Intel Visual Fortran Compiler 16.0 Update 4 for Windows* Release Notes for Intel Parallel Studio XE 2016

ID 672235
Updated 1/22/2016
Version Latest
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This document provides a summary of new and changed product features and includes notes about features and problems not described in the product documentation. 

Please see the licenses included in the distribution as well as the Disclaimer and Legal Information section of these release notes for details. Please see the following links for information on this release of the Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler 16.0.

Change History

This section highlights important from the previous product version and changes in product updates.

Changes in Update 4 (Intel® Fortran Compiler 16.0.4)

  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 is now supported
  • Corrections to reported problems

Changes in Update 3 (Intel® Fortran Compiler 16.0.3)

  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 is now supported
  • Corrections to reported problems
  • Documentation updates

Changes in Update 2 (Intel® Fortran Compiler 16.0.2)

  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 is now supported
  • Corrections to reported problems
  • Documentation updates

Changes in Update 1 (Intel® Fortran Compiler 16.0.1)

Changes since Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler 15.0 (New in Intel® Fortran Compiler 16.0.0)

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Product Contents

Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler 16.0 for Windows* initial release includes the following components:

  • Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler 16.0 for building applications that run on IA-32 and Intel® 64 architecture systems
  • Fortran Expression Evaluator (FEE) for debugging Fortran applications with Microsoft Visual Studio*
  • Integration into Microsoft* development environments
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2013* Shell and Libraries (not included with Evaluation licenses)
  • Sample programs
  • On-disk documentation

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System Requirements

For an explanation of architecture names, see Intel® Architecture Platform Terminology

  • A PC based on an IA-32 or Intel® 64 architecture processor supporting the Intel® Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (Intel® SSE2) instructions (Intel® Pentium® 4 processor or later, or compatible non-Intel processor
    • For the best experience, a multi-core or multi-processor system is recommended
  • 2GB RAM (4GB recommended)
  • 4GB free disk space required for all product features and all architectures
  • For Intel® Many Integrated Core Architecture (Intel® MIC Architecture) development/testing:
  • Microsoft Windows 7*, Microsoft Windows 8*, Microsoft Windows 8.1*, Microsoft Windows 10*, Microsoft Windows Server 2012* (R2) (Intel® 64 only), Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2* (IA-32 only), Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (R2 SP1) or Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008* (embedded editions not supported)
    • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or Windows HPC Server 2008 requires Microsoft Visual Studio 2015*, Microsoft Visual Studio 2013* or Visual Studio 2012* or Visual Studio 2010* or Visual Studio 2013* Shell.
    • On Microsoft Windows 8, Microsoft Windows 8.1, and Microsoft Windows Server 2012, the product installs into the “Desktop” environment. Development of “Windows 8* UI” applications is not supported.
  • To use the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment or command-line tools to build IA-32 or Intel® 64 architecture applications, one of:
    • Microsoft Visual Studio 2015* Professional Edition (or higher edition) with 'Common Tools for Visual C++ 2015' component installed
    • Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2015* with 'Common Tools for Visual C++ 2015' component installed
    • Microsoft Visual Studio 2013* Professional Edition or higher
    • Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2013*
    • Microsoft Visual Studio 2012* Professional Edition or higher
    • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010* Professional Edition or higher, with C++ component installed
    • Intel® Visual Fortran development environment based on Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Shell (included with some license types of Intel® Fortran Compiler) [1][5]
  • To use command-line tools only to build IA-32 architecture applications, one of:
    • Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop*
    • Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop*
    • Microsoft Visual C++ 2010* Express Edition [2]
  • To use command-line tools only to build Intel® 64 architecture applications, one of:
    • Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop*
    • Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop*
    • Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit for Windows 8.1*
    • Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit for Windows 8*
  • To read the on-disk documentation, Adobe Reader* 7.0 or later

Notes:

