Fortran - Question about edit descriptors

Author

Question about edit descriptors

Peter Seibel

2004-12-18, 12:51 pm

I'm working on a book about Common Lisp and am describing a couple of
the descriptiors used by Common Lisp's FORMAT function which are
based, as I understand it on FORTRAN's "edit descriptors".
Unfortunately I don't know much about FORTRAN; can someone tell me if
this is a correct and apt description of FORTRAN's edit descriptors.

FORTRAN edit descriptors are used to read and write columns of
numeric data arranged in fixed-width fields.

Also, how is the name of the language written these days, "FORTRAN" or
"Fortran"? Lispers switched from "LISP" to "Lisp" some years ago and
now get aggravated with people using "LISP"; did you guys make the
same transition somewhere along the line.

Thanks.

-Peter

--
Peter Seibel peter@javamonkey.com

Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp

James Giles

2004-12-18, 12:51 pm

Peter Seibel wrote:
> I'm working on a book about Common Lisp and am describing a couple of
> the descriptiors used by Common Lisp's FORMAT function which are
> based, as I understand it on FORTRAN's "edit descriptors".
> Unfortunately I don't know much about FORTRAN; can someone tell me if
> this is a correct and apt description of FORTRAN's edit descriptors.
>
> FORTRAN edit descriptors are used to read and write columns of
> numeric data arranged in fixed-width fields.

That's part of what Fortran's edit descriptors do. Certainly they
can be used to do that. Mowever, some edit descriptors operate
on variable width fields, some allow repositioning (even to the
left - and so back to parts of the record already processed), and
so on. Like most languages with formatted I/O support, the featue
is practically a separate little language in and of itself.

> Also, how is the name of the language written these days, "FORTRAN" or
> "Fortran"? Lispers switched from "LISP" to "Lisp" some years ago and
> now get aggravated with people using "LISP"; did you guys make the
> same transition somewhere along the line.

Several years ago (mid '80s I think), the ISO ruled on the spelling of
names under its control that names that were generally pronounced
as a word should have initial capital and the rest lower case. Names
that were usually spelled out should have all caps. So ISO is usually
spelled, while Fortran is usually pronounced as a word. I understand
that even the ISO is inconsistent in the application of this rule, and
that BASIC was standardized after this time, but (at least initially)
had all caps. However, Fortran and (apparently) Lisp were among
the languages that complied. Whether C is pronounced or spelled
out is an exercise for the reader.

--
J. Giles

"I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software
design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously
no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated
that there are no obvious deficiencies." -- C. A. R. Hoare

tholen@antispam.ham

2004-12-18, 12:51 pm

Peter Seibel writes:

> I'm working on a book about Common Lisp and am describing a couple of
> the descriptiors used by Common Lisp's FORMAT function which are
> based, as I understand it on FORTRAN's "edit descriptors".
> Unfortunately I don't know much about FORTRAN; can someone tell me if
> this is a correct and apt description of FORTRAN's edit descriptors.
>
> FORTRAN edit descriptors are used to read and write columns of
> numeric data arranged in fixed-width fields.

Edit descriptors are used to read and write any of the Fortran data
types, including numeric data (real and integer), character, and
logical.

> Also, how is the name of the language written these days, "FORTRAN" or
> "Fortran"? Lispers switched from "LISP" to "Lisp" some years ago and
> now get aggravated with people using "LISP"; did you guys make the
> same transition somewhere along the line.

Standards through FORTRAN 77 were uppercased; starting with Fortran 90,
only the first character was capitalized.

Peter Seibel

2004-12-18, 12:51 pm

"James Giles" <jamesgiles@worldnet.att.net> writes:

> Several years ago (mid '80s I think), the ISO ruled on the spelling of
> names under its control that names that were generally pronounced
> as a word should have initial capital and the rest lower case. Names
> that were usually spelled out should have all caps. So ISO is usually
> spelled, while Fortran is usually pronounced as a word.

Heh, I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about ISO; I've just
read about it. And I always read it as "eye-so". So I guess *I* should
write it as Iso. ;-)

> However, Fortran and (apparently) Lisp were among the languages that
> complied.

Hmmm. I don't think this is due to ISO (or Iso) conformance in the
case of Lisp as the only ISO standardized Lisp dialect is ISLISP. (And
it's spelled that way, at least on the islisp.info website). Common
Lisp is an ANSI standard while Scheme (which isn't even called Lisp
though it arguably is one) has an IEEE standard plus several
unofficial standards.

-Peter

--
Peter Seibel peter@javamonkey.com

Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp

James Giles

2004-12-18, 12:51 pm

Peter Seibel wrote:
....
> Hmmm. I don't think this is due to ISO (or Iso) conformance in the
> case of Lisp as the only ISO standardized Lisp dialect is ISLISP. (And
> it's spelled that way, at least on the islisp.info website). Common
> Lisp is an ANSI standard while Scheme (which isn't even called Lisp
> though it arguably is one) has an IEEE standard plus several
> unofficial standards.

While ISO may not have a Lisp connection, the idea they
settled on was good enough that a lot of others may have
copied it - or maybe ISO copied it from someone else.
Maybe Lisp was the first. I don't know. But certainly
the official spelling of Fortran is with an initial capital,
and that was originally explained to me as being an ISO
decision.

--
J. Giles

"I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software
design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously
no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated
that there are no obvious deficiencies." -- C. A. R. Hoare

Michael Prager

2004-12-20, 3:59 pm

Peter Seibel <peter@javamonkey.com> wrote:

>I'm working on a book about Common Lisp and am describing a couple of
>the descriptiors used by Common Lisp's FORMAT function which are
>based, as I understand it on FORTRAN's "edit descriptors".
>Unfortunately I don't know much about FORTRAN; can someone tell me if
>this is a correct and apt description of FORTRAN's edit descriptors.
>
> FORTRAN edit descriptors are used to read and write columns of
> numeric data arranged in fixed-width fields.
>

In addition to the answers you've already received, I'd like to
point this out: Edit descriptors also play an important role in
Fortran in specifying the precise form of character/real and
character/integer conversion (and their inverses).

MHP

--
Mike Prager, NOAA, Beaufort, NC
Address spam-trapped; remove color to reply.
* Opinions expressed are personal and not represented otherwise.
* Any use of tradenames does not constitute a NOAA endorsement.

mbbruce@mighty.co.za

2004-12-27, 8:55 am

Bruce AKA tholen@antispam.ham wrote:
> Peter Seibel writes:
>
of[color=darkred]
if[color=darkred]
descriptors.[color=darkred]
>
> Edit descriptors are used to read and write any of the Fortran data
> types, including numeric data (real and integer), character, and
> logical.
>
or[color=darkred]
and[color=darkred]
>
> Standards through FORTRAN 77 were uppercased; starting with Fortran
90,
> only the first character was capitalized.

What does your lisp have to do with fortran, Bruce?
Have trouble with car and cdr? (((()))

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