Appendix 7: The historical development of Fortran

Introduction

The following simple program, which uses many different and usual concepts in programming, is based on "The early development of Programming Languages" by Donald E. Knuth and Luis Trabb Pardo, published in "A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century" edited by N. Metropolis, J. Howlett and Gian-Carlo Cota, Academic Press, New York, 1980, pp. 197-273. They gave an example in Algol 60 and translated into some very old languages such as Zuse's Plankalkül, Goldstine's Flow diagrams, Mauchly's Short Code, Burks' Intermediate PL, Rutishauser's Klammerausdrücke, Bohm's Formules, Hopper's A-2, Laning and Zierler's Algebraic interpreter, Backus' FORTRAN 0 and Brooker's AUTOCODE.

Klammerausdrücke is a German expression, we keep the German expression also in the Russian and English versions. A direct English translation is "bracket expression". FORTRAN 0 was really not called FORTRAN 0, it is just the very first version of Fortran.

The program is given here in Pascal, C and five variants of Fortran. The purpose of this is to show how Fortran has been developed from a cryptical, almost machine-dependent language, into a modern structured high-level programming language.

The final example shows the program in the new programming language F.

Program TPK in Pascal for UNIX

       program tpk(input,output);
       (* Pascal program for Unix *)
       var      i  : integer;
                y  : real;
                a  : array [0..10] of real;
                function f (t : real) :   real;
                   begin
                       f := sqrt(abs(t)) + 5*t*t*t
                   end;
       begin
                for i := 0 to 10 do read(a[i]);
                for i := 10 downto 0 do
                begin
                   y := f(a[i]);
                    if y > 400 then
                       writeln(i,' TOO LARGE')
                     else
                      writeln(i,y);
                end
       end.

This program contains variables of the data types integer and floating-point numbers, and a vector of floating-point numbers. It also contains internal mathematical functions and a function written by the user, both forward and backward loops, a conditional statement and output of both floating-point numbers and characters.

Please note that exponentiation is not included in the Pascal language, therefore t^3 has to be written t*t*t.

Program TPK in ANSI C

       # include <stdio.h>
       # include <math.h>
       /*       Program TPK in ANSI C         */
       double f (double t);
       main()
       {
               int i;
               double y;
               double a[11];
               for ( i = 0; i <= 10; ++i)
                       scanf("%lf", &a[i]);
               for ( i = 10; i >= 0; i = i -1 )
               {
                          y = f(a[i]);
                          if ( y > 400 )
                                {printf("%d",i);
                                 printf(" TOO LARGE\n");}
                           else
                                 {printf("%d",i);
                                  printf("%lf",y);
                                  printf("\n");}
               }
               return 0;
       }
       /*     Function */
       double f  (double t)
       {
              double temp;
              temp = sqrt(fabs(t)) + 5*pow(t,3);
              return temp;
       }

The language C had the peculiar property that function calls were normally done in double precision, I have therefore written the whole program in double precision. This is not really necessary, because nowadays you can also use the single precision in most realizations. The exponentiation can be done here with the internal function pow.

Fortran

Officially the first Fortran version to be spelled Fortran is Fortran 90, all previous versions should be FORTRAN with upper case. We do not follow that style, except just a little below. A common hand written spelling in the 1960's was FĜRTRAN. IBM recommended to put a slash / on the letter O in Fortran programs in order to distinguish it from the digit 0, but IBM recommended the opposite convention for Algol 60.

The Fortran inventor John Backus in New Mexico, 1976

FORTRAN 0

             DIMENSION A(11)
             READ A
      2      DO 3,8,11 J=1,11
      3      I=11-J
             Y=SQRT(ABS(A(I+1)))+5*A(I+1)**3
             IF (400>=Y) 8,4
      4      PRINT I,999.
             GOTO 2
      8      PRINT I,Y
      11     STOP

Please note the elegant treatment of the input of the vector A and that the symbol > (greater than) was available at the beginning of the Fortran development. Output of text was not available, therefore 999 was used here to mark too big numbers. The DO-loop was less elegant, the digits give starting line and the final line for the loop and where the execution should be transferred when the loop is terminated. The conditional statement is also not very user-friendly. Exponentiation is being done with **.

FORTRAN I

      C      THE TPK ALGORITHM
      C      FORTRAN I STYLE
             FUNF(T)=SQRTF(ABSF(T))+5.0*T**3
             DIMENSION A(11)
        1    FORMAT(6F12.4)
             READ 1,A
             DO 10 J=1,11
             I=11-J
             Y=FUNF(A(I+1))
             IF(400.0-Y)4,8,8
        4    PRINT 5,I
        5    FORMAT(I10,10H TOO LARGE)
             GOTO 10
        8    PRINT 9,I,Y
        9    FORMAT(I10,F12.7)
       10    CONTINUE
             STOP 52525

This was the first programming language with comments. The statement function is used and the backward loop has to be simulated, since a backward loop (negative index) was not permitted, and neither was index zero. The conditional statement is the arithmetical one, with jumps to three different positions depending on whether the arithmetic expression is less than zero, equal to zero or greater than zero. All function names have to end with an F. It is possible to print character strings if you can give the number of characters which will be output (10H in the case when ten characters are to be outputted). Structured layout had not yet been invented.

