Fortran 90 Features
Here is a list of some features that I found useful.
And some differences from Fortran 77.
As well as some tricks and techniques.
-
Look and Feel
- New, improved source format - no more 72 character limit
- Variable declarations - more options and flexibility
-
Loops and Conditionals
- New power for old
do
loops and if
statements
- Plus a
case
statement -
clean up those ugly if-then-else
chains
-
Dynamic memory allocation
- Allocate what you need at run time - no more recompiling when you need
larger arrays.
- And pointers. Now you too can create linked lists and trees.
-
Array operations
- Operate on arrays as easily as scalars
-
Derived data types
- Do-it-yourself data types - similar to C structures
-
Overloaded operators
- Add even more power to derived data types
-
Modules
- Combine data and subprograms in one chunk. Great for global data,
private data, simple object oriented programming, and more.
The book I have been using is Migrating to Fortran 90 by
James F. Kerrigan.
Here's a partial list of intrinsic functions
and subroutines.
One downside of all these great new features can be perfomance problems,
particularly when passing dynamic arrays into subroutines.
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