is in C which calls Fortran routines which
in turn call C routines. Unfortunately, the Fortran parts use some string
functions that don't exist in the C library, so if you want it to work, you
have to link in the Fortran library. Can you just add a -lF77? Wrong,
that gives you a "duplicate function main()" error. Ok, so you ar the
routines you need out of the Fortran library and link them in explicitly,
and you can make it link and work. Now you want to put some debug output
into the Fortran codes and guess what: the routines needed aren't
available, and if you try to ar only the .o files out of libF77.a you need,
you eventually end up needing something that is in the same .o file as the
main() routine of libF77.
The end result is that if I want to do any output at all from the Fortran
code, I have to call a C routine to do it. All this pain could be avoided
if the genius who created the libF77.a had put the main() routine in it's
own .o all by itself, so that I could just copy the library and remove
main.o and link it. But if you toss several routines into the same .o
together, then you can't take the extra main() out without taking out
something else that you have to have to do Fortran style I/O.
Flint Pellett, Global Information Systems Technology, Inc.
1800 Woodfield Drive, Savoy, IL 61874 (217) 352-1165
INTERNET: flint%gistdev@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
UUCP: {uunet,pur-ee,convex}!uiucuxc!gistdev!flintka@june.cs.washington.edu (Kenneth Almquist) (05/12/89)
The problem of differing calling conventions could be solved with a stub generator. Say you had a FORTRAN subroutine that you wanted to call from C. The input to the stub generator would include the name of the FORTRAN routine, the types of its arguments, the name that the routine was to be know from in C, and the types of the arguments to be passed from C. The output of the stub generator would be a C callable routine which would convert the arguments to the appropriate types for C (if necessary), run the FORTRAN routine, and finally convert the resulting values back to the appropriate types for C (again only if necessary). The advantages of this approach are: 1) The language standards don't have to change. Instead, all that is required is to develop a new standard for the stub specification language. So there is no need to convince the existing standards committees to address the interlanguage communication problem. They haven't addressed it in the past, and there is no reason to expect this to change in the near future. 2) Another advantage is that existing compilers probably don't have to change (see below). If you own a C compiler and a FORTRAN compiler for an IBM/PC compatible, the chances that the same company will have written both compilers is relatively small. Either of these companies may have decided that being compatible with their competitor's compilers is not worth the trouble. On the other hand, a third party might be willing to sell a stub generator that was compatible with both. 3) The number of people who are interested in interlanguage communi- cation is probably fairly small, and compiler writers might be hesitant to add features that they think will be only used by a few of their customers. On the other hand, stub generators are relatively easy to write, so a company might be willing to market a stub generator to a much smaller market than a compiler company would target. Alternatively, users could write their own. This does not address the issue of compatible run time systems. Both FORTRAN and C have relatively simple run time systems, so incompatibility is not likely to be a major problem in this case. The standard would have to give standard names to the initialization and cleanup entry points for the run time systems, so that a program with a C main routine could initialize the FORTRAN run time system, and vice versa. Kenneth Almquist
tps@chem.ucsd.edu (Tom Stockfisch) (05/17/89)
In article <8197@june.cs.washington.edu> ka@june.cs.washington.edu (Kenneth Almquist) writes: _The problem of differing calling conventions could be solved with a _stub generator.... _ The standard would _have to give standard names to the initialization and cleanup entry _points for the run time systems, so that a program with a C main routine _could initialize the FORTRAN run time system, and vice versa. _ Kenneth Almquist In calling fortran from C I would like to avoid the fortran library as much as possible. On our system the fortran i/o junk is almost 100k, stripped. I tend to use fortran just for LINPACK and other stuff that does no i/o, so I hate the waste. -- || Tom Stockfisch, UCSD Chemistry tps@chem.ucsd.edu
flaps@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) (05/18/89)
In article <7800008@gistdev> flint@gistdev.UUCP writes: >An example: The main() routine is in C which calls Fortran routines which >in turn call C routines. Unfortunately, the Fortran parts use some string >functions ... >Can you just add a -lF77? Wrong, ... > >The end result is that if I want to do any output at all from the Fortran >code, I have to call a C routine to do it... Why not just have your main in Fortran? It could be just a call to cmain(). I think this solves this problem. Of course, it doesn't solve this problem when you are trying to compile with two non-C languages, but for just one it's fine. ajr
heilpern@ibd.BRL.MIL (Mark A. Heilpern ) (06/03/89)
In article <8905181540.AA06912@cartier.dgp.toronto.edu> flaps@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) writes: [lots deleted] >Why not just have your main in Fortran? It could be just a call to cmain(). >I think this solves this problem. Of course, it doesn't solve this problem >when you are trying to compile with two non-C languages, but for just one it's >fine. I've often used C as a fron end to Fortran to allow the use of command-line arguments to the program call, and pass most or all of these options (possibly parsed & manipulated by C) to my fortran routine. Is there a common way of getting command-line arguments / flags to fortran in a more direct manner? --M.
