Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!teknowledge-vaxc!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran vs C for computations
Message-ID: <465@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 23 Sep 88 01:36:26 GMT
References: <459@quintus.UUCP> <3962@lanl.gov>
Sender: news@quintus.UUCP
Reply-To: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 29

In article <3962@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
>From article <459@quintus.UUCP>, by ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe):
>>     it is NOT possible to apply cpp usefully to "a" standard Fortran
>>     program which already exists (which I have been denying).
>
>I have several standard Fortran programs which already exist to which
>cpp can be usefully applied.  What you are trying to claim is that is is
>possible to find a standard conforming Fortran program (presumably more
>than one) which causes cpp to generate bad results.  No one has ever
>denied that.

That's not what I was TRYING to claim, it is precisely what I DID claim.
The claim that "cpp can be applied to A Fortran program" is normally to
be understood as meaning "to every Fortran program", which I denied.
Giles' original claim was that preprocessing capabilities were not needed
as part of a Fortran standard because it is a text editing task which can
be done by a wide range of tools, specifically including cpp.  My claim
is that many, perhaps even most, Fortran programs not written with cpp (or
a very similar tool) in mind cannot usefully be used with cpp.  Obviously,
there is at least one program where it will work:
	END

If you want to preprocess COBOL, you're better off if your preprocessor
understands COBOL lexical structure, and produces output which respects
COBOL's layout requirements.
If you want to preprocess FORTRAN, you're better off if your preprocessor
understands FORTRAN lexical structure, and produces output which respects
FORTRAN's layout requirements.
cpp applied to Fortran is like a dog walking on its hind legs.