ATTRIBUTES Properties and Calling Conventions

The ATTRIBUTES properties (also known as options) C, STDCALL (Windows* only), REFERENCE, VALUE, and VARYING affect the calling convention of routines. You can specify:

The C, STDCALL, REFERENCE, and VARYING properties for an entire routine.
The VALUE and REFERENCE 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, for Windows*, 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.

It is advisable to use the DECORATE option in combination with the ALIAS option to ensure appropriate name decoration regardless of operating system or architecture. The DECORATE option indicates that the external name specified in ALIAS should have the correct prefix and postfix decorations for the calling mechanism in effect.

Naming conventions are as follows:

leading (prefix) underscore for Windows* systems based on IA-32 architecture; no underscores for Windows systems based on Intel® 64 architecture and Windows systems based on IA-64 architecture.
trailing (postfix) underscore for all Linux systems
leading and trailing underscores for all Mac OS* systems

For example:

INTERFACE SUBROUTINE MY_SUB (I) !DEC$ ATTRIBUTES C, DECORATE, ALIAS:'My_Sub' :: MY_SUB INTEGER I END SUBROUTINE MY_SUB END INTERFACE

This code declares a subroutine named MY_SUB with the C property. The external name will be appropriately decorated for the operating system and platform.

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

Calling Conventions for ATTRIBUTES Options

Argument	Default	C	C, REFERENCE	STDCALL (Windows* IA-32 architecture)	STDCALL, REFERENCE (Windows* IA-32 architecture)
Scalar	Reference	Value	Reference	Value	Reference
Scalar [value]	Value	Value	Value	Value	Value
Scalar [reference]	Reference	Reference	Reference	Reference	Reference
String	Reference, either Len:End or Len:Mixed	String(1:1)	Reference, either Len:End or Len:Mixed	String(1:1)	String(1:1)
String [value]	Error	String(1:1)	String(1:1)	String(1:1)	String(1:1)
String [reference]	Reference, either No Len or Len:Mixed	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	Reference	Value, size dependent	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
Naming Conventions
Prefix	_ (Windows systems using IA-32 architecture, Mac OS systems) none for all others	_ (Windows systems using IA-32 architecture, Mac OS systems) none for all others	_ (Windows systems using IA-32 architecture, Mac OS systems) none for all others	_	_
Suffix	none (Windows) _ (Linux, Mac OS)	none	none	@n	@n
Case	Upper Case	Lower Case	Lower Case	Lower Case	Lower Case
Stack Cleanup	Caller	Caller	Caller	Callee	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 systems using IA-32 architecture, the 4-byte argument address is pushed on the stack. On systems using Intel® 64 and IA-64 architectures, the 8-byte argument address is pushed on the stack.
Len:End or Len:Mixed	For certain string arguments: Len:End applies when -nomixed-str-len-arg (Linux and Mac OS) or /iface:nomixed_str_len_arg (Windows) is set. The length of the string is pushed (by value) on the stack after all of the other arguments. This is the default. Len:Mixed applies when -mixed-str-len-arg (Linux and Mac OS) or /iface:mixed_str_len_arg (Windows) 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 or Len:Mixed	For certain string arguments: No Len applies when nomixed-str-len-arg (Linux and Mac OS) or /iface:nomixed_str_len_arg (Windows) is set. The length of the string is not available to the called procedure. This is the default. Len:Mixed applies when mixed-str-len-arg (Linux and Mac OS) or /iface:mixed_str_len_arg (Windows) 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	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 systems using IA-32 architecture, the 4-byte address of the array descriptor. On systems using Intel® 64 architecture and systems using IA-64 architecture, the 8-byte address of the array descriptor.
@n	On systems using IA-32 architecture, the at sign (@) followed by the number of bytes (in decimal) required for the argument list.
Size dependent	On systems using IA-32 architecture, 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
C/C++ cdecl (default)	C
C/C++ __stdcall (Windows only)	STDCALL
MASM C (in PROTO and PROC declarations) (Windows only)	C
MASM STDCALL (in PROTO and PROC declarations) (Windows only)	STDCALL
Assembly (Linux only)	C

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 in combination with the ALIAS option to specify that the external name specified in ALIAS should have the correct prefix and postfix decorations for the calling mechanism in effect.

For Windows systems, the compiler option /iface also establishes some default argument passing conventions. The /iface option has the following choices:

Option	How are arguments passed?	Append @n to names on systems using IA-32 architecture?	Who cleans up stack?	Varargs support?
/iface:cref	By reference	No	Caller	Yes
/iface:stdref	By reference	Yes	Callee	No
/iface:default	By reference	No	Caller	Yes
/iface:c	By value	No	Caller	Yes
/iface:stdcall	By value	Yes	Callee	No
/iface:cvf	By reference	Yes	Callee	No