  1. Intel® Visual Fortran development environment based on Microsoft Visual Studio 2013* Shell is included with Academic and Commercial licenses for Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 Composer Edition for Fortran Windows*.  It is not included with Evaluation licenses or the "free tools" license obtained through the free software program for students and educators. This development environment provides everything necessary to edit, build and debug Fortran applications. Some features of the full Visual Studio product are not included, such as:
    • Resource Editor (see ResEdit* (http://www.resedit.net/), a third-party tool, for a substitute)
    • Automated conversion of Compaq* Visual Fortran projects
    • Microsoft language tools such as Visual C++* or Visual Basic*
  2. The default for Intel® Visual Fortran is to build IA-32 architecture applications that require a processor supporting the Intel® SSE2 instructions.  A compiler option is available to generate code that will run on any IA-32 architecture processor. Note, however, that applications calling Intel® MKL require a processor supporting the Intel® SSE2 instructions.
  3. Applications can be run on the same Windows versions as specified above for development. Applications may also run on non-embedded 32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows earlier than Windows 7, though Intel does not test these for compatibility.  Your application may depend on a Windows API routine not present in older versions of Windows.  You are responsible for testing application compatibility. You may need to copy certain run-time DLLs onto the target system to run your application.
  4. To use the Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015*, it is necessary to install the 'Common Tools for Visual C++ 2015' component from Visual Studio.  This article explains how.
  5. If you install Intel® Visual Fortran development environment based on Microsoft Visual Studio 2013* Shell, Microsoft Visual Studio Shell will detect whether your machine contains Microsoft components that are needed for Microsoft Visual Studio Shell to run, such as the .NET Framework, and automatically download and install them over the Internet if they are not present on your system.

Intel® Manycore Platform Software Stack (Intel® MPSS)

The Intel® Manycore Platform Software Stack (Intel® MPSS) may be installed before or after installing the Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler, if you will be developing applications that use Intel® Xeon™ Phi coprocessors.

Using the latest version of Intel® MPSS available is recommended. It is available from the Intel® Software Development Products Registration Center at https://registrationcenter.intel.com as part of your if your Intel® Parallel Studio XE for Windows* registration.

Refer to the Intel® MPSS documentation for the necessary steps to install the user space and kernel drivers.

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How to use the Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler

The Getting Started Guide at <install-dir>\intel_sw_development_tools\documentation_2016\en\ps2016\getstart_comp_wf.htm. contains information on how to use the Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler from the command line and from Microsoft Visual Studio*.

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Documentation

Product documentation is linked from <install-dir>\intel_sw_development_tools\documentation_2016\en\ps2016\getstart_comp_wf.htm.

Documentation on Creating Windows-based Applications on the Web

Documentation on using QuickWin, dialogs and the Windows API is available from the Intel Software Documentation Library: See Using Intel® Visual Fortran to Create and Build Windows*-based Applications (PDF)

Documentation Viewing Issue with Microsoft Internet Explorer* 10 and Windows Server* 2012

If on Windows Server 2012 you find that you cannot display help or documentation from within Internet Explorer 10, modifying a security setting for Microsoft Internet Explorer usually corrects the problem. From Tools > Internet Options > Security, add “about:internet” to the list of trusted sites. Optionally, you can remove “about:internet” from the list of trusted sites after you finish viewing the documentation.

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Samples

Product samples can be located in the <install-dir>\intel_sw_development_tools\samples_2016.

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Redistributable Libraries

Refer to the Redistributable Libraries for Intel® Parallel Studio XE for more information.

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Technical Support

If you did not register your compiler during installation, please do so at the Intel® Software Development Products Registration Center. Registration entitles you to free technical support, product updates and upgrades for the duration of the support term.

For information about how to find Technical Support, Product Updates, User Forums, FAQs, tips and tricks, and other support information, please visit http://www.intel.com/software/products/support/

Note: If your distributor provides technical support for this product, please contact them for support rather than Intel.

