Fortran newsletter: November 2021#

Welcome to the November 2021 edition of the monthly Fortran newsletter. The newsletter comes out at the beginning of every month and details Fortran news from the previous month.

fortran-lang.org#

This month we’ve had several updates to the website:

  • #345: Fix title in learning resources

  • #341: Add Cantera to package index

  • #329: Quantum Information book, WSL GUI, and typos

  • #340: Minor fixes in Best Practices

Work in progress#

  • #201 (WIP): Internationalization for fortran-lang

Let us know if you have any suggestions for the website and its content. We welcome any new contributors to the website and the tutorials page in particular - see the contributor guide for how to get started.

Fortran Standard Library#

Here’s what’s new in stdlib:

  • 0.1.0: Initial version of the Fortran standard library

  • #543: Fix string concat

Work in progress#

  • #554 (WIP): Hash functions

  • #552 (WIP): Fix bug in stringlist

  • #536 (WIP): Fix conversion warnings

  • #520 (WIP): [stdlib_io] add disp (display your data).

  • #517 (WIP): adding SPEC_TEMPLATE.md

  • #514 (WIP): pop, drop & get with basic range feature for stringlist

  • #500 (WIP): Selection algorithms

  • #499 (WIP): [stdlib_linalg] matrix property checks

  • #498 (WIP): [stdlib_math] add arg/argd/argpi

  • #494 (WIP): Add testing module to allow better structuring of test suites

  • #491 (WIP): Stdlib linked list

  • #488 (WIP): [stdlib_math] add is_close routines.

  • #473 (WIP): Error stop improvements

  • #363 (WIP): Sorting string’s characters according to their ASCII values

  • #353 (WIP): Initial checkin for a module for tolerant comparison of reals

  • #286 (WIP): Probability Distribution and Statistical Functions – Beta Distribution Module

  • #278 (WIP): Probability Distribution and Statistical Functions – Gamma Distribution Module

  • #276 (WIP): Probability Distribution and Statistical Functions – Exponential Distribution Module

  • #273 (WIP): Probability Distribution and Statistical Functions – Normal Distribution Module

  • #189 (WIP): Initial implementation of COO / CSR sparse format

Please help improve stdlib by testing and reviewing pull requests!

The candidate for file system operations to be included in stdlib is being developed by @MarDiehl and @arjenmarkus in this repository. Please try it out and let us know how it works, if there are any issues, or if the API can be improved.

Fortran Package Manager#

Here’s what’s new in fpm:

  • #597: Add LFortran optimization flag to release profile

  • #595: List names without suffix (mainly for Windows)

  • #590: Change link command on Windows with ifort or ifx

  • #575: Enable multiple build output directories

  • #587: Bootstrapping instructions version update

Work in progress#

  • #598 (WIP): Update README.md compiler, archiver, & link flags

  • #569 (WIP): Add workflow for continuous delivery

  • #539 (WIP): Add parent packages into dependency tree

  • #498 (WIP): Compiler flags profiles

fpm is still in early development and we need as much help as we can get. Here’s how you can help today:

  • Use it and let us know what you think! Read the fpm packaging guide to learn how to build your package with fpm, and the manifest reference to learn what are all the things that you can specify in the fpm.toml file.

  • Browse existing fpm packages on the fortran-lang website

  • Browse the open issues and see if you can help implement any fixes or features.

  • Adapt your Fortran package for fpm and submit it to the Registry.

  • Improve the documentation.

The short-term goal of fpm is to make development and installation of Fortran packages with dependencies easier. Its long term goal is to build a rich and decentralized ecosystem of Fortran packages and create a healthy environment in which new open source Fortran projects are created and published with ease.

Compilers#

Flang#

Recent development updates:

  • Runtime

    • Front-end and runtime support for CALL EXIT and ABORT

    • Fix formatted real input regression w/ spaces

    • Add runtime interface for GET_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE

    • More work on SYSTEM_CLOCK runtime API and implementation

    • Implement GET_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE(LENGTH)

  • OpenMP

    • Added OpenMP 5.0 specification based semantic checks for sections construct and test case for simd construct

    • Added test case for OpenMP 5.0 specification based semantic checks for parallel sections construct

    • Added OpenMP 5.0 specification based semantic checks for CRITICAL construct name resolution

    • Checks for THREADPRIVATE and DECLARE TARGET Directives

    • Initial parsing/sema for append_args clause for ‘declare variant’

  • FIR

    • Add typeparams to fir.array_update, fir.array_fetch and fir.array_merge_store operations. Add optional slice operands to fir.array_merge_store op.

