gfortran, ncar and blockdata_test failures

[Tobias Schlüter]

Walter Spector wrote:
> Jack Howarth wrote:
>> I would think a decent argument could be made
>> for it being a regression from g77.
> 
> It is certainly a regression.
> 
> The Standardness of the trick has been a long running subject of
> debate.  No non-Standard syntax is involved.  It is the semantics
> that are questionable.
> 
> In strict F66, BLOCK DATAs did not have names.  One often saw,
> and linkers had to deal with, applications that had multiple unnamed
> BLOCK DATA program units.  And if someone wanted to put them into a
> library, how would you get them to link in?  So it was a very common
> extension to allow naming of BLOCK DATAs.  Then, using the EXTERNAL
> trick, make sure they got linked in from libraries.

Can you give a complete example of how this is necessary?  If a common 
block inside a block data is referenced, I can't see how a standard 
conforming program would behave differently if the block data is 
declared external or not.

Thanks,
- Tobi