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Even if you are doing mixed-language programming, it is very likely that you do not need to know or use the information in this section. Since it is about the internal structure of GNU Fortran, it may also change in GCC minor releases.
When you compile a PROGRAM with GNU Fortran, a function
with the name main (in the symbol table of the object file)
is generated, which initializes the libgfortran library and then
calls the actual program which uses the name MAIN__, for
historic reasons. If you link GNU Fortran compiled procedures
to, e.g., a C or C++ program or to a Fortran program compiled by
a different compiler, the libgfortran library is not initialized
and thus a few intrinsic procedures do not work properly, e.g.
those for obtaining the command-line arguments.
Therefore, if your PROGRAM is not compiled with
GNU Fortran and the GNU Fortran compiled procedures require
intrinsics relying on the library initialization, you need to
initialize the library yourself. Using the default options,
gfortran calls _gfortran_set_args and
_gfortran_set_options. The initialization of the former
is needed if the called procedures access the command line
(and for backtracing); the latter sets some flags based on the
standard chosen or to enable backtracing. In typical programs,
it is not necessary to call any initialization function.
If your PROGRAM is compiled with GNU Fortran, you shall
not call any of the following functions. The libgfortran
initialization functions are shown in C syntax but using C
bindings they are also accessible from Fortran.