Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!purdue!haven!umbc3!mbph!hybl From: hybl@mbph.UUCP (Albert Hybl Dept of Biophysics SM) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: ENCODE and DECODE ... Summary: Extensions are barnacles that impede portability Message-ID: <604@mbph.UUCP> Date: 15 Aug 89 14:05:36 GMT References: <1989Aug10.220842.18863@bpdsun1.uucp> <1989Aug11.162714.25029@agate.berkeley.edu> Distribution: na Organization: University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201 Lines: 31 In message <1989Aug11.162714.25029@agate.berkeley.edu> from forags@violet.berkeley.edu, Al Stangenberger writes: >ENCODE is like a Fortran-77 "internal write" (formatted write >to memory) statement. Its syntax was: ^^^ > > ENCODE (nchr, fmt, address) iolist > >where nchr is the number of characters to write, fmt a Fortran >format number, and address is the name of the variable in which >you want to store the result. Unfortunately, the verb "was" is still "is." ENCODE and DECODE are, as Al implies, antiquated statements that were useful in their time but are now barnacles that impede portability. Rather than scraping them from the language, many implementations offer them as "extensions." The neologism has reversed the meaning of the word! BTW, the ENCODE/DECODE statements were also implemented with syntax: ^^^^ ENCODE (fmt, nchr, address) iolist ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Albert Hybl, PhD. Office UUCP: uunet!mimsy!mbph!hybl Department of Biophysics Home UUCP: uunet!mimsy!mbph!hybl!ah University of Maryland CoSy: ahybl School of Medicine Baltimore, MD 21201 Phone: (301) 328-7940 (Office) ----------------------------------------------------------------------