Gotchas

Variable Initialization Using Initialization Expression

The following code:

integer :: a = 5

is equivalent to:

integer, save :: a = 5

and not to:

integer :: a
a = 5

See for example this question.

Floating Point Numbers

Assuming the definitions:

integer, parameter :: dp=kind(0.d0)           ! double precision
integer, parameter :: sp=kind(0.0 )           ! single precision

Then the following code:

real(dp) :: a
a = 1.0

is equivalent to:

real(dp) :: a
a = 1.0_sp

and not to:

real(dp) :: a
a = 1.0_dp

As such, always use the _dp suffix as explained in Floating Point Numbers. However, the following code:

real(dp) :: a
a = 1

is equivalent to:

real(dp) :: a
a = 1.0_dp

And so it is safe to assign integers to floating point numbers without losing any accuracy (but one must be careful about integer division, e.g. 1/2 is equal to 0 and not 0.5).

The declaration of integer variables with a _dp suffix does not promote them automatically to double precision variables. The following literal:

360_dp

is interpreted as an integer.

C/Fortran Interoperability of Logical

The Fortran standard specifies, that the Fortran type logical(c_bool) and C type bool are interoperable (as long as c_bool returns some positive integer). Unfortunately, for some compilers one must enable this behavior with a specific (non-default) option. In particular, the following options must be used:

Compiler Extra Compiler Option
gfortran  
ifort -standard-semantics
PGI -Munixlogical
Cray  
IBM XL  

Empty Extra Compiler Option means that no extra option is needed and things work by default.

If you omit these extra compiler options, then when you pass logical to and from Fortran, its value will in general be corrupted when accessed from C. A minimal code example that exemplifies this behavior is at: https://gist.github.com/certik/9744747 When you use these extra compiler options, then everything works as expected and there is no issue.

Conclusion: always use these extra compiler options when compiling your Fortran code, unless you have a specific reason not to.

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