F2KCLI

This page provides a home for the old F2KCLI package, originally released in 2001. It is no longer relevant to modern Fortran compilers, but remains useful with legacy compilers. Download links are provided at the bottom of the page.

What is F2KCLI ?

F2KCLI is an implementation of the Fortran F2003 command line interface, for use with pre-F2003 compilers. The interface consists of three routines:

• COMMAND_ARGUMENT_COUNT : Returns the number of command arguments.
• GET_COMMAND_ARGUMENT : Returns a command argument.
• GET_COMMAND : Returns the entire command by which the program was invoked.

F2KCLI provides versions of these routines for a very wide range of Fortran 77/9x compilers. About 80 different platform/compiler combinations are supported. See the compatibility list below.

Why ?

Prior to Fortran 2003, "how do I access the program command line?" was one of Fortran's most frequently asked questions. Unfortunately, the equally frequent answer was "It depends". Up to and including Fortran 95, there had been no standard method of command line access. While the F2003 standard finally addressed this requirement, it was reasonable to assume that F2003 compilers would not be in general usage for some time. In the meantime, this left the Fortran community with its existing hotch potch of inconsistent solutions for several years to come.

Since command line access could readily have been addressed in previous Fortran standards, it followed that the proposed F2003 interface could be retrospectively implemented for most existing F77/9x compilers. That is exactly what F2KCLI did. It provided command line access in a consistent manner to the vast majority of Fortran 77/9x users, while simultaneously offering upwards compatibility with the F2003 standard.

Status

F2KCLI was written on a voluntary basis by Interactive Software Services Ltd.

F2KCLI is free software (that is "free" as in "free lunch" or "free beer"). Source code is supplied for all supported platforms, plus binaries for nearly all of the Windows, DOS and OS/2 implemetations. It can be used in any program, including commercial applications. While an acknowledgement of its source in any program documentation would be appreciated, this is not required. For further details, see "Conditions of Use" in the manual.txt file included in the F2KCLI file set. [Note: These have not been updated since 2005, so are likely to be slightly out of date. The F2KCLI pakage has not been updated, simply relocated.]

An extremely wide range of compilers are supported. However anyone wishing to contribute implementations for unsupported compilers/platforms is welcome to do so. The source of any such contributions will be fully acknowledged.

F2KCLI is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty.

Supported Compilers/Platforms

1. Where a platform is listed as "Unix" or "Unix/Linux" this indicates that the compiler in question is available for multiple Unix platforms and that the corresponding F2KCLI source code is generic to all Unix-based platforms supported by that compiler.
2. "Tru64 Unix" is the later name for the operating system formerly known as Digital Unix formerly known as OSF/1. The same versions of F2KCLI are equally usable with any of these o.s. variants.
3. "32-bit DOS" means a DOS based compiler which relies on a 32-bit DOS extender such as Phar Lap, DOS4/GW, DBOS, etc.
4. Modern Fortran compilers now implement the F2003 command line intrinsics. Use of compiler-supplied intrinsics is recommended, where available.

Download

Version 1.08 October 2005

F2KCLI is supplied in two forms, containing identical versions of the software:

• ZIP file. (225k)
• GZIP'ed tar file. (127k)

The only difference between the two file sets (other than the required ZIP/tar extraction software) is that the manual and source files in the ZIP archive have DOS/Windows style carriage-return/line feed line endings, whereas those in the tar file have Unix style line-feed-only line terminators. Just download whichever is more convenient.

Note: If you choose to download the ZIP file, be sure to maintain the directory structure of the archive when you extract its contents:

• PKUNZIP : Use the -d command line option.
• WinZip : Check the "Use folder names" option.

Contents

• manual.txt : F2KCLI manual/readme file in plain ASCII.
• source directory : Source files for every supported compiler/platform combination.
• binary directory : Precompiled binaries for nearly all DOS, Windows and OS/2 implementations.
• test directory : Simple test/verification programs in Fortran 9x free format and Fortran 77 fixed format.

Changes

• v1.01 : Command argument zero is now accessible under VMS.
• v1.02 : Compile/link instructions for Intel Fortran v5 under Linux.
• v1.03 : LF95 5.7 (Win32), Portland f90 (Linux), Absoft (Mac OS X).
• v1.04 : Binary version for Intel Fortran v7 (Win32). HP f90 source. Minor cosmetic changes to generic Unix versions.
• v1.05 : Support for F on Win32, Linux and Solaris
• v1.06 : Support for CVF 6.6c and Intel Fortran v8.
• v1.07 : DVF/CVF binary support reverted to a single version. Binary support for early Visual Fortran versions (e.g. 5.0) fixed.
• v1.08 : IVF (Win64/EM64T). Watfor77. IBM XLF on Mac OS X. Updated documentation