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Compatibility

In general, object code and modules compiled with earlier versions of Intel Fortran Compiler (8.0 and later) may be used in a build with version 15.0. Exceptions include:

  • Sources that use the CLASS keyword to declare polymorphic variables and which were built with a compiler version earlier than 12.0 must be recompiled.
  • Objects built with the multi-file interprocedural optimization (/Qipo) option must be recompiled.
  • Objects that use the REAL(16) , REAL*16, COMPLEX(16) or COMPLEX*32 datatypes and which were compiled with versions earlier than 12.0 must be recompiled.
  • Objects built for the Intel® 64 architecture with a compiler version earlier than 10.0 and that have module variables must be recompiled.  If non-Fortran sources reference these variables, the external names may need to be changed to remove an incorrect leading underscore.
  • Modules that specified an ATTRIBUTES ALIGN directive outside of a derived type declaration and were compiled with versions earlier than 11.0 must be recompiled.  The compiler will notify you if this issue is encountered.
  • Modules that specified an ATTRIBUTES ALIGN directive inside a derived type declaration cannot be used by compilers older than 13.0.1.
  • The implementation of the Fortran 2008 submodules feature required extensive changes to the internal format of binary .mod files. Therefore module files created by the version 16.0 Fortran compiler cannot be used with version 15.0 or older Fortran compilers.

Stack Alignment Change for REAL(16) and COMPLEX(16) Datatypes (12.0)

In previous releases, when a REAL(16) or COMPLEX(16) (REAL*16 or COMPLEX*32) item was passed by value, the stack address was aligned at 4 bytes.  For improved performance, compiler versions 12.0 and later align such items at 16 bytes and expect received arguments to be aligned on 16-byte boundaries.

This change primarily affects compiler-generated calls to library routines that do computations on REAL(16) values, including intrinsics. If you have code compiled with earlier versions and link it with the version 13 libraries, or have an application linked to the shared version of the Intel run-time libraries, it may give incorrect results.

In order to avoid errors, you must recompile all Fortran sources that use the REAL(16) and COMPLEX(16) datatypes.

Static Form of the Intel® OpenMP* Library is No Longer Provided

The static form of the Intel® OpenMP* library, libiomp5mt.lib, is no longer provided, and the /Qopenmp-link:static command line option is no longer supported. Please replace all references to libiomp5mt.lib with libiomp5md.lib, the DLL import library.  This change also implies that applications using OpenMP will need to have the Intel® compiler redistributables installed if deployed on a system where an Intel® compiler is not also present. See Redistributable Libraries for Intel® Parallel Studio XE for more information.

Fortran Expression Evaluator

Fortran Expression Evaluator (FEE) is a plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio* that is installed with Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler. It extends the standard debugger in Microsoft Visual Studio* IDE by handling Fortran expressions. There is no other change in usability.

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New and Changed Compiler Features

Some language features may not yet be described in the compiler documentation. Please refer to the Fortran 2008 Standard (PDF) and the proposed draft Fortran 2015 Standard (PDF) if necessary.

Features from Fortran 2008

  • Submodules
  • IMPURE

Features from the proposed draft Fortran 2015

  • Support for all features from “Technical Specification 29113 Further Interoperability with C”, planned for inclusion in Fortran 2015. These include:
    • Assumed type (TYPE(*))
    • Assumed rank (DIMENSION(..))
    • relaxed restrictions on interoperable dummy arguments
    • ISO_Fortran_binding.H C include file for use by C code manipulating “C descriptors” used by Fortran

Features from OpenMP*

The following directives, clauses and procedures, from OpenMP 4.0 and OpenMP 4.1, are now supported by the compiler.

Intel® 16.0 compiler support for new features in OpenMP* 4.1 draft specification TR3 is subjected to be changed and improved for standard conformance with respect to the official version of the OpenMP* 4.5 specification (to be released in November 2015)

For more information, see the compiler documentation or the link to the OpenMP Specification above.