    • Updated various ops - fir.extract_value, fir.insert_value, fir.allocmem, fir.alloca, fir.field_index, fir.freemem, fir.store

    • Move the parsers, printers and builders from the TableGen file to the .cpp file

    • Update fir.alloca op - Add pinned attributes and specific builders

    • Add ops: fir.char_convert and fir.array_modify

    • Add passes: external name interop, affine promotion, affine demotion, character conversion, abstract result conversion, cfg conversion

    • Add fir.convert canonicalization patterns

    • Add the DoLoopHelper

    • Add IfBuilder and utility functions

    • Add FIRBuilder utility functions

    • Add character utility functions in FIRBuilder

    • Add Character helper

    • Add utility function to FIRBuilder and MutableBox

    • Add substring to fir.slice operation

    • Avoid slice with substr in fir.array_load, fir.array_coor and fir.array_merge_store

  • Driver

    • Error if uuidgen is not installed

    • Fix erroneous &

    • Add actions that execute despite semantic errors

  • flang-omp-report

    • replace std::vector’s with llvm::SmallVector

    • Switch from std::string to StringRef (where possible)

    • replace std::map with llvm::DenseMap

  • Make builtin types more easily accessible; use them

  • Fix test regression from SQRT folding

  • Fold FINDLOC, MAXLOC, MINLOC, LGE/LGT/LLE/LLT, BTEST intrinsic functions

  • Take into account SubprogramDetails in GetInterfaceSymbol

  • Add debug dump method to evaluate::Expr and semantics::Symbol

  • Add a wrapper for Fortran main program

  • Improve runtime interface with C99 complex

  • Better error recovery for missing THEN in ELSE IF

  • Define IEEE_SCALB, IEEE_NEXT_AFTER, IEEE_NEXT_DOWN, IEEE_NEXT_UP

  • Catch mismatched parentheses in prescanner

  • Error checking for IBCLR/IBSET and ISHFT/SHIFT[ALR]

  • Document behavior for nonspecified/ambiguous cases

  • Add two negative tests for needExternalNameMangling

  • Expunge bogus semantic check for ELEMENTAL without dummies

  • Admit NULL() in generic procedure resolution cases

  • Fix bogus folding error for ISHFT(x, negative)

  • Emit unformatted headers & footers even with RECL=

  • Enforce rest of semantic constraint C919

  • Extension to distinguish specific procedures

  • Support NAMELIST input of short arrays

  • Fix generic resolution case

  • Speed common runtime cases of DOT_PRODUCT & MATMUL

  • Fix crash on empty formatted external READs

  • Extension: allow tabs in output format strings

  • Fix DOT_PRODUCT for logical

  • Fix NAMELIST input bug with multiple subscript triplets

  • Support legacy usage of ‘A’ edit descriptors for integer & real

Call notes are recorded and available upon request here. Please contact Alexis Perry-Holby at aperry@lanl.gov for document access.

LFortran#

  • 155 Merge Requests merged in October 2021

  • AST to ASR transformation simplified and unified

  • Many new intrinsics added

  • Rust style error messages, add first warnings and style suggestions

  • Fixed bugs in location information

  • C preprocessor added

We are looking for new contributors. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are interested. We will help you get up to speed.

Events#

  • We have adopted two new Fortran-lang guidelines:

  • The US Fortran Standards Committee (J3) held the meeting 225 October 18-27, 2021. The meeting was virtual and on Mondays and Wednesdays only. Discussions focused on resolving any outstanding issues to the Fortran 202X features. Here are the links to the meeting agenda, minutes, and papers. See also the Fortran-lang and LFortran liaison report to J3 submitted by Ondřej Čertík and Milan Curcic.

  • We had our 19th Fortran Monthly call on October 19. You can watch the recording below:

As usual, subscribe to the mailing list and/or join the Discourse to stay tuned with the future meetings.

Contributors#

We thank everybody who contributed to fortran-lang in the past month by commenting in any of these repositories:

Fortran newsletter: October 2021   Fortran newsletter: December 2021