6.3 General Comments About Autoscoping

When autoscoping a variable that does not have predetermined scope, the compiler checks the use of the variable against the above rules S1–S3 in the given order if it is a scalar, and against the above rule A1 if it is an array. If a rule matches, the compiler will scope the variable according to the matching rule. If a rule does not match, the compiler tries the next rule. If the compiler is unable to find a match, the compiler gives up attempting to determine the scope of that variable and it is scoped SHARED and the binding parallel region is serialized as if an IF (.FALSE.) or if(0) clause were specified.

There are two reasons why autoscoping fails. One is that the use of the variable does not match any of the rules. The other is that the source code is too complex for the compiler to do a sufficient analysis. Function calls, complicated array subscripts, memory aliasing, and user-implemented synchronizations are some typical causes. (See 6.5 Known Limitations of the Current Implementation.)

Autoscoping in C and C++ applies only to basic data types: integer, floating point, and pointer. If a user specifies a structure variable or class variable to be autoscoped, the compiler will scope the variable as shared and the enclosing parallel region will be executed by a single thread.