Underscores in Routine Names

The Fortran compiler normally appends an underscore (_) to the names of subprograms appearing both at entry point definition and in calls. This convention differs from C procedures or external variables with the same user-assigned name. If the name has exactly 32 characters, the underscore is not appended. All Fortran library procedure names have double leading underscores to reduce clashes with user-assigned subroutine names.

There are three usual solutions to the underscore problem:

• In the C function, change the name of the function by appending an underscore to that name.

• Use the f77 C() pragma to tell the FORTRAN 77 compiler to omit those trailing underscores.

• Use the f77 -ext_names option to make external names without underscores.

Use only one of these solutions.

The examples in this chapter could use the FORTRAN 77 C() compiler pragma to avoid underscores. The C() pragma directive takes the names of external functions as arguments. It specifies that these functions are written in the C language, so the Fortran compiler does not append an underscore as it ordinarily does with external names. The C()directive for a particular function must appear before the first reference to that function. It must also appear in each subprogram that contains such a reference. The conventional usage is:

      EXTERNAL ABC, XYZ      !$PRAGMA C( ABC, XYZ ) 

If you use this pragma, the C function does not need an underscore appended to the function name.

Fortran 90 does not have equivalent methods for avoiding underscores. Trailing underscores are required in the names of C routines called from Fortran 90 routines.