Directives from OpenMP 4.1:

  • TARGET ENTER DATA
  • TARGET EXIT DATA

Clauses:

  • DEPEND on OMP TARGET and OMP TARGET UPDATE directives
  • NOWAIT on OMP TARGET and OMP TARGET UPDATE directives
  • SIMDLEN on OMP SIMD directive
  • SIMD on OMP ORDERED directive

 

Support for asynchronous offloading and device specification as described in the OpenMP* TR3 Proposal

The Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler 16.0 introduces new offload clauses and directives for performing asynchronous offloading and device specification as defined in the OpenMP* TR3 Technical Report available from http://openmp.org. See the Intel® Fortran Compiler User’s Guide for more details.

New modifiers for omp declare simd linear clause

The linear clause on omp declare simd declarative directive is extended with new modifiers:

           linear (linear-list [ : linear-step] )
           where linear-list is one of the following:
                     list
                     where modifier (list)
                     modifier is one of the following:
                               ref
                               val
                               uval

  • All list items must be dummy arguments of the function that will be invoked concurrently on each SIMD lane.
  • If no modifier is specified or if the val or uval modifier is specified, the value of each list item on each lane corresponds to the value of the list item upon entry to the function plus the logical number of the lane times linear-step.
  • If the uval modifier is specified, each invocation uses the same storage location for each SIMD lane; this storage location is updated with the final value of the logically last lane.
  • If the ref modifier is specified, the storage location of each list item on each lane corresponds to an array at the storage location upon entry to the function indexed
    by the logical number of the lane times linear-step.

New and Changed Directives

The following compiler directives are new or changed in Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2015 Composer Edition– please see the documentation for details:

  • BLOCK_LOOP [ clause [[,] clause...] ]
  • NOBLOCK_LOOP
  • unroll_and_jam (n) [private (var1,[var2]…)]

ATTRIBUTES STDCALL now allowed with BIND(C)

As of compiler version 15.0, the ATTRIBUTES STDCALL directive may be specified for an interoperable procedure (a procedure whose declaration includes the BIND(C) language binding attribute.) This combination has the following effects for Windows* applications targeting IA-32 architecture:

  •          The calling mechanism is changed to STDCALL, which affects how the stack is cleaned up on procedure exit
  •          The external name from the BIND attribute is suffixed with “@n”, where n is the number of bytes to be removed from the stack on return.

No other effects from STDCALL, such as pass-by-value, are provided. The Fortran standard VALUE attribute (not ATTRIBUTES VALUE) may be used if desired. For all other platforms, specifying STDCALL with BIND(C) has no effect.

Extend uninitialized variable checking using /Qinit:snan to local and heap variables

/Qinit:snan already initializes static variables of intrinsic numeric type. This is now extended to include local, automatic and allocated variables of intrinsic numeric type.

Other Features

For information on these features, please see the compiler documentation.

  • New environment variable INTEL_PROF_DYN_PREFIX. Allows the user to have some control over the naming PGO generated “.dyn” files to make it easy to distinguish files from different runs.  By setting this environment variable to the desired character string prior to starting the instrumented application, the string will be included as prefix to the .dyn file names.
  • New intrinsic __intel_simd_lane() that represents the ‘lane id’ within a SIMD vector.  This feature supports writing short-vector hyperobject reducer implementation.  It also enables the performing of reduction operations inside SIMD-enabled functions.
  • The compiler has been changed to give a diagnostic whenever an array constructor without a type specification has different type/kind-type values. For example:
    • (/integer:: 0, 1., 2./) is legal
    • (/0, 1., 2./) is illegal
    • (/real::1., 0, 123, 4./) is legal
    • (/1., 0, 123, 4./) is illegal

New run-time routines to get Fortran library version numbers

  • FOR_IFCORE_VERSION returns the version of the Fortran run-time library (ifcore).
  • FOR_IFPORT_VERSION returns the version of the Fortran portability library (ifport).

