Re: fno-backslash not available in gfortran

[Richard E Maine <Richard dot Maine at nasa dot gov>]

On Jun 23, 2005, at 3:57 PM, Brooks Moses wrote:

> François-Xavier Coudert wrote:

> > So, I don't have a strong opinion on this particular problem
> > (backslash interpretation), but I do  see it a bit like the /dev/null
> > issue. This is not standard conforming, but we all got so addicted to
> > it...
>
> The difference, though, is that your examples are not 
> standard-violating
> -- they are merely things that are not required by the standard. 
> Backslash interpretation does, however, directly violates the standard
> (assuming Richard's argument is correct), and thus it _is_ a bug to 
> have
> it enabled by default with -std=F95 and the like.

Yes. Brooks has my basic argument. To exagerate for the purposes of 
illustration, consider a fictitious situation where the letter q was 
used for a similar escape and you had to type qq in order to get a 
single q. I don't think that anyone would find that either acceptable 
or standard-conforming... (except via some sophistry that we would 
certainly ignore in that case). The backslash just happens to be a less 
obtrusive character (and one that isn't strictly required to be 
supported until f2003), so it doesn't generate the same degree of 
reaction as q would - but they are both just characters and, as of 
f2003 they have completely equal stature.

Insomuch as the qq (or \\) is input to a preprocessor, then that's fine 
by both the standard and by me (and I predict by other users). But if 
there is no way to use Fortran source code without going through such a 
preprocessor, then that would be a big pain (particularly for the qq 
case :-)).

That being said, I do realize that a patch for this is "in". That will 
meet at least my idea of minimal requirements. I'd also argue for 
making -fnobackslash the default, but that's a lower-priority argument 
than at least having the option.

I'm just posting this as an abstract explanation rather than as a 
request to do something more or different.

--
Richard Maine                |  Good judgment comes from experience;
Richard.Maine@nasa.gov       |  experience comes from bad judgment.
                            |        -- Mark Twain