How can I convert code from Fortran77 to Visual Fortran?

Question

I need to convert a code from Fortran77 to Compaq Visual Fortran. Is it possible? If "yes": is it also possible to save the results in a form that can be imported in EXCEL 2003?

Answer 1

CVF is a Fortran 95 compiler, and Fortran 77 is more or less a subset of F95, so yes, it's certainly possible. What are your actual problems, or what exactly are you trying to do?

And yes, you can certainly output data in a format that excel can import.

Also note that CVF was discontinued many years ago.

Answer 2

There are several fortran standards; fortran77, 90, 95, 2003 and 2008 coming on. "Visual fortran" is not a standard's name, but purely a commercial name for Compaq's (and now Intel's) line of compilers. Since they added an IDE, they named it "Visual". Since fortran is backwards compatible, fortran77 was made a subset of fortran90 standard (meaning, fortran90 includes the whole f77 standard). F95 was a little expansion to the standard, keeping that backward compatibility.

So there is no need for changing anything, apart from trying to "modernize" the code syntax itself. Since most of f77 code I've seen runs very efficient, I rarely have seen the need for rewriting.

Compaq's compiler was part of the line: Microsoft Fortran Powerstation 1.0 --> then 4.0 --> Digital's version 5 --> Compaq's and now Intel's Visual Fortran which is currently at version 11. It is a relatively stable and quality line of compilers, popular among the fortran users.

Regarding the last question, MS Excel can through import read text files, which can be written in fortran. If you're thinking of writing directly .xls files, I have not seen a library which can do that so far (please, if you know of any, supply me with a link).