Re: autoconf-2.57f: make check: 2 Errors related to fort77 (fink package) on Mac OS X

[Sander Niemeijer]

Uhm... I may have been a bit too hasty with my previous e-mail. My 
apologies.

As Steven rightly pointed out to me the -f option for f2c only allows 
for lines longer than 72 characters. It does however not allow code to 
start before character position 7. The freeform test will thus fail 
even with the -f option ('illegal continuation card' error with exit 
code 255).

However, IMHO producing an error when a fortran 77 compiler does not 
allow freeform code might not be desirable. It will prevent using 
autoconf for perfectly valid f77 code. But maybe you have some good 
reasons  to not support non-freeform compilers that I am not aware of.

Regarding the fortran.at:65. I only checked the small test example from 
Akim's e-mail. I should have actually looked a bit further. The real 
problem is that autoconf thinks that if we have a GNU compiler then it 
must be g77. This is not the case for fort77/f2c. This compiler is also 
GNU (i.e. the GNU Fortran 77 compiler check results in 'yes'). But the 
problem is that further checks relying on g77 calling conventions will 
break for fort77/f2c. The first one (and this is actually where 
fortran.at:65 fails on) is the --version test. For fort77 you have to 
use the -v option, so the test fails.

So, concluding:
 - I don't think adding the -f option to the AC_FC_FREEFORM test will 
be much useful, since it will keep producing an error for fort77/f2c.
 - Will you support fort77/f2c anyway?
   If so, then this would require the following:
    - Allow that compilers do not fully allow freeform fortran code 
(i.e. no AC_MSG_ERROR)
    - Rework the GNU Fortran 77 compiler behavior in autoconf (make 
sure fort77/f2c is not confused with g77)

Regards,
Sander

On vrijdag, okt 3, 2003, at 09:11 Europe/Amsterdam, Akim Demaille wrote:

> > 2003-10-02  Steven G. Johnson  <address@hidden>
>
> >         * lib/autoconf/fortran.m4 (AC_FC_FREEFORM): Exit 77 upon failure
> >         to fix test suite for non-freeform-supporting compilers.  Support
> >         -f freeform option for f2c/fort77 (thanks to Sander Niemeijer).
>
> Please, install this patch, but this latter sentence (relating -f to
> f2c/fort77) ought to be either in the documentation, or in the comment
> of the macro, but not the ChangeLog please.
>
> Thanks!