[comp.lang.fortran] Fortran Lint Tool Summary

mclay@navier.ae.utexas.edu (Robert McLay) (03/07/90)

In a previous message I asked about a lint tool for fortran for unix
workstations.  It turns out that there are several choices.  If anyone
has used and/or compared these tool, please e-mail to me your comments.

        a) FORWARN from Quibus Enterprices $1200 for unix workstations.
	  Jim Davies; Quibus Enterprises, Inc.; 106 N. Draper Avenue;
	  Champaign, IL  61821-3145; (217) 356-8876
        b) MAT, from SAIC.  Costs $895 for PCs, O($4000) for workstations.  
        c) FORCHECK, from Leyden University, the Netherlands.  Costs about $500
           for PCs.  ANSI-77 validation, various other checks.
	d) TOOLPACK has a tool call PFORT77.  It primarily checks for
           non-portable coding, but I believe it also does some
           interprocedural checking. Available via anonymous ftp from
           lanl.gov (128.165.4.4)
        e) FLINT from a British company Programming Research Ltd.
	   "Oakword" 11,Carlton Rd.; New Masden; Surrey, Kt3 3AJ; England
           Phone 01-949-3537  COST ??
        f) Fortran Lint from IPT; 1096 E. Meadow Circle; Palo Alto,  CA  94303
           Phone  415-494-7500 COST ??

        g) Hewlett Packard HP-UX machines have a utility, flint. It is
           proprietary.

	i) Dec has some similar called Source Code Analyzer.

Here is a summary of the messages I got:

DAVIES> James R B Davies <quibus@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
DAVIES>
DAVIES> My company (Quibus Enterprises, Inc.) makes such a tool.  It is
DAVIES> called Forwarn.  It checks parameter lists (for number, type, and
DAVIES> other attributes), checks common blocks for size and layout 
DAVIES> consistency, detects uninitialized and unused variables, and does 
DAVIES> some other miscellaneous checking.  It costs $329 for the IBM PC, 
DAVIES> $1200 for Unix workstations, and $2000 for Unix minicomputers.
DAVIES> 
DAVIES> Forwarn also prints cross-references and calling-tree diagrams.  
DAVIES> It accepts a number of extensions to Fortran 77, such as long 
DAVIES> names, tab formatting, and INCLUDE statements.  It can handle 
DAVIES> source programs with 40,000 lines or so on a 640K PC, or several 
DAVIES> hundred thousand lines on typical Unix systems.It is fast, 
DAVIES> processing files at over 15,000 lines/minute on a Sun-3 workstation.

BIERMAN> khb@Sun.COM (Keith Bierman - SPD Advanced Languages)
BIERMAN> I haven't run it but
BIERMAN> 
BIERMAN> 	flint
BIERMAN> 
BIERMAN> from programming research ltd
BIERMAN> 01 942 9242 (uk) or fax 01 336 1151
BIERMAN> 
BIERMAN> sounds quite good.
BIERMAN> 
BIERMAN> runs on Suns, has x-graphic interface.

HOPKINS> trh@ukc.ac.uk (T.R.Hopkins)
HOPKINS> There is a proprietary s/ware product called flint which provides
HOPKINS> ANSI standard (and many other portability and stylistic) warnings,
HOPKINS> complexity measures, call trees, basic block coverage etc.
HOPKINS> 
HOPKINS> It is very fast and available on a lot of machines. 
HOPKINS> 
HOPKINS> Contact address
HOPKINS> 
HOPKINS> Les Hatton
HOPKINS> Programming Research Ltd
HOPKINS> Kings Avenue House
HOPKINS> Kings Avenue
HOPKINS> New Malden
HOPKINS> Surrey, UK
HOPKINS> 
HOPKINS> +44 1 942 9242
HOPKINS> 
HOPKINS> There is a Toolpack utility for standard checking which consists
HOPKINS> of a sequence of tools - a lexer, a parser, a semantic checker and
HOPKINS> a inter-program unit checker. The problem with it is that if one
HOPKINS> of first tools fails (e.g., you have VAX extensions in your source)
HOPKINS> then you can't go any further down the chain.
HOPKINS> 
HOPKINS> FORCHK (available form Leiden University) is a Fortran 77 version
HOPKINS> of the old PFORT -- i.e., it does ANSI Fortran 77 standard checking.
HOPKINS> We have a copy of this but I haven't had time to really pound it.
HOPKINS> First impressions are good though.

Robert McLay