LFortran compiles PRIMA
30 comments
·March 6, 2025pjmlp
anta40
The lang is still under development, the most current in in Fortran 2023: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/modern-fortran-expla...
pjmlp
I am fully aware of it, however most recent revisions tend not to be adopted by all compilers, and honestly the large majority only cares about keeping existing code running.
A bit like C23 and C++23 are here, and the large majority is a mix of C89, C99, C++11, and C++17, as what folks in the trenches care about.
Or Java 8 versus Java 24, and so on.
Fortran is in a similar position.
rbanffy
How many different platforms out there run Fortran code these days? I’m aware of it being very important in scientific computing (and compiling existing code is critical) but I don’t know many other use cases and different platforms requiring different compilers.
yjftsjthsd-h
I was given to believe that a lot of numerical code in python is fortran with a little bit of wrapper?
pjmlp
Depends on the library, it is a mix of C, C++, Fortran, and using Python as JIT DSLs.
genphy1976
For more information about LFortran, see
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LFortran
- Homepage: https://lfortran.org
- GitHub: https://github.com/lfortran/lfortran
If you like to play with it, see
- LFortran in web browsers using WebAssembly: https://dev.lfortran.org
- LFortran in Compiler Explorer: https://godbolt.org/z/EfWvsY6Kh
andsoitis
LFortran is an alpha-stage modern, interactive LLVM-based Fortran compiler.
froh
thanks you've saved me looking it up myself
quanto
> It utilizes a range of Modern Fortran features, including extensive use of optional variables, function pointer passing, and a randomized test driver, among others. Successfully compiling PRIMA requires a compiler with a robust and mature backend, as well as well-developed intermediate passes and a capable parser.
I am not getting a full picture here. What's challenging about PRIMA code base? Does it use some advanced features that are difficult for a compiler to support? Are the mentioned features in the 2008 standard?
What's actually impressive is that LFortran in alpha stage is only 2x slower than GFortran, which goes back decades.
certik
It was a lot of corner cases that we had to get right, it's the most advanced code that LFortran can compile. I think none of the features individually is difficult to support, but there were a lot of them.
actinium226
Congrats to Ondřej Čertík and the team working on LFortran, this is a big milestone!
ggraphilia
ggraphilia
Discussions on the Fortran Discourse:
https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/lfortran-compiles-pri...
genphy1976
In case you appreciate LFortran and would like to sponsor its development, see
- Become a sponsor to LFortran: https://github.com/sponsors/lfortran
- Open Collective: https://opencollective.com/lfortran
- NumFOCUS: https://numfocus.org/donate-to-lfortran
genewitch
I'll have to benchmark a library-less Matmul with LFortran, to compare against flang, C, and python versions.
Roughly: 8, 12, 18 units of time, respectively. Python only being twice as slow for the simplest matmul - how much of that is merely the interpreter startup time?
fadreqrew
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erwiue
[dead]
Nice milestone.
Modern Fortran is no longer the FORTRAN from punch cards, having this compiler push maybe will help folks to write directly blazing performance Fortran code, instead of numerical code in Python.