What kind of language is fortran

Fortran has been used for programming video games, air traffic control systems, payroll calculations, numerous scientific and military applications, and parallel computer research. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile.

Asked 12 years, 5 months ago. Active 1 month ago. Viewed 63k times. So, what does it determine and what exactly is it for? Improve this question. Lana Lana. Add a comment.

Active Oldest Votes. I usually use these kinds, as they usually give me 4 byte and 8 byte reals:! Improve this answer. Mahdi 2, 2 2 gold badges 17 17 silver badges 30 30 bronze badges. Andrej Panjkov Andrej Panjkov 1, 2 2 gold badges 12 12 silver badges 17 17 bronze badges. That kindfinder.

A search of usenet turns up: salford f95 compiler uses kinds 1,2, and 3 to stand for 2- 4- and 8-byte variables; I saw a claim that g77 did the same before g95 and gfortran came along; and a report that the NAG fortran compiler had a compiler switch that allowed the selection between the 1,2,3,4 scheme and the 1,2,4,8 scheme.

No doubt there are others. Yes, kindfinder is handy. You can use it to set up a site-specific module file that contains named parameters for the different kinds, so that your real programs aren't littered with nonportable magic numbers.

These have the advantage of being portable, at least as long as you have a Fortran or compiler. See the gfortran manual for the list of kinds in these two modules. Eular Late to this, but am currently getting acquainted to these, and I found this : fortranwiki. Zeus Zeus 1, 17 17 silver badges 28 28 bronze badges. I concur with your comment francescalus — Zeus. Often I see code where I would like to refer to such a complete canonical answer.

This is the best place here, but the information is completely spread out over different answers and various comments. You'll likely get more than just my opinion there. That's if you think the question itself needs work: if you think an answer here solves the problem then there's little harm pulling everything together into a complete form.

Show 1 more comment. Just expanding the other very good answers, specially Andrej Panjkov 's answer: The KIND of a variable is an integer label which tells the compiler which of its supported kinds it should use. Rodrigo Rodrigues Rodrigo Rodrigues 5, 1 1 gold badge 17 17 silver badges 28 28 bronze badges. By convention. To run the program, we would first need to compile it, which is covered in a later section of the tutorial.

Fortran has a set of rules used to determine whether a program is valid and can be understood by the computer, a bit like a human language. Using the above triangle program as a starting point, we will cover the very basic syntax of the Fortran language. Within these statements, this is where the calculations on data are performed in the program. Variables represent data or values used in your program.

Variables can also be used to store non-numeric values such as text, letters, and words, for example. We refer to variables in Fortran as having certain Types. A type describes what kind of data the variable is expected to contain. These are examples of how we could describe our variables using keywords to keep track of what kind of data we are using.

In Fortran , we are required to be specific about what kind of data our variables are. Fortran has a set of keywords that are used to define the different types of variables. We are saying with these statements that we want to create two integers, n and m and that they will be assigned the values 3 and 6 respectively. We can delay assigning values until later on in the program, if necessary.

Fortran has different types for numeric values. For example, if our calculations required non-integer numbers, such as 3. Once we have create variables in a Fortran program, we can manipulate them and change them. Variables in fortran are usually defined in the first few lines of the program or a function, like in our example program above.

This type refers to variables that are used as True or False values. Note that we can can define multiple variables on the same line, separated by a comma. This saves space and typing, and would be the equivalent of writing:. Variable names may be made up of standard latin-alphabet characters, underscores, and numbers. Note that Fortran is not case-sensitive. Keywords and variable names may be written in uppercase or lowercase.

Fortran does not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase names, so be careful of using them in variable names. You can chose to use either uppercase or lowercase, but it is good practice to be consistent in their use, for readability. When you are running a Fortran program, the easiest way to see the results of the calculation or other outputs are to print them to the terminal, command line, or console.

These are all terms used interchangeably to refer to the same thing - the window where commands can be entered and text is printed out to screen. Variable names starting with i, j, k, l, m, or n, are considered to be for integer variable and others are real variables. However, you must declare all the variables as it is good programming practice. Fortran - Data Types Advertisements.

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