Re: Autoconf/automake support for preprocessable Fortran

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

>>> "Norman" == Norman Gray <address@hidden> writes:

[...]

 Norman> (copyright paperwork has been a right pain in the  
 Norman> tender bits).  

Do you mean it's completed, almost done, or yet to do?  
(I can't see you in the FSF records right now.)

 Norman> This is a preliminary heads-up while I assemble the  
 Norman> actual submission as a patch against autoconf 2.59 and automake  
 Norman> 1.9.6, along with a question (directed at automake-patches).

Please make sure the Automake patch applies to CVS HEAD, not
1.9.6.  Such large changes are never going to branch-1-9 (unless
you can extract small bug fixes).

CVS HEAD compatibility might be more of an issue with Autoconf,
since 2.59 was released 20 months ago.

[...]

 Norman> In the case of automake, this goes substantially beyond the more  
 Norman> recent fortran-and-automake work, which (if I'm understanding it  
 Norman> correctly) assumes that the compiler in question can do preprocessing  
 Norman> itself, and thus solves a simpler problem.

 Norman> The question is this.  My automake changes conflict to at least some  
 Norman> extent with these more recent changes.  In particular, I based my  
 Norman> changes on the FC interface rather than the F77 one, though I at  
 Norman> least am more concerned with f77 than f9x.  This is because the 1.8.2  
 Norman> documentation said `[FC] is the newer interface to Fortran source,  
 Norman> replacing the older F77 interfaces', which seems a fairly clear  
 Norman> deprecation of the F77 interface.  Automake 1.9.6, however, seems to  
 Norman> suggest that FC is for Fortran 9x and silently un-deprecates the F77  
 Norman> interface.  Was this un-deprecation a principled decision, or was it  
 Norman> just an acknowledgement of the f77/f9x cleavage?  That is, I would  
 Norman> much like to ignore the old F77 interface, and concentrate only on  
 Norman> the FC one -- are there any objections?

I'm not a Fortran user and did not follow the story behind that
FC interface.  I can't find any mention of "FC" in the source
and documentation of automake 1.8.2.  Is that really where you
read that deprecation statement?

Michael Nolta offered the f9x support in early 2004, I guess he
just used the FC interface for f9x and didn't bother with F77.
If the FC interface is able to support f77 too, then it seems
desirable to support that in Automake.  Until Autoconf clearly
mark AC_PROG_F77 as obsolete, I think we should keep the
existing support for it.  However adding new features that work
only with the FC interface sounds OK to me.

[...]

-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz