ATTRIBUTES Properties and Calling Conventions

The ATTRIBUTES properties (or options) C, STDCALL, REFERENCE, VALUE, and VARYING all affect the calling convention of routines. You can specify:

The C, STDCALL, REFERENCE, and VARYING properties for an entire routine.
The VALUE and VARYING properties for individual arguments.

By default, Fortran passes all data by reference (except the hidden length argument of strings, which is passed by value). If the C or STDCALL option is used, the default changes to passing almost all data except arrays by value. However, in addition to the calling-convention options C and STDCALL, you can specify argument options, VALUE and REFERENCE, to pass arguments by value or by reference, regardless of the calling convention option. Arrays can only be passed by reference.

Different Fortran calling conventions can be specified by declaring the Fortran procedure to have certain attributes. For example, on ia32 systems:

   INTERFACE
      SUBROUTINE MY_SUB (I)
          !DEC$ ATTRIBUTES C, ALIAS:'_My_Sub' :: MY_SUB   ! ia32 systems
          INTEGER I
      END SUBROUTINE MY_SUB
   END INTERFACE

This code (on ia32 systems) declares a subroutine named MY_SUB with the C property and the external name _My_Sub set with the ALIAS property.

On ia64 systems, there is no leading underscore for external names like MY_SUB, so the correct !DEC$ ATTRIBUTES line is:

      !DEC$ ATTRIBUTES C, ALIAS:'My_Sub' :: MY_SUB  ! ia64 systems

To write code for both ia32 and ia64 platforms, use the conditional compilation features of the IF Directive Construct, perhaps using the predefined preprocessor macros listed under the /define option (such as _M_IX86 and _M_IA64).

The following table summarizes the effect of the most common Fortran calling-convention directives.

Calling Conventions for ATTRIBUTES Options

	Default	C	STDCALL	C, REFERENCE	STDCALL, REFERENCE
Argument
Scalar	Reference	Value	Value	Reference	Reference
Scalar [value]	Value	Value	Value	Value	Value
Scalar [reference]	Reference	Reference	Reference	Reference	Reference
String	Reference, either Len:Mixed or Len:End	String(1:1)	String(1:1)	Reference, either Len:Mixed or Len:End	Reference, either Len:Mixed or Len:End
String [value]	Error	String(1:1)	String(1:1)	String(1:1)	String(1:1)
String [reference]	Reference, either Len:Mixed or No Len	Reference, No Len	Reference, No Len	Reference, No Len	Reference, No Len
Array	Reference	Reference	Reference	Reference	Reference
Array [value]	Error	Error	Error	Error	Error
Array [reference]	Reference	Reference	Reference	Reference	Reference
Derived Type	Reference	Value, size dependent	Value, size dependent	Reference	Reference
Derived Type [value]	Value, size dependent	Value, size dependent	Value, size dependent	Value, size dependent	Value, size dependent
Derived Type [reference]	Reference	Reference	Reference	Reference	Reference
F90 Pointer	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor
F90 Pointer [value]	Error	Error	Error	Error	Error
F90 Pointer [reference]	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor
Procedure Name
Suffix	@n (ia32 systems)	none	@n (ia32 systems)	none	@n (ia32 systems)
Case	Upper Case	Lower Case	Lower Case	Lower Case	Lower Case
Stack Cleanup	Callee	Caller	Callee	Caller	Callee

The terms in the above table mean the following:

[value]	Argument assigned the VALUE attribute.
[reference]	Argument assigned the REFERENCE attribute.
Value	The argument value is pushed on the stack. All values are padded to the next 4-byte boundary.
Reference	On ia32 systems, the 4-byte argument address is pushed on the stack. On ia64 systems, the 8-byte argument address is pushed on the stack.
Len:Mixed or Len:End	For certain string arguments: Len:Mixed applies when /iface:mixed_str_len_arg is set. The length of the string is pushed (by value) on the stack immediately after the address of the beginning of the string. Len:End applies when /iface:nomixed_str_len_arg is set. The length of the string is pushed (by value) on the stack after all of the other arguments.
Len:Mixed or No Len	For certain string arguments: Len:Mixed applies when /iface:mixed_str_len_arg is set. The length of the string is pushed (by value) on the stack immediately after the address of the beginning of the string. No Len applies when /iface:nomixed_str_len_arg is set. The length of the string is not available to the called procedure.
No Len	For string arguments, the length of the string is not available to the called procedure.
String(1:1)	For string arguments, the first character is converted to INTEGER(4) as in ICHAR(string(1:1)) and pushed on the stack by value.
Error	Produces a compiler error.
Descriptor	On ia32 systems, the 4-byte address of the array descriptor. On ia64 systems, the 8-byte address of the array descriptor.
@n	On ia32 systems, the at sign (@) followed by the number of bytes (in decimal) required for the argument list.
Size dependent	On ia32 systems, derived-type arguments specified by value are passed as follows: Arguments from 1 to 4 bytes are passed by value. Arguments from 5 to 8 bytes are passed by value in two registers (two arguments). Arguments more than 8 bytes provide value semantics by passing a temporary storage address by reference.
Upper Case	Procedure name in all uppercase.
Lower Case	Procedure name in all lowercase.
Callee	The procedure being called is responsible for removing arguments from the stack before returning to the caller.
Caller	The procedure doing the call is responsible for removing arguments from the stack after the call is over.

The following table shows which Fortran ATTRIBUTES options match other language calling conventions.

Matching Calling Conventions

Other Language Calling Convention	Matching ATTRIBUTES Option
Visual C/C++ cdecl (default)	C
Visual C/C++ __stdcall	STDCALL
Visual Basic	none
Visual Basic CDECL keyword	C
MASM C (in PROTO and PROC declarations)	C
MASM STDCALL (in PROTO and PROC declarations)	STDCALL

The ALIAS option can be used with any other Fortran calling-convention option to preserve mixed-case names. You can also use the DECORATE option with ALIAS option so the external name specified in ALIAS has prefix and postfix decorations performed on it that are associated with the calling mechanism that is in effect.

Note: When interfacing to the Windows graphical user interface or making API calls, you will typically use STDCALL. See Creating Windows Applications for more information on Windows programming.