About this document

Getting Started with XL Fortran provides a general overview of the XL Fortran compiler, its more significant features, and how those features can help you improve your software development productivity.

For the benefit of current XL Fortran users upgrading to this release, Getting Started with XL Fortran also includes a summary of features that are new or improved for V10.1.

Getting Started with XL Fortran is intended only to help familiarize you with the compiler. For detailed information on using the XL Fortran compiler, you will want to refer to other books in the XL Fortran Advanced Edition V10.1 for Linux library.

Who should read this document

Getting Started with XL Fortran is intended for anyone who plans to work with IBM(R) XL Fortran Advanced Edition V10.1 for Linux, who is familiar with the Linux(R) operating system, and who has some previous Fortran programming experience.

How to use this document

If you are new to XL Fortran , you should view Overview of XL Fortran features to familiarize yourself with the key features of XL Fortran and how to begin using it to develop your applications.

If you are already an experienced XL Fortran user and are now upgrading to the latest release of XL Fortran , you may want to go directly to What's new for V10.1 to review that latest changes and feature enhancements to the compiler.

The remaining sections of this guide provide a brief overview of basic program development tasks with XL Fortran.

How this document is organized

This guide includes these topics:

Conventions and terminology used in this document

Typographical conventions

The following table explains the typographical conventions used in this document.

Table 1. Typographical conventions
Typeface Indicates Example
bold Commands, executable names, and compiler options. By default, if you use the -qsmp compiler option in conjunction with one of these invocation commands, the option -qdirective=IBM*:SMP$:$OMP:IBMP:IBMT will be on.
italics Parameters or variables whose actual names or values are to be supplied by the user. Italics are also used to introduce new terms. The maximum length of the trigger_constant in fixed source form is 4 for directives that are continued on one or more lines.
UPPERCASE Fortran programming keywords, statements, directives, and intrinsic procedures. The ASSERT directive applies only to the DO loop immediately following the directive, and not to any nested DO loops.
monospace Programming keywords and library functions, compiler built-in functions, file and directory names, examples of program code, command strings, or user-defined names. If you call omp_destroy_lock with an uninitialized lock variable, the result of the call is undefined.

How to read syntax diagrams

Throughout this document, diagrams illustrate XL Fortran syntax. This section will help you to interpret and use those diagrams.

If a variable or user-specified name ends in _list, you can provide a list of these terms separated by commas.

You must enter punctuation marks, parentheses, arithmetic operators, and other special characters as part of the syntax.

The following is an example of a syntax diagram with an interpretation:

Read syntax diagramSkip visual syntax diagram                                              .-,-.
           (1)                                V   |
>>-EXAMPLE-------char_constant--+-a-+--+---+----e-+------------->
                                '-b-'  +-c-+
                                       '-d-'
 
>--name_list---------------------------------------------------><
 
Notes:
  1. IBM extension

Interpret the diagram as follows:

Examples

The examples in this document, except where otherwise noted, are coded in a simple style that does not try to conserve storage, check for errors, achieve fast performance, or demonstrate all possible methods to achieve a specific result.