Derived Types

Programmer-Defined Datatypes

So far we have used only the predefined types available in the Fortran standard. However, an important principle of modern software engineering is separation of concerns and encapsulation. We would like for related data to be connected, and we want each program unit to implement a well-defined set of actions, its “concern.” This also allows the programmer to control the interface, the way in which other parts of the program interact with the data.

For example, consider a program to update employee information. We can define several variables relevant for an employee; for example we might use salary, name of manager, name of department, employee ID number, and so forth. Each of these is potentially a different type. Salary would be floating point, the names would be strings, and the ID number would generally be an integer. We have more than one employee to handle, so we must use some form of list or array. In most languages we cannot define a single array to accommodate all these fields.
This leads to the need for a way to keep all the information about one employee coordinated.

If we were restricted to predefined types in Fortran, we would have to declare separate arrays for each field of interest. When processing data, we would have to take pains to ensure that the index of one array was correct for another array. Suppose we wanted to find all employees making more than a certain amount. We would have to search the “salary” array for the elements that met the criterion, while storing the index into some other array, so that we would have an array whose contents were the indices for other arrays. This is very prone to errors.

integer,            dimension(:), allocatable:: employee_ID
character(len=128), dimension(:), allocatable:: employee_name
character(len=128), dimension(:), allocatable:: employee_manager
character(len=128), dimension(:), allocatable:: employee_dept
real,               dimension(:), allocatable:: employee_salary


We need a different type of data structure. Programmer-defined datatypes allow the programmer to define a new type containing the representations of a group of related data items. For example, some languages define dataframes, which are essentially representations of spreadsheets with each column defined as something like an array. This would be an example of a defined datatype, since it must be described relative to basic types available in the language. This is perhaps easier in languages that use inferred typing, where the interpreter or compiler makes its best guess as to the type of data, as opposed to statically typed languages like Fortran or C++. But conceptually it is a good example of a programmer-defined datatype.

In Fortran abstract datatypes are called derived types. The syntax is extremely simple; in the example, ptype stands for a primitive type.

TYPE mytype
<ptype> var1
<ptype> var2
<ptype>, DIMENSION(:), ALLOCATABLE:: var3
TYPE(anothertype) :: var4
END TYPE mytype


Variables of mytype are declared as

type(mytype) :: x, y


We access the fields using the % separator:

z=x%var1
w=y%var2
allocate(x%var3(N))


where the variables z and w must be declared to match the type, including attributes such as ALLOCATABLE, of the field of the type. As shown above, a TYPE may be a member of another TYPE as long as its definition has already been seen by the compiler. Variables that belong to the type are usually called components in Fortran.

Note that a type is a scoping unit.

We can apply this to our employee example. The longer name for the fields is not helpful since we declare everything to be pertinent to an “employee.”

TYPE employee
INTEGER             :: ID
CHARACTER(len=128)  :: name
CHARACTER(len=128)  :: manager
CHARACTER(len=128)  :: dept
REAL                :: salary
END TYPE


We can now declare employees

TYPE(employee) :: fred, joe, sally
real           :: raise

raise=0.02
fred%salary=(1+raise)*fred%salary


Arrays and Types

Types may contain arrays and from F2003 onward, those arrays may be allocatable. Very few compilers do not support this standard but if one is encountered, the POINTER attribute must be used. We will not discuss POINTER further but it may be seen in code written before F2003 compilers were widely available.

In Fortran, the array data structure is a container and the elements of an array may be derived types.

TYPE(employee), dimension(:), allocatable :: employees


We allocate as usual

num_employees=126
allocate(employees(num_employees))


Arrays and Modules

We nearly always put derived types into modules; the module will define procedures that operate on the type. The module must not have the same name as the derived type, which can be somewhat inconvenient.

A derived type may need to be initialized explicitly. For example, if you need to allocate memory, say for an allocatable array, to create a variable of a given type, this will not happen automatically. You must write a constructor to allocate the memory.

**Example**
This type is a set of observations for birds denoted by their common name.
fortran
TYPE bird_data
CHARACTER(LEN=50)                  :: species
INTEGER, DIMENSION(:), ALLOCATABLE :: obs
END TYPE


A constructor-like procedure would be

MODULE bird_obs

TYPE bird_data
CHARACTER(LEN=50)                  :: species
INTEGER, DIMENSION(:), ALLOCATABLE :: obs
END TYPE

CONTAINS

SUBROUTINE constructor(bird,species,obs)
TYPE(bird_data),       INTENT(INOUT) :: bird
CHARACTER(LEN=50),     INTENT(IN)    :: species
INTEGER, DIMENSION(:), INTENT(IN)    :: obs

bird%species=species
allocate(bird%obs(size(obs)))
bird%obs=obs
END SUBROUTINE
END MODULE


It is important to understand that the species that is a member of the type is not the same as the species that is passed in to init_bird. In Fortran we can easily distinguish them since we must use the instance variable, bird in this case, as a prefix; not all languages require that. In C++ we would need to use this->species (this is the “invisible” instance variable in that language) if an attibute has the same name as a dummy parameter.

Exercise

Write a main program to use the bird_dat module. Assume you will read the bird data from a CSV (comma-separated values) file with each row consisting of a string for the species and then 10 numbers for observations over 10 years. Create a file

"Species",2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008,2009
"BlueJay", 24, 23, 27, 19, 22, 26, 28, 27, 24, 30
"Cardinal", 11, 15, 18, 18, 19, 17, 20, 21, 20, 19


Use this file to test your program.

Example Solution

program bird_obs
use bird_dat
implicit none

type(bird_data),dimension (:), allocatable :: bird_list
character(len=50)                          :: filename
character(len=50)                          :: species,my_species,lc_species
integer                                    :: l, n, nargs, nbirds, nobs
integer, dimension(:),allocatable          :: years

interface
use bird_dat
implicit none
type(bird_data), dimension(:), allocatable, intent(out) :: bird_list
character(len=*),                           intent(in)  :: filename
integer,         dimension(:), allocatable, intent(out) :: years
end subroutine
end interface

nargs=command_argument_count()
if ( nargs .ne. 1 ) then
stop "Usage: <file>"
else
call get_command_argument(1,filename)
endif

nbirds=size(bird_list)
nobs  =size(bird_list(1)%obs)

write(*,*) "Observations over the years ",years
do n=1,nbirds
do l=1,nobs-1
enddo
write(*,'(i4)') bird_list(n)%obs(nobs)
enddo

End program

use bird_dat
implicit none
type(bird_data), dimension(:), allocatable, intent(out) :: bird_list
character(len=*),                           intent(in)  :: filename
integer,         dimension(:), allocatable, intent(out) :: years
integer,         dimension(:), allocatable :: obs
integer,         parameter                 :: nobs=10
character(len=6),dimension(nobs)           :: cyears
integer                                    :: inunit
character(len=50)                          :: species
character(len=1024)                        :: line
character(len=:),dimension(:),allocatable  :: line_vals
integer                                    :: num_vals
integer                                    :: n,m
logical                                    :: file_exists

inquire(file=filename,exist=file_exists)
if (file_exists) then
inunit=10
open(10,file=filename)
else
stop "Can't find file."
endif

nlines=0
do
nlines=nlines+1
enddo
10 continue
rewind(inunit)

allocate(bird_list(nbirds))
allocate(years(nobs))
allocate(obs(nobs))

enddo
do n=1,nbirds
call constructor(bird_list(n),species,obs)
end do



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