Why does GDB currently still supports only the features of Fortran 77 language?

Why does GDB currently still supports only the features of Fortran 77 language?

[Hongyi Zhao]

Nowadays, it is well known that Fortran 77 is a rather archaic and
outdated Language, and it has been replicated by more modern Fortran
versions, such as
Fortran 90/95/2003/2008, and so on.

But in the documentation corresponding to the latest version of GDB
[1], I noticed the following description, which surprised me quite a
lot:

```
15.4.6 Fortran

GDB can be used to debug programs written in Fortran, but it currently
supports only the features of Fortran 77 language.
```

Today in the 21st century, why does GDB currently still supports only
the features of Fortran 77 language?

[1] https://sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb/Fortran.html#Fortran

Best regards
-- 
Assoc. Prof. Hongsheng Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com>
Theory and Simulation of Materials
Hebei Vocational University of Technology and Engineering
No. 473, Quannan West Street, Xindu District, Xingtai, Hebei province

RE: Why does GDB currently still supports only the features of Fortran 77 language?

[Kempke, Nils-Christian]

Hi,

the documentation for the Fortran part of GDB is a bit outdated. It is not actually
true that GDB only supports Fortran 77 features - there is newer features that are
supported, too. Though there probably is not a standard (90/95..) for which one
could say that all Fortran features are fully supported (except maybe 77 though here
I am not sure).

GDB as of yet does not support every language feature of the latest standards.
As for the reason - GDB is a collaborative project that relies on contributions and
probably no one has come around doing the necessary work yet.

If you find that there is a specific feature missing, I would suggest opening a
'Feature request' bug for GDB at https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/ . Or, you could
become contributor yourself, too.

There is this patch I just sent that tries to improve the Fortran documentation a bit
https://sourceware.org/pipermail/gdb-patches/2022-April/187710.html
It describes all currently supported Fortran intrinsics.

Best regards,

Nils

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gdb <gdb-bounces+nils-
> christian.kempke=intel.com@sourceware.org> On Behalf Of Hongyi Zhao via
> Gdb
> Sent: Saturday, April 9, 2022 3:23 AM
> To: gdb@sourceware.org
> Subject: Why does GDB currently still supports only the features of Fortran
> 77 language?
> 
> Nowadays, it is well known that Fortran 77 is a rather archaic and
> outdated Language, and it has been replicated by more modern Fortran
> versions, such as
> Fortran 90/95/2003/2008, and so on.
> 
> But in the documentation corresponding to the latest version of GDB
> [1], I noticed the following description, which surprised me quite a
> lot:
> 
> ```
> 15.4.6 Fortran
> 
> GDB can be used to debug programs written in Fortran, but it currently
> supports only the features of Fortran 77 language.
> ```
> 
> Today in the 21st century, why does GDB currently still supports only
> the features of Fortran 77 language?
> 
> [1]
> https://sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb/Fortran.html#Fortran
> 
> Best regards
> --
> Assoc. Prof. Hongsheng Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com>
> Theory and Simulation of Materials
> Hebei Vocational University of Technology and Engineering
> No. 473, Quannan West Street, Xindu District, Xingtai, Hebei province
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