Re: [Patch, Fortran, OOP] PR 49638: [OOP] length parameter is ignored when overriding type bound character functions with constant length.

[Tobias Burnus <burnus at net-b dot de>]

On 08/19/2011 01:55 PM, Mikael Morin wrote:
> OK from my side for the code proper.
>
> I have one comment though about this:
> +/* Compare two expressions.  Return values:
> +   * +1 if e1>  e2
> +   * 0 if e1 == e2
> +   * -1 if e1<  e2
> +   * -2 if the relationship could not be determined
> +   * -3 if e1 /= e2, but we cannot tell which one is larger.  */
>
> I think this is misleading, as the function does not always return -3 when
> e1/=e2. There is for example (currently) no special handling for operators.
> Here is an attempt at expressing it:
>    * -3 in some cases where we could determine that e1 and e2 have different
> data dependencies (and thus are not guaranteed to have always the same value),
> but we cannot tell whether one is greater than the other.

Besides that issue, I am wondering whether we shouldn't start to use an 
ENUM for those. I think for "<" vs. "==" vs. ">" one can use a number 
(-1, 0, 1) and then compare the result against 0 (>0, == 0 etc.).

However, for 5 values, I think it makes sense to do something else 
otherwise, someone write "... < 0" which not only matches -1 but also -2 
or -3.

I think this does not block the committal but one should think about 
whether one should do it as follow up.

Tobias,
who has not read the patch.