[Patches, fortran] ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping andping

[Richard E Maine]

On Oct 16, 2005, at 6:20 AM, Paul Thomas wrote:

> Oh bother - I have done a whole bunch like that without referring to 
> the standard.  I think that you are right in fact; I slight 
> complication is that I  only possess the final draft; did the 
> paragraph numbers change any?

If I knew what you meant by "final draft", I could give a better 
answer. Rather by definition, if you meant "final draft" literally, 
then by definition nothing changed or it wouldn't have been the final 
one. :-)

The standard doesn't actually have numbered paragraphs, by the way 
(though that suggestion has been made and I think it a good one); one 
just has to count (which is occasionally confusing as it can be 
ambiguous whether something after displayed material is a new para or 
not). Anyway...

J3 document J3/97-007r2 is the actual final daft of f95. That's what J3 
uses internally for its own work. I suspect that most J3 members 
haven't even seen the formal standard (as we don't get a free copy - 
well, I did as editor, but most people didn't). The only differences 
between 97-007r2 and the actual standard are the copyright notice and 
front material, the line numbers (the formal standard doesn't have 
them; ISO wouldn't allow them, but we sure find them convenient for 
working purposes), and the page headings/footings. Otherwise, there is 
not a single word of change (and the pagination is the same also). You 
won't go wrong by citing from it, as long as you don't cite the line 
numbers (but then, J3 itself cites line numbers in all but the final 
formal publication, so you wouldn't even be too wrong there).

If you happen to have 97-007 (instead of 97-007r2), that is so close to 
the final draft that you won't notice the difference. As I recall, ISO 
had me change a reference to Section 2.1 to say Clause 2.1 (they really 
wanted just plain 2.1, but relented when I pointed out that J3 
specifically spelled it out to avoid ambiguity with a Table 2.1 right 
near the reference; using the word "clause" made them happy enough). 
And there might have been one or two other changes with about that much 
(lack of) content, all in the introductory material.

Any drafts earlier that 97 would have more significant changes and I 
wouldn't use them. The 97-007r1 is the first draft of f2003, so don't 
use that either. (We thought that 97-007 was going to be the last f95 
draft, but ISO wanted those few last-minute changes, so I did a really 
final f95 draft to include those, even as nonconsequential as they 
were.)

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