Styles of strings for Fortran

On a related topic, I'd like to make a plea for those implementing new
Fortran compilers (especially F90):


_Please_ use an implementation of Fortran strings which maps cleanly into
C structs and C++ classes (ideally, implement the data structures and the
operations for them using a C++ class).


That is to say, a Fortran string should probably be a something like:


        typedef * struct{ unsigned length; char * value } FString ;


Then you need the following methods (which, as far as I am concerned,
could be implemented with a C++ library--which I'd like to have available
for myself):


        length (easy)
        concatenate
        copy/assign
        substring
        index of key in string


Note that for Fortran to be happy, you will need to pad with blanks
whenever possible -- for example the following assignment statement
implies a pad with 5 trailing blanks:


        CHARACTER*8 FOO
        ...
        FOO = 'foo'
        ...


If new Fortran compilers could agree with a standard representation of
this sort for character strings, it would make multilanguage
programming--especially portable multilanguage programming--a lot easier.
(And you *need* multilanguage programming in order to do portable data
files from Fortran for real applications!)


Carlie J. Coats, Jr. coats@cardinal.ncsc.org
Environmental Programs phone: (919)248-9241
North Carolina Supercomputing Center fax: (919)248-9245
3021 Cornwallis Road P. O. Box 12889
Research Triangle Park, N. C. 27709-2889 USA
[Don't forget that whatever format you choose has to allow arbitrary string
overlays via equivalence and common. -John]
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