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Conference turris::fortran

Title:Digital Fortran
Notice:Read notes 1.* for important information
Moderator:QUARK::LIONEL
Created:Thu Jun 01 1995
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1333
Total number of notes:6734

1233.0. "Visual Fortran - Initialization Feature" by MKOTS3::HAHN (SBU Americas Technical Support Group) Wed Mar 19 1997 12:41

Yet another question re: Visual Fortran.

A customer would like to know if Visual Fortran has a compiler or linker
feature (perhaps a command parameter?) that will guarantee that any data that 
is not explicitly initialized within the program will be initialized to binary 
zeroes.

Thanks,
 Dave
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1233.1No guaranteeTLE::EKLUNDAlways smiling on the inside!Wed Mar 19 1997 15:2216
    	The general answer is no.  This is especially true for
    subroutines which may be recursive (using a stack for local
    variables - these do NOT get automatically set to zero).
    If the data is static (blank COMMON) and global, it will
    usually be zero initially, but we do NOT guarantee this,
    nor does the Fortran Standard.  If you want something to
    be zero, put it in a DATA statement, or arrange to (re)initialize
    it at the correct times.  If you do not do this, there is NO
    guarantee what the values might be.  Will they usually be
    zero?  Yes, most likely.  Do we ever guarantee it?  No.
    Might it change?  Yes, what may be zero now just might change
    in the future, or vice versa.
    
    Cheers!
    Dave Eklund