Unambiguous Generic Procedure References

When a generic procedure reference is made, a specific procedure is invoked. If the following rules are used, the generic reference will be unambiguous:

• Within a scoping unit, two procedures that have the same generic name must both be subroutines (or both be functions). One of the procedures must have a nonoptional dummy argument that is one of the following:
  
  
  • Not present by position or argument keyword in the other argument list
  • Is present, but has different type and kind parameters, or rank
  
  
• Within a scoping unit, two procedures that have the same generic operator must both have the same number of arguments or both define assignment. One of the procedures must have a dummy argument that corresponds by position in the argument list to a dummy argument of the other procedure that has a different type and kind parameters, or rank.

When an interface block extends an intrinsic procedure, operator, or assignment, the rules apply as if the intrinsic consists of a collection of specific procedures, one for each allowed set of arguments.

When a generic procedure is accessed from a module, the rules apply to all the specific versions, even if some of them are inaccessible by their specific names.

See Also

Defining Generic Names for Procedures for details on generic procedure names