 

Support for Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512) instructions for IA-32 and Intel® 64 architectures in 15.0.1

The Intel® Compiler 15.0.1 now supports Intel® AVX-512 instructions for processors based on

IA-32 and Intel® 64 architectures that support that instruction set. The instructions are

supported via inline assembly, and/or the /Q[a]xCORE-AVX512 compiler options. This is in addition to the current support for Intel® AVX-512 instructions for Intel® Many Integrated Core Architecture.

MIN/MAX Reductions supported in SIMD Loop Directive

Starting with the Intel® Compilers version 15.0, SIMD Loop Directive now supports MIN/MAX reductions, like so:

!DIR$ SIMD REDUCTION(MAX:SIMDMAX)

      DO I = 1, SIZE

         IF (X(I) > SIMDMAX) SIMDMAX = X(I)

      END DO

 

!DIR$ SIMD REDUCTION(MIN:SIMDMIN)

      DO I = 1, SIZE

         IF (X(I) < SIMDMIN) SIMDMIN = X(I)

      END DO

 

!DIR$ SIMD REDUCTION(MAX:XMAX)

      DO I = 1, SIZE

         XMAX = MAX (XMAX, X(I))

      END DO

 

!DIR$ SIMD REDUCTION(MIN:XMIN)

      DO I = 1, SIZE

         XMIN = MIN (XMIN, X(I))

      END DO

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New and Changed Compiler Options

Please refer to the compiler documentation for details.

New and Changed in Intel® Visual Fortran 16.0 Windows*

For a list of deprecated compiler options, see the Compiler Options section of the documentation.

New /QxCOMMON-AVX512, /QaxCOMMON-AVX512 Compiler Option

The COMMON-AVX512 selection has been added for the /Qx and /Qax compiler options. This allows generation of the subset of Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512) that are supported on both Intel® Many Integrated Core Architecture and on Intel® Core™ Microarchitecture. This includes Intel AVX-512 Foundation instructions and Intel AVX-512 Conflict Detection instructions.

New /fpp-name:<name of executable with optional path>  Compiler Option

This new option provides a way for the user to specify a different preprocessor to use with Fortran.

New /gen-depshow:[no]intr_mod Compiler Option

This new option provides a way for the user to exclude intrinsic modules from dependency analysis. It controls whether the intrinsic module dependencies are shown or not. /gen-depshow:nointr_mod is the default.

New /Qopt-prefetch-issue-excl-hint Compiler Option

This new option generates PrefetchW instruction for Intel® microarchitecture code name Broadwell processors and beyond, when /Qopt-prefetched is also used.

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Visual Studio Integration Changes

Improved source code navigation in Microsoft Visual Studio IDE

The Visual Studio IDE now provides a “tree-view” for easy module/procedure navigation (similar to the Solution explorer view).  For more information, see the compiler documentation.

Changes in Optimization Report Options support in Microsoft Visual Studio IDE

Optimization Diagnostic Level, Optimization Diagnostic Phase, Vectorizer Diagnostic Level, OpenMP Diagnostic Level, Auto-Parallelizer diagnostic Level project properties’ values (Configuration Properties->Fortran->Diagnostics) were updated in Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2015 Composer Edition for Fortran Windows*. If you are using these properties, you may need to update their values, using project property pages dialog in Visual Studio. If you change your settings to use older compiler, you may need to update these properties’ values again.

Changes in Online Help format in Microsoft Visual Studio*

The online help format is now browser-based. When you view Intel documentation from the Microsoft Visual Studio Help menu, or when you view context-sensitive help using F1 or a help button in a dialog box or other GUI element, your default browser shows the corresponding help topic. You may encounter some minor functionality issues depending on your default browser. Known issues include:

  • When Set Help Preference is set to Launch in Browser and you hit F1 in Tools>Options>F# Tools or Tools>Options>Intellitrace, the browser appears twice.
  • Chrome*: When arriving at a topic from Search or Index, the Table of Contents (TOC) does not sync, nor does the Sync TOC link work.
  • Firefox*: The TOC loses context easily. Search is case sensitive
  • Safari*: Response on Windows is slow.

