JuliaLang/julia

FCall macro and/or Fortran calling convention

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#38,872 opened on Dec 14, 2020

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featureffihelp wanted

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Description

In conversation with @vtjnash I mentioned that it might make sense to add a calling convention to ccall that implements the GFortran ABI so that we can target different Fortran ABI compilers (see JuliaLang/julia#38836) instead of having it be explicit.

Alternatively a @fcall macro could make sense that converts the arguments to by-ref and handles, characters correctly.

x-ref: JuliaLang/LinearAlgebra.jl#650

Contributor guide

Research direction
Investigate the GFortran ABI specification and how Julia's ccall currently handles foreign function calls; then propose a design for a Fortran calling convention or @fcall macro.
Tech stack
julia
Domain
compilers
Issue type
Feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
4
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
Over 1 week
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Mostly clear
Prerequisites
Julia
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
20