zifrony@TAURUS.BITNET (06/16/89)
Most environments I know, which include DG AOS/VS, VMS and UNIX have compatible
compilers, meaning you can interleave objects originating from different
languages to create your load module.
Of course, when reading a FORTRAN routine from C, it is important to remember
that FORTRAN arguments are passed by reference, thus pointers have to be
passed. In case of character type, I am not sure there is a simple C
equivalent, and maybe some sort of simulation through the use of "struct" is
necessary.
The loading of the FORTRAN library indeed poses a problem. I don't know if it
is setteled in any system.
--
Doron Zifrony E-mail: BITNET: zifrony@taurus.bitnet
Msc. Student INTERNET: zifrony@Math.Tau.Ac.IL
Dept. of CS ARPA: zifrony%taurus.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Tel Aviv Univ. UUCP: ...!uunet!mcvax!humus!taurus!zifrony
Israel CSNET: zifrony%taurus.bitnet%cunyvm.cuny.edu@
csnet-relay
--
Disclaimer: I DON'T represent Tel Aviv University. The opinions hereby
expressed are solely my own.jagan@zodiac.rutgers.edu (02/11/91)
This is the summary of my experiences in calling Fortran routines
from C main program in SUN OS 4.03.
1. I was getting the run-time error of segmentation violation
at every WRITE statements in Fortran. There was no warning
or error messages while compiling or linking. Initially I thought
it could be Fortran I/O initialization problem. But, the source
of the problem was found to be the name of a function in C (scale),
which clashed with a Fortran library subroutine by the same
name. There is a long list of Fortran library subroutine names.
The credit for debugging should go to Mr. Jim Wade of SUN.
2. The SUN-3 debugger is good. SUN-4(SPARC) gives problems
while using debugger.
Few more points about calling Fortran from C:
1. If the name of Fortran subroutine called from C main is "test",
then use the statement "test_();" in C main for calling it.
Here no arguments are passed to Fortran.
2. If you wish to pass large number of arguments to Fortran,
the easier way could be to use "common" statement in Fortran.
For example, to pass the following structure in C :
struct object_data {
float surface[50][12];
int bound[50][50];
float intersect[80][8];
int vertex[80][15];
} dbs_ ;
Note: the underscore after the variable name dbs is required.
Use the following statements at the begining of Fortran program:
integer bound(50,50), vertex(15,80)
real*4 surface(12,50), intersect(8,80)
common /dbs/surface,bound,intersect,vertex
3. Do not use any integer*2 declaration in Fortran for any common
arguments. Also do not use any "short int" declarations in C,
for any common arguments. I am aware of only these two, but there
may be some more restrictions.
4. For compiling use the "cc" command for both C and Fortran programs.
The programs should be linked to Fortran and C library using options:
-lF77 -lU77 -lI77 -lc -lm
5. Call the routines "f_init();" at the begining of C main to
initialize Fortran I/O , and "f_exit();" at the end of C main.
I wish to acknowledge the help of Mr. Keith Bierman of SUN.
Also many other people gave me suggestions for which I am grateful.
Jagan
jagannat@caip.rutgers.edu
Rutgers University, New Jersey.