FORTRAN 77

Presented by:
Destry Diefenbach

The Free Online Dictionary of Computing (http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/)

Fortrash
<abuse, language> /for'trash/ Hackerism for the Fortran language, referring
to its primitive design, gross and irregular syntax, limited control
constructs, and slippery, exception-filled semantics.
[Jargon File]
(1994-10-26)

 Algol is FORTRAN done right. -Bruce Knobe, 1973

Pascal is FORTRAN done right. -Raymond Langsford, 1980
FORTRAN 77 is FORTRAN done right. -James Ball, 1983

History of FORTRAN
Stands for IBM Mathematical
FORmula TRANslation System
but abbreviated to FORmula
TRANslation
FORTRAN 0 was developed by
a IBM research team headed by
John Backus in 1954.
Was the first high-level
programming language

John Backus
1924-1988

More History
The design of FORTRAN made it
easier to translate mathematical
formulas into code.
FORTRAN originally began as a
digital code interpreter for the IBM
701
At that time it was called
Speedcoding
The point of FORTRAN was to
make programming easier.

IBM 701

FORTRAN I
1957
Was the first compiler
By 1958 over 50% of software was in
FORTRAN
Cut development time.

2 weeks to 2 hours

FORTRAN II - IV
FORTRAN II

Independent compilation
Fix the bugs

FORTRAN III

Was developed, but it was never widely distrbuted

FORTRAN IV

Explicit type declarations

Logical selection (IF) statement
Subprogram names could be parameters
ANSI standard in 1966

FORTRAN 77
FORTRAN 77 replaced FORTRAN IV as
the new standard.
It retained most of the features of IV
It added

Character string handling

Logical loop control statements
And a If with a optional else statement

Data Types

FORTRAN 77 explicitly permits data types of

integer, real, double precision, complex,
logical, and characters.

Real Data Types

Represent decimal numbers
It uses scientific notation

3E5
.123E-3

300000
.000123

Double Precision Data Types

Instead of E it used D

1D2

100

Complex Data Types

Built in complex number data type
Which occupies 2 bytes
The first byte in the pair represents the real part of the
complex data type.
The second byte represents the imaginary part of the
complex item.
represented as follows
Numeric Value
(4.61,-6.81)
4.61 6.81i
(-10,5)
-10+5i

Program Structure
A FORTRAN program is a collection of
subprogram definitions.
Subprograms may be a FUNCTION that
returns values, a SUBROUTINE that doesnt
return a value, and one must be the main
program

Main Program
The main program receives control of the processor
when an executable program is loaded for
execution.
There can be only one main program in an
executable program.
That main program is identified by the fact that it
does not have a FUNCTION, SUBROUTINE, or
BLOCK DATA statement as its initial statement.

Intrinsic Functions
FORTRAN 77 has many intrinsic functions

Examples
SQRT( )
FLOAT( ),INT ( )
COS( ),SIN( ), TAN( )

square root
type conversions
trig functions

Statement Functions
Statement functions are one line defined
functions that is internal to the program unit
in which it is defined

Example of a statement function

ROOT(A,B,C) = (-B+SQRT(B**2-4.0*A*C))/(2.0*A)

Subprograms
The main abstraction devices in FORTRAN 77 are the
subroutines and functions.
The subroutine definition

SUBROUTINE SWAP (I,J)

M=I
I=J
J=M
RETURN
END
Functions are structurally similar to subroutines.

Control Structures
GOTO statements
IF statements
DO statement
CONTINUE statement
STOP and PAUSE statements
END statement

GOTO Statements
The GOTO statement is used to direct
program control to indicated by the statement
number specified in the respective GOTO
statement
Three types of GOTO statements

Unconditional GOTO 100

Computed GOTO(1,2,3)I
Assigned GOTO I,(1,2,3)

IF Statements
Contains IF, ELSE IF, ELSE, END IF
Example

IF(Q) THEN
A=B
C=D
ELSE IF (R) THEN
E=F
G=H
ELSE
X=Y
Z=W
END IF

DO Statement
The DO statement is used to establish a
controlled loop
Example DO

DO 10 I = 1,10,1

CONTINUE,STOP
PAUSE, and END STATEMENT
The CONTINUE statement serves as a point of reference in
a program

No operational function is performed

It is frequently used in DO loops to provide a terminal statement

The STOP and PAUSE statements do a similar task

The STOP terminates execution

The PAUSE terminates execution, but leaves the program in a
resumable state

The END statement marks the physical end of a program

EVALUATION
Readability
Writability
Reliability
Cost

Readability
FORTRAN 77 is not to hard to read on a
small scale, but when many GOTO
statements are involved it gets very difficult
Identifiers can only be six characters long

Writability
Depends on what you are using it for.
Is a pretty simply language

Reliability
Is not very reliable
Only static type checking
Lack of exception handling

Cost
Cheap
Lots of free resources/compilers
A fairly easy language to learn

Bibliography

Marshall, A C. A Brief History of FORTRAN 77. 8 Sept. 1997

http://www.liv.ac.uk/HPC/HTMLF90Course/HTMLF90CourseNotesnode29.html

ibiblio.org. A Brief History of FORTRAN. No date

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/languages/fortran/ch1-1.html

American National Standards Institute, Inc. American National Standard Programming Language
FORTRAN. April 3, 1978. http://www.fortran.com/F77_std/rjcnf-0.html

Chivers, Ian D. Sleightholme, Jane. Interactive FORTRAN 77: A Hands on Approach 2nd ed. 1984.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/support/cit//fortran/f77book.pdf

William, Waite. FORTRAN 77 Semantic Analysis. No date. http://eliproject.sourceforge.net/fortran_html/Semantics.html#s1

Bellis, Mary. Inventors of the Modern Computer. No date.

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa072198.htm

Page, Rex. Didday, Rich. Alpert, Elizabeth. FORTRAN 77 for Humans, 3rd ed. 1986 West
Publishing Company

Katzan, Harry Jr. FORTRAN 77, Computer Science Series. 1978 Van Nostrand Reinhold
Company