Tools->Options and Project Menu Labels Changed in 2015 Update 1

Beginning in Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2015 update 1, some of the labels used to identify the Intel® Compiler have changed. Specifically:

  • Under the Tools->Options menu, the label “Intel Parallel Studio XE” on the left is now called “Intel Compilers and Tools”. The settings available to be set there have not changed (for example, include directories, Code Coverage settings, or Performance Libraries settings).
  • Under the Project menu, or when you right-click on a project, the menu entry “Intel Compiler XE 15.0” is now called “Intel Compiler”.

New Fortran Project from Existing Code

In Visual Studio you can now select File > New > Fortran Project From Existing Code. This will create a new Fortran project with sources added from a folder you select. The project wizard will allow you to customize the project type and platform.

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Support Deprecated

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010* deprecated

Support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010* is deprecated in this release and will be removed in a future version.

IA-32 host installation support deprecated

Support for installation on IA-32 hosts is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

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Support Removed

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008* not supported

Support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008* is removed in this release.

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Known Issues

Command-Line Diagnostic Issue for Filenames with Japanese Characters

The filename in compiler diagnostics for filenames containing Japanese characters may be displayed incorrectly when compiled within a Windows command shell using the native Intel® 64 architecture compiler. It is not a problem when using Visual Studio or when using the Intel® 64 architecture cross-compiler or IA-32 architecture compiler.

Debugging might fail when only Microsoft Visual Studio 2012/2013 is installed

On Microsoft Windows* systems with only Microsoft Visual Studio 2012/2013* installed debugging of Fortran applications might fail. Some symptoms might be failing watches (expression evaluations) or conditional breakpoints.

Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2015 Composer Edition for Fortran Windows* provides a debugger extension called Fortran Expression Evaluator (FEE) to enable debugging of Fortran applications. For some FEE functionality the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010* libraries are required.

One solution is to install Microsoft Visual Studio 2010* in addition to Microsoft Visual Studio 2012/2013*. An alternative is to install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) found here.

Debugging mixed language programs with Fortran does not work

To enable debugging Fortran code called from a .NET managed code application in Visual Studio 2012 or later, unset the following configuration:

Menu Tools ->Options, under section Debugging->General, clear the Managed C++ Compatibility Mode check box

 

For any managed code application, one must also check the project property Debug > Enable unmanaged code debugging.

Update for Windows 7 causes LNK1123 error when building Visual Studio 2010 projects

A Microsoft Windows Update for .NET Framework 4.5.1, or installing Visual Studio 2012, installs a new version of a DLL used in the linking process, causing the original Visual Studio 2010 linker to give the error “LNK1123: failure during conversion to COFF: file invalid or corrupt”.  The fix for this issue is to install Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1* which can be found here.

Certain uses of length type parameters in parameterized derived types are not yet fully implemented

The following uses of length type parameters in parameterized derived types (PDTs) are not yet fully implemented:

  • PDT parameter constants with length type parameters
  • %RE and %IM are not yet implemented
  • There is a syntax error in the FEE displaying extended types that are parameterized 

Fix included in 16.0 Initial Release to detect an error condition related to User-Defined I/O causes large number of regressions

A fix included in the Intel Fortran Compiler 16.0 initial release to detect an error condition related to User-Defined I/O, DPD200243620 "Missing error for inaccessible components of derived type in I/O list", was found to cause a large number of regressions and has been backed out of the 16.0 Update 1 release.

Intel Compiler Help Documentation fails to launch from IDE when installed on Japanese version of Windows

In some cases, custom installations of Intel(R) Parallel Studio XE 2016 on Japanese versions of Windows will cause Intel compiler Help documentation to fail to launch from the Microsoft Visual Studio* IDE. Details describing this issue can be found here.

