slightly OT: nullifying an array of pointers

[Richard E Maine]

On Jul 6, 2006, at 1:28 PM, Brooks Moses wrote:

> Daniel Franke wrote:
>
>> For someone who coded C(++) for years this deviating behaviour   
>> (although standard conforming) is ... strange....
>> As quoted by you, this behaviour is described in the standard.  
>> That's fine for those who have the standards readily available - I  
>> do not.

[Brooks then pointed out where to find the draft standards]

More to the point, I'd say... If you (Daniel) are trying to guess how  
Fortran works based on an understanding of C++, you just aren't going  
to have much luck. Fortran pointers are distinctly *NOT* like C/C++  
pointers. They are enough unlike them that I seriously suggest that  
people are better off forgetting everything they know about C  
pointers and starting from scratch. (I sort of wish Fortran pointers  
had been called something else, such as "aliases", which term I think  
better captures the concept).

Whether you get the (draft) standards, a Fortran text (of which  
plenty are readily available), or some other way of learning them,  
almost anything is better than trying to extrapolate from C pointers.  
If you keep trying that, I predict a future of frustration for you -  
pretty much nothing is going to make sense.

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