Fortran 90 Handbook

PrefaceThe Fortran 90 Handbook is a definitive and comprehensive guide to Fortran 90and its use. Fortran 90, the latest standard version of Fortran, has manyexcellent new features that will assist the programmer in writing efficient,portable, and maintainable programs. The Fortran 90 Handbook is an informaldescription of Fortran 90, developed to provide not only a readableexplanation of features, but also some rationale for the inclusion of featuresand their use. In addition, “models” give the reader better insight as to whythings are done as they are in the language.This handbook is intended for anyone who wants a comprehensive survey ofFortran 90, including those familiar with programming language concepts butunfamiliar with Fortran. Experienced Fortran 77 programmers will be able touse this volume to assimilate quickly those features in Fortran 90 that are notin Fortran 77 (Fortran 90 is a superset of Fortran 77).Chapter 0 provides a brief overview of several of the most important featuresthat are new in Fortran 90. Chapters 1–14 correspond to Sections 1–14 in thestandard. (The standard is the complete official description of the language,but it is written in a legally airtight, formal style without tutorial material andcan be difficult to understand in places.) The handbook and the standard canbe examined in parallel for insights into the Fortran language. This makes itfeasible to use this handbook to “decipher” the standard, and this is an idealuse of this book.Although the handbook is written for use in conjunction with the standard, itis also designed as a practical stand-alone description of Fortran 90. In theinterest of readability, a few of the more obscure aspects of the standard mayiii