Link to BuildLog.htm incorrect for Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Update 1* IDE integration

For Intel Fortran Compiler IDE integration with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 there is an issue with the link to the build log in the output window. Only the portion before the first space character in the path is included to the link as shown in the following image:

The workaround is to copy the link from the output window and open it using a web browser.

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Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2015 Notes

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 brings several changes that primarily affect building of mixed-language applications where the main program is in C or C++. These changes were carried forward into Visual Studio 2012/2013/2015.

Configuring Microsoft Visual C++ to Reference Intel® Fortran Run-Time Libraries

In previous releases, one used the Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > VC++ Directories dialog to make the Intel Fortran LIB folder available to C/C++ projects.  In Visual Studio 2010, the method of doing this is very different.

  1. In Visual Studio, with a solution open that contains a C++ project, select View > Property Manager.  If you do not see Property Manager under the View menu, you will find it under View > Additional Windows.  The Property Manager window will appear. Note that this is not Properties Window or Properties Pages.
  2. Click on the triangles or + signs to expand the property tree under the Debug|Win32 configuration
  3. Double click on Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.user
  4. Select VC++ Directories
  5. Click in the field to the right of "Library Directories"
  6. Click the triangle that appears to the right and select <Edit...>
  7. Click the New Line button or press Ctrl-Insert
  8. In the new field that appears, type:

    $(IFORT_COMPILER16)\compiler\lib\ia32
  9. Click OK, OK
  10. In the Visual Studio toolbar, select File > Save All

If you will be building Intel® 64 (x64) configurations:

  1. Back in the Property Manager, expand the Debug|x64 configuration
  2. Double click on Microsoft.Cpp.x64.user
  3. Select VC++ Directories
  4. Click in the field to the right of "Library Directories"
  5. Click the triangle that appears to the right and select <Edit...>
  6. Click the New Line button or press Ctrl-Insert
  7. In the new field that appears, type:

    $(IFORT_COMPILER16)\compiler\lib\intel64
  8. Click OK, OK
  9. In the Visual Studio toolbar, select File > Save All

Click on the Solution Explorer tab, or press Ctrl-Alt-L, to make it visible again.

If you do not see the Microsoft.Cpp.x64.user property page listed for the x64 configuration, right click on Debug|x64 and select Add Existing property Sheet.  Browse to the location which contains the MsBuild 4.0 property pages.  On Windows XP, this is typically:

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0

On Windows 7 and Windows 8, it is typically:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0

You may need to enable viewing of hidden files and folders to see these paths.

Select Microsoft.Cpp.x64.user.props and click Open.  Now follow the steps above.

Adjusting Project Dependencies

If you are converting a project from an earlier version of Visual Studio and had established Project Dependencies, these are converted to References by Visual Studio 2010/2012/2013/2015.  A Fortran project that is referenced by a C/C++ project will prevent the C/C++ project from building, with an MSB4075 error.  To solve this:

  1. Right click on the C/C++ project and select References.
  2. If any Fortran project is shown as a reference, click Remove Reference.  Repeat this for all Fortran projects shown as a reference. Click OK.
  3. Repeat the above steps for any other C/C++ project

Now you have to reestablish project dependencies.

  1. Right click on the C/C++ project and select Project Dependencies. (For Visual Studio 2013 select Build Dependencies > Project Dependencies).
  2. Check the box for each project that is a dependent of this project.
  3. Click OK.
  4. Repeat the above steps for any other C/C++ project that has dependencies.

Unlike earlier versions of Visual Studio, Visual Studio 2010/2012 does not automatically link in the output library of dependent projects, so you will need to add those libraries explicitly to the parent project under Linker > Additional Dependencies.  You can use the Visual Studio macros $(ConfigurationName) and $(PlatformName) as required to qualify the path.  For example:

..\FLIB\$(ConfigurationName)\FLIB.lib

Where $(ConfigurationName) will expand to Release or Debug, as appropriate.  Similarly, $(PlatformName) will expand to Win32 or x64 as appropriate.