FORTRAN IV or Fortran 66

     C       THE TPK ALGORITHM
     C       FORTRAN IV STYLE
             DIMENSION A(11)
             FUN(T) = SQRT(ABS(T)) + 5.)*T**3
             READ (5,1) A
       1     FORMAT(5F10.2)
             DO 10 J = 1, 11
                    I = 11 - J
                    Y = FUN(A(I+1))
                    IF (400.0-Y) 4, 8, 8
       4                    WRITE (6,5) I
       5                    FORMAT(I10, 10H TOO LARGE)
                    GO TO 10
       8                   WRITE(6,9) I, Y
                           FORMAT(I10, F12.6)
      10     CONTINUE
             STOP
             END

Also here a statement function is being used and the backward loop is still simulated. The structured layout has been used. The notation Fortran 66 started to be used in 1978, previously it was just called Standard FORTRAN or the IBM-notation FORTRAN IV was used also by other vendors.

Fortran 77

             PROGRAM TPK
     C       THE TPK ALGORITHM
     C       FORTRAN 77 STYLE
             REAL A(0:10)
             READ (5,*) A
             DO 10 I = 10, 0, -1
                     Y = FUN(A(I))
                     IF ( Y . LT. 400) THEN
                              WRITE(6,9) I,Y
       9                      FORMAT(I10. F12.6)
                     ELSE
                              WRITE (6,5) I
       5                      FORMAT(I10,' TOO LARGE')
                     ENDIF
      10    CONTINUE
            END

            REAL FUNCTION FUN(T)
            REAL T
            FUN = SQRT(ABS(T)) + 5.0*T**3
            END

Also here a statement function ought be used, but is was not popular at that time, and therefore an external function was being used instead. The backward loop no longer has to be simulated and the conditional statement can be given in a more natural way. Structured layout is now the normal case. The character string can be given within apostrophes so that you no longer have to count manually the number of characters in the character string. The statement END in the main program is also being used for the execution so that STOP is no longer required. Also the explicit RETURN in the function FUN is now optional.

Fortran 90

            PROGRAM TPK
     !      The TPK Algorithm
     !      Fortran 90 style
	    IMPLICIT NONE
	    INTEGER		       :: I
            REAL                       :: Y
            REAL, DIMENSION(0:10)      :: A
            READ (*,*) A
            DO I = 10, 0, -1           ! Backwards
                    Y = FUN(A(I))
                    IF ( Y < 400.0 ) THEN
                           WRITE(*,*) I, Y
                    ELSE
                           WRITE(*,*) I, ' Too large'
                    END IF
            END DO
            CONTAINS                   ! Local function
                    FUNCTION FUN(T)
                    REAL  :: FUN
                    REAL, INTENT(IN) :: T
                    FUN = SQRT(ABS(T)) + 5.0*T**3
                    END FUNCTION FUN
            END PROGRAM TPK

Instead of an external function a local function is now used. The backward loop has not to be simulated. The conditional statement can be given in a more natural way and the symbol < (less than) has returned from Fortran 0. The specifications have a new appearance. Structured layout is used always and all statement numbers have been removed. The character string is given within apostrophes and the standard formats and standard units are used. Comments can be given on the same line as the statement, and comments are now indicated by an exclamation mark ! Implicit specification can (and should) be avoided.

This example is not changed in Fortran 95!

F

      module Functions
      public :: fun
      contains
         function fun(t) result (r)
            real, intent(in) :: t
            real  :: r
            r = sqrt(abs(t)) + 5.0*t**3
         end function fun
      end module Functions

      program TPK
!     The TPK Algorithm
!     F style
      use Functions
      integer		    :: i
      real                  :: y
      real, dimension(0:10) :: a
      read *, a
      do i = 10, 0, -1      ! Backwards
         y = fun(a(i))
         if ( y < 400.0 ) then
            print *, i, y
         else
            print *, i, " Too large"
         end if
      end do
      end program TPK

The new language F has been developed as a possible replacement of Pascal at the teaching of programming, but at the same it is a pure subset of Fortran 90 and Fortran 95.

A free F compiler for Linux is now available.

Keywords are reserved words and are required to be lower case letters, other identifiers may be mixed. Functions and subroutines are only permitted via modules. By default all variables have to be declared (the statement IMPLICIT NONE is therefore implicit, and was previously not permitted explicitly, it is however now optional). When available, the compiler switch -u is therefore very useful if you run an F program with a Fortran 90 compiler.

This example is a first attempt at writing in F!


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