Re: 20020508: netcdf 3.5.1 Beta 3: Intel Fortran patch needed

> Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 10:01:26 +0200
> From: Ole Holm Nielsen <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: 20020508: netcdf 3.5.1 Beta 3: Intel Fortran patch needed

Ole,

> I'm trying to port our production code to the Intel Fortran 95
> compiler, and for this I need the NetCDF libraries.  Intel Fortran
> won't link with the libnetcdf.a library that I get from standard
> Linux RPMs, so I'm trying out the NetCDF 3.5.0 source.
> 
> I have succeeded in building NetCDF 3.5.0 with the Intel compilers
> ifc and icc (disabling the C++ part of NetCDF).  But when I run
> "make test", a number of errors are reported by the test code, 
> and finally some test bombs out.  I wonder if you know of
> a way to make NetCDF work 100% correctly with the Intel compilers ??
> FYI, I'm using the new version 6.0 of Intel compilers.

No, sorry, we don't have the new Intel compilers installed here yet
and don't even have a Pentium 4 platform here to test on.  I'm told we
will eventually get one, but for now questions like this might best be
answered by asking the netcdfgroup mailing list or some of the other
people who have been working with netCDF and the Intel compilers.  For
example, I found this reply in our support archives that sounds like
it may refer to the same problem:

  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/70/4566

It may be this is a symptom of a bug in the Intel compilers, since it
doesn't seem to be a problem with other compilers and platforms.

> By the way, do you have any understanding of why the Intel Fortran
> doesn't recognize the libnetcdf.a library from a Linux RPM ?
> There seems to be a problem about library formats or something ?
> This is a really bothersome feature of the Intel compiler,
> and we have no such problems with the Portland Group compiler.

I suspect the compiler used to create the Fortran interface for the
libnetcdf.a you are using (maybe g77) has different conventions for
calling C from Fortran than the Intel compiler.  There is no standard
for how Fortran programs should call C functions, so there are wide
variations in how it's done, but the Portland Group may have decided
to do it the same way as g77/gcc Most of these variations are
encapsulated in the cfortran.h header we distribute with netCDF, but
the Intel compilers you're using haven't been integrated into
cfortran.h yet.

--Russ

_____________________________________________________________________

Russ Rew                                         UCAR Unidata Program
address@hidden                     http://www.unidata.ucar.edu