Tutorial Fortran in PDF

History

In November 1954, IT begins to grow. Until then, programming languages have remained close to the machine language. The company International Business Machines publishes the description of an advanced programming language called FORmula TRANslator system (translator of equations) .This new language, more condensed, was intended to opening up the use of computers to scientists The first reference manual from IBM was published in 1956. This manual described FORTRAN I. Obviously, this language was to evolve. , appeared:

• 1957: FORTRAN II
• 1958: FORTRAN III (More or less confidential)
• 1962: FORTRAN IV (He will have reigned 16 years)
• 1978: FORTRAN V (ANSI and AFNOR standardization)

Throughout this evolution FORTRAN has respected all the old standards in order to ensure a fast transplant of the old programs on the new compilers.
This abstract will focus on the FORTRAN 77, as well as the FORTRAN 90. The first is close to the FORTRAN V but has in addition to structuring instructions, the second is closer to modern languages and is oriented towards parallel calculations.
The FORTRAN language can be found under different operating systems such as MS-DOS (IBM PC-compatible computers), UNIX (mini-computers and mainframes), WINDOWS 95, and WINDOWS NT1.
These last two operating systems offer the possibilities of work hitherto available only under systems like UNIX.
Without wishing to praise WINDOWS 95 or WINDOWS NT, this is a progress that brings the student considerable computing power, which was only found on workstations , and at a much higher price.

Development of a program

A Fortran program requires three types of files for its development:

• Source files (extension .FOR, .F90 under MS-DOS or WINDOWS, .f under UNIX2)
• Object files (.OBJ extension under MS-DOS, .o under UNIX)
• The executable file (extension .EXE under MS-DOS or WINDOWS, defined by the user on UNIX).

The contributions of the 90 standard

• The "free format", identifiers, declarations,!, &,;
• Precision of numbers. KIND, designed to ensure better portability
• Derived objects
• DO ... DO END, SELECT CASE, WHERE
• Extensions on tables: profile, manipulation, predefined functions
• Dynamic allocation of memory (ALLOCATABLE)
• pointers
• Recursive procedures and functions
• Functional and procedural arguments: OPTIONAL, INTENT, PRESENT.

Passage by keyword

• Interface block, generic interface, operator overload
• Inputs / outputs
• New intrinsic functions

Strengths and weaknesses of Fortran language

Fortran has become popular and widespread because of its unique combination of properties. Its digital and input / output capabilities are virtually unmatched, while logic and character processing are as good as in most other languages.

Fortran is simple enough that you do not need to be a computer specialist to familiarize yourself with it quickly enough, but it has features, such as independent compilation of program units, that allow it to be used on very large applications. Programs written in Fortran are also more portable than those of other major languages. The efficiency of the compiled code also tends to be quite high because the language is simple to compile and Fortran's manipulation techniques have reached a considerable degree of sophistication. Finally, the ease with which existing procedures can be incorporated into new software makes it particularly easy to develop new programs from old sheep.

However, it can not be denied that Fortran has more than just its share of weaknesses and disadvantages. Many of them have existed in Fortran since its creation and should be eliminated a long time ago: the 6-character limit on symbolic names, the arrangement of fixed states and the need to use instruction labels.

Fortran also has rather liberal rules and an extended system of default values: although this reduces the programming effort, it is also more difficult for the system to detect the programmer's errors. In many other programming languages, for example, the data type of each variable must be declared in advance. Fortran does not insist on this, so if you make a spelling mistake in a variable name, the compiler will probably use two variables when you plan to use only one. Such errors can be serious but are not always easy to detect.

Fortran also lacks various control and data structures that simplify programming languages with a more modern design. These and other limitations are all eliminated with the advent of Fortran90.

Fortran language courses and exercises - Training Fortran77 in PDF - Books and Ebook Fortran90

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