Degenerate Conic

oneAPI

Intel recently released its new oneAPI Toolkit, which had been in beta for a while. According to their documentation, oneAPI includes various products:

• Intel® oneAPI Base Toolkit
  • Includes the DPC++/C++ Compiler, the Intel Math Kernel Library, and the Intel Distribution for Python
• Intel® oneAPI HPC Toolkit
  • Includes the new version of the Intel Fortran Compiler (now known as the Classic version) as well as a new LLVM-based Fortran compiler that is currently in beta. Also includes Intel MPI and Intel Inspector.
• Intel® oneAPI IoT Toolkit
• Intel® oneAPI Rendering Toolkit
• Intel® AI Analytics Toolkit
• Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ Toolkit

The big news here is that this is all now entirely free to use. They are all available for Windows, Linux, and macOS. The Fortran compiler also now includes all of the Fortran 2018 standard. Apparently, Intel will still sell you a license, but it seems the only reason to buy one would be to get the Premier Support.

See also

• Intel oneAPI Toolkits [Intel]
• Intel's Fortran 2018 now released [comp.lang.fortran]
• Intel releases oneAPI Toolkit, free, Fortran 2018 [fortran-lang.discourse.group]

GFortran 9.1

Gfortran 9.1 (part of GCC) has been released. Apparently this is a significant GCC release with a "huge number of improvements" including a new D language component. Of course, the Fortran updates are a little more modest. According to the release notes, the updates are:

• Asynchronous I/O is now fully supported [Fortran 2003].
• The BACK argument for MINLOC and MAXLOC has been implemented [Fortran 2008].
• The FINDLOC intrinsic function has been implemented [Fortran 2008].
• The IS_CONTIGUOUS intrinsic function has been implemented [Fortran 2008].
• Direct access to the real and imaginary parts of a complex variable via c%re and c%im has been implemented [Fortran 2008].
• Type parameter inquiry via str%len and a%kind has been implemented [Fortran 2008].
• C descriptors and the ISO_Fortran_binding.h source file have been implemented [Fortran 2018].
• The MAX and MIN intrinsics are no longer guaranteed to return any particular value in case one of the arguments is NaN.
• A new command-line option -fdec-include, has been added as an extension for compatibility with legacy code using some non-standard behavior from the old DEC compiler.
• A new BUILTIN directive, has been added. The purpose of the directive is to provide an API between the GCC compiler and the GNU C Library which would define vector implementations of math routines.

In addition, the release includes a bunch of bug fixes. Gfortran has more-or-less complete support for Fortran 2003, and only a couple things missing from Fortran 2008. There is a ways to go for full Fortran 2018 support. Gfortran is maintained by a very small number of volunteers, and their hard work is greatly appreciated!

See also

• gfortran — the GNU Fortran compiler
• GCC 9 Release Series
• gfortran 9.1 has been released, May 3, 2019 [comp.lang.fortran]

Flang

It appears that Flang, a new open source Fortran front-end for LLVM, has appeared on GitHub recently with little fanfare. This is apparently the result of NVIDIA's previously-announced plan to open source the PGI Fortran compiler. Unfortunately, they decided to give it the same name as another earlier attempt to create a Fortran/LLVM compiler (more confusion for poor Fortran programmers). I don't really know how it compares to Gfortran or Intel (PGI appears to be lagging behind on support for the Fortran 2008 standard). Initial tests by Usenet denizens (yes Usenet still exists) indicate that maybe Flang isn't quite ready for prime time. Hopefully it will improve with time. I think it's great news to potentially have another free Fortran compiler available.

See also

• "Flang: Developing an open source Fortran front-end for LLVM", ARM HPC User Group 2016.
• Fortran + LLVM [Earlier post]