[SciPy-Dev] Fortran cleanup advice?

[Ralf Gommers]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 2:01 AM, Pauli Virtanen <pav+sp at iki.fi<pav%2Bsp at iki.fi>
> wrote:

> Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:29:35 +0800, Ralf Gommers wrote:
> > Most warnings are from Fortran code, I count six types (examples at end
> > of mail):
> > 1. Nonconforming tab character. This one's straightforward, change tabs
> > to spaces.
> > 2. Unused variable.
> > 3. Obsolete ASSIGN statement.
> > 4. Label defined but not used.
> > 5. Obsolete assigned GOTO statement
> > 6. 'foo' uninitialized.
>
> I'm not sure whether fixing these warnings pays off:
>
> a) I doubt fixing these warnings will help us spot any bugs. Most of the
>   offending code is likely upstream code (= ancient Fortran libraries),
>   and for the most part, they are solid.
>
>   At least the warnings (3) and (5) are spurious. Computed gotos are
>   not an obsolete feature in Fortran-77...
>
> b) In the worst case, stylistic fixes such as the above can cause errors.
>
> c) Moreover, such changes clutter up "svn/git blame" needlessly.
>   Sometimes, it is useful to want to know what functional Scipy-specific
>   modifications (= bug-fixes) have been made.
>
> d) If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
>
> Because of these, I would avoid doing purely stylistic fixes to upstream
> code.
>

Points taken.

>
> Scipy-specific code is of course a different matter -- warnings from code
> written by Scipy authors should be fixed.
>  <http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/scipy-dev>


That was kind of my problem - those get lost in the noise now.

Cheers,
Ralf
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