Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!mailrus!sharkey!bnlux0!bam
From: bam@bnlux0.bnl.gov (Bruce Martin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Scope of intrinsics
Summary: Fortran validation.  (Historical info.)
Message-ID: <1397@bnlux0.bnl.gov>
Date: 15 Aug 89 19:54:07 GMT
References: <1989Aug8.232014.9265@agate.berkeley.edu> <603@mbph.UUCP>
Organization: Brookhaven National Lab
Lines: 27

At end of item, poster suggests a "validation suite" for Fortran compilers.
Aside from saying "Gee, that would be nice", I offer the following historical
information.

Actually, there is a "Fortran Automated Verification System (FAVS)",
which is described in RADC (Rome Air Development Center) publication
RADC-TR-78-268 (three small volumes, of which I could only find two,
right now).  I can't vouch for it, but it did receive much use in the 
early days of Fortran-77.  Presumably, it is still available and useful, 
but DoD seems to have lost interest in performing validations for any 
languages whose names have four or more letters (or fewer than 2).

The original Fortran Validation Suite was done by F. E. (Betty) Holberton
of the National Bureau of Standards (now NIST).  It consisted of an
extensive set of programs to be run to determine if a processor
conformed to X3.9-1966 (Fortran-66).  Another related product was
"PFORT", developed by Bell Labs (by Stu Feldman, I think) to determine
whether a *program* conformed to the X3.9-1966 standard.

Anyhow, a Fortran-88 validation suite would be nice, too, but I don't
know who would write it, nor who would "certify" validations.

				Bruce A. Martin
				Grumman Aircraft Systems
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