Intel Fortran Language Reference - NCI National Facility

Scope and Association 15
Scope
Program entities are identified by names, labels, input/output unit numbers, operator symbols, or
assignment symbols. For example, a variable, a derived type, or a subroutine is identified by its
name.
Scope refers to the area in which a name is recognized. A scoping unit is the program or part of a
program in which a name is defined or known. It can be any of the following:
• An entire executable program
• A single scoping unit
• A single statement (or part of a statement)
The region of the program in which a name is known and accessible is referred to as the scope of
that name. These different scopes allow the same name to be used for different things in different
regions of the program.
Association is the language concept that allows different names to refer to the same entity in a
particular region of a program.
This chapter contains information on the following topics:
• “Scope”
• “Unambiguous Generic Procedure References”
• “Resolving Procedure References”
• “Association”
Program entities have the following kinds of scope (as shown in Table 15-1):
• Global
Entities that are accessible throughout an executable program. The name of a global entity
must be unique. It cannot be used to identify any other global entity in the same executable
program.
15-1