hirchert@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (07/07/89)
Several people have expressed disappointment that user-defined types in Fortran 8x are always structures. In particular, they would like to give a name to a particular KIND of INTEGER or REAL. I can think of several possible meanings for user-defined types: 1. a shorthand notation that is indistiguishable from direct use of its definition 2. a semantically distinct type that inherits the operations applicable to its definition 3. a semantically distinct type that inherits some of operations applicable to its definition (e.g. to simulate unit analysis) 4. a semantically distinct type whose operations are defined by the user Fortran 8x user-defined types belong to the 4th class. What you are asking for appears to be either the 1st or 2nd class. I see no reason to expect that one feature should be expected to provide both. Kurt W. Hirchert hirchert@ncsa.uiuc.edu National Center for Supercomputing Applications