Showing Documentation Issue with Visual Studio 2012 and Windows Server* 2012 and Windows Server* 2008

If on Windows Server 2012* and Windows Server* 2008 you find that you cannot display help or documentation from within Visual Studio 2012, correcting a security setting for Microsoft Internet Explorer* usually corrects the problem.  From Tools > Internet Options > Security, change the settings for Internet Zone to allow “MIME Sniffing” and “Active Scripting”.

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Fortran 2008 and Fortran 2015 Feature Summary

The Intel® Fortran Compiler also supports many features from the Fortran 2008 standard as well as Features from the proposed draft Fortran 2015 standard.  Additional features will be supported in future releases. Fortran 2008 features supported by the current version include:

  • Maximum array rank has been raised to 31 dimensions (Fortran 2008 specifies 15)
  • Coarrays
    • CODIMENSION attribute
    • SYNC ALL statement
    • SYNC IMAGES statement
    • SYNC MEMORY statement
    • CRITICAL and END CRITICAL statements
    • LOCK and UNLOCK statements
    • ERROR STOP statement
    • ALLOCATE and DEALLOCATE may specify coarrays
    • Intrinsic procedures ATOMIC_DEFINE, ATOMIC_REF, IMAGE_INDEX, LCOBOUND, NUM_IMAGES, THIS_IMAGE, UCOBOUND
  • CONTIGUOUS attribute
  • MOLD keyword in ALLOCATE
  • DO CONCURRENT
  • NEWUNIT keyword in OPEN
  • G0 and G0.d format edit descriptor
  • Unlimited format item repeat count specifier
  • A CONTAINS section may be empty
  • Intrinsic procedures BESSEL_J0, BESSEL_J1, BESSEL_JN, BESSEL_YN, BGE, BGT, BLE, BLT, DSHIFTL, DSHIFTR, ERF, ERFC, ERFC_SCALED, GAMMA, HYPOT, IALL, IANY, IPARITY, IS_CONTIGUOUS, LEADZ, LOG_GAMMA, MASKL, MASKR, MERGE_BITS, NORM2, PARITY, POPCNT, POPPAR, SHIFTA, SHIFTL, SHIFTR, STORAGE_SIZE, TRAILZ,
  • Additions to intrinsic module ISO_FORTRAN_ENV: ATOMIC_INT_KIND, ATOMIC_LOGICAL_KIND, CHARACTER_KINDS, INTEGER_KINDS, INT8, INT16, INT32, INT64, LOCK_TYPE, LOGICAL_KINDS, REAL_KINDS, REAL32, REAL64, REAL128, STAT_LOCKED, STAT_LOCKED_OTHER_IMAGE, STAT_UNLOCKED
  • An OPTIONAL dummy argument that does not have the ALLOCATABLE or POINTER attribute, and which corresponds to an actual argument that: has the ALLOCATABLE attribute and is not allocated, or has the POINTER attribute and is disassociated, or is a reference to the NULL() intrinsic function, is considered not present
  • A dummy argument that is a procedure pointer may be associated with an actual argument that is a valid target for the dummy pointer, or is a reference to the intrinsic function NULL.  If the actual argument is not a pointer, the dummy argument shall have the INTENT(IN) attribute.
  • BLOCK construct
  • intrinsic subroutine EXECUTE_COMMAND_LINE
  • Submodules
  • IMPURE

Proposed draft Fortran 2015 features supported by the current version include:

  • Support for all features from “Technical Specification 29113 Further Interoperability with C”, planned for inclusion in Fortran 2015. These include:
    • Assumed type (TYPE(*))
    • Assumed rank (DIMENSION(..))
    • relaxed restrictions on interoperable dummy arguments
    • ISO_Fortran_binding.H C include file for use by C code manipulating “C descriptors” used by Fortran

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