Parallel Computer Centre
Recall that declaring logical variables is in the following form
LOGICAL :: guess, date
and assigning a logical variable is in the following form
guess = .true.
date = (today_date==5)
if today_date has previously been assigned a value and that value is 5 then date holds .TRUE., otherwise .FALSE. In this section the logical and comparison operators are introduced and how to perform comparisons is illustrated.
More Examples:
5 < 6 !True
5 > 6 !False
5 == 6 !False
5 /= 6 !True
5 <= 6 !True
5 >= 6 !False
age > 34 !a variable compared with a constant
age /= my_age !two variables are compared
45 == your_age !a variable can appear in any side
name= 'Smith' !characters are allowed
alpha(3) /= 33 !array elements are allowed
(age*3) /= your_age !expressions are allowed
The .OR. logical operator is used to link expressions which evaluate to TRUE only if any of the expressions is true, otherwise evaluates to FALSE. Consider the following example: (name='Dimitris') .or. (name='James') .or. (name='Jim'). Again if the user enters any of the names the expression is given the true value, otherwise the value false is assigned.
The .NOT. logical operator is used to inverts the logical value of an expression. For example true becomes false and vice versa. The form is: .not. (salary*0.4) where the statement enclosed by brackets is assigned a value which in turn is inverted.
The .EQV. logical operator is used to link expressions which evaluate to TRUE only if all expressions have the same logical value (can be true or false), otherwise evaluates to FALSE. For example: (5*3>12) .EQV. (6*2>8) evaluates to TRUE because both sub-expressions take the true value.
The .NEQV. logical operator is used to link expressions which evaluate to TRUE only if at least one of the expressions has a different logical value than the others, otherwise evaluates to FALSE. For example: (5*3>12) .NEQV. (6*2>13) evaluates to TRUE because the first sub-expression is true whereas the second is false.
Comparing real & integer converts the integer to its real equivalent Comparing real & real must be performed with caution because of rounding errors resulting from arithmetic operations. It is advisable to test their difference rather than their actual values. For instance, (a-b<0.005) is better than (a==b).
The comparison starts from the left side The comparison terminates either when a difference has been found or the end of the string has been reached if no difference is found the character strings are the same, otherwise terminates with the first encountered difference. Comparing character strings depends on the collating sequence of the machine used. The collating sequence must obey the following rules.
A < B < ... < Z
a < b < ... < z
0 < 1 < 2 ... < 9
digits before A or after Z; or before a or after z blank before letters or digits Rest of characters have no defined position, machine dependant Note that standard does not define if upper case characters come before or after lower case characters
The earliest a character comes in the collating sequence the smaller value it has. Hence, a blank is always smaller than a digit or a letter. An example:
Is 'Alexis' > than 'Alex'?
The right expression is shorter, hence 'Alex' becomes 'Alex ' The first 4 letters are the same - no difference has been found so search continues character i is greater than blank - comparison terminates and the answer is yes because the blank comes before letters! (the earlier a character comes in the collating sequence the smaller value it has)
Intrinsic functions for string comparison are available which are based on the universal ASCII collating sequence:
LGT(string1, string2) !greater than
LGE(string1, string2) !greater than or equal to
LLE(string1, string2) !less than or equal to
LLT(string1, string2) !less than
Because the collating sequence might differ from machine to machine one can use one of the above intrinsic functions either to compare strings. More intrinsic functions are available. For example intrinsic functions that identify the position of a character in a sequence in the ASCII or machine collating sequence. Some of them are presented through the exercise sections.
INTEGER :: age=34, old=92, young=16
what is the value of the following expressions?
age /= old
age >= young
age = 62
(age==56 .and. old/=92)
(age==56 .or. old/=92)
(age==56 .or. (.not.(old/=92)))
.not. (age==56 .or. old/=92)
15>23
(12+3) <=15
(2>1) .and. (3<4)
(3>2) .and. (1+2)<3 .or. (4<=3)
(3>2) .and. (1+2)<3 .eqv. (4<=3)
(a<b .and. x<y) .or. (a>=b .and. x>=y) = (a<b .eqv. x<y)
Re-write the following expressions using different logical operators
.not. (a<b .and. b<c)
.not. (a<b .eqv. x<y)
"Adam" > "Eve"
"ADAM" > "Adam"
"M1" < "M25"
"version_1" > "version-2"
" more" < "more"
LGT("Adam","adam")
LLT("Me","me")
LLT("me","me?"