9. Modules

In typical engineering programming applications, it often the case that there are parameters, variables, and subprograms that must be shared by several program units. Fortran 90 provides a special program unit known as a MODULE that conveniently packages collections of declarations and subprograms so that they may be imported into other program units. The functionality of the module unit is similar to that of the C header file.

Simple modules

A form of a module is as follows

   MODULE name
      specifications
   END MODULE name

Note that this is the simplest form of the module unit. More general forms exist which allow the inclusion of subprograms and procedures. We will only address the simplest form of the module unit here. A program module is made accessible to the various program units by way of the USE statement.

Consider the following program which makes use of a module in the computation of the area of a circle:

MODULE Circle
!---------------------------------------------------------------------
!
!  Module containing definitions of variables needed to
!  compute the area of a circle of radius r
!
!---------------------------------------------------------------------
   REAL, PARAMETER :: Pi = 3.1415927
   REAL :: radius
END MODULE Circle

PROGRAM Area
!---------------------------------------------------------------------
!
!  This program computes the area of a circle given the input radius
!
!  Uses:  MODULE Circle
!         FUNCTION Area_Circle (r)
!
!---------------------------------------------------------------------
USE Circle, ONLY : radius
IMPLICIT NONE

INTERFACE 
   FUNCTION Area_Circle (r)
     REAL, INTENT(IN) :: r
   END FUNCTION Area_Circle
END INTERFACE


!  Prompt user for radius of circle
write(*, '(A)', ADVANCE = "NO") "Enter the radius of the circle:  "
read(*,*) radius

! Write out area of circle using function call
write(*,100) "Area of circle with radius", radius, " is", &
            Area_Circle(radius)
100 format (A, 2x, F6.2, A, 2x, F11.2)

END PROGRAM Area

!-----Area_Circle----------------------------------------------------
!
!  Function to compute the area of a circle of given radius
!
!---------------------------------------------------------------------
FUNCTION Area_Circle(r)
USE Circle, ONLY : Pi

IMPLICIT NONE
REAL :: Area_Circle
REAL, INTENT(IN) :: r

Area_Circle = Pi * r * r

END FUNCTION Area_Circle

In this example, we define a module which declares the type of the two real variables Pi and radius. In addition, in this module, we declare the value of the parameter Pi. To make use of the module in the main program, we employ the USE statement. We use a special form of the USE statement that specifies that we are only interested in the value radius in the main program, namely, USE Circle, ONLY : radius. Similarly, we make use of only the parameter Pi in the function subprogram Area_Circle by way of the USE statement appearing in that routine.

The USE statement *** MUST *** appear at the beginning of the declaration part of the program unit making use of the module!! It must appear EVEN BEFORE the statement IMPLICIT NONE!

Modules for dynamic array allocation

There are times when you may wish to declare an array to be allocatable. However, you may wish to allocate its memory storage in a subprogram rather than in the main program. Unfortunately, allocatable arrays are not allowed to be passed as formal arguments to subprograms. The module construct provides a way for you to pass dynamically allocatable arrays to several program units. Consider the following example:

MODULE Dyn_Array
!---------------------------------------------------------------------
!
!  Module containing definitions needed to dynamically allocate 
!  the values of an array 
!
!---------------------------------------------------------------------
   INTEGER :: n
   REAL, DIMENSION(:), ALLOCATABLE :: A
END MODULE Dyn_Array

PROGRAM Play_with_Array
!---------------------------------------------------------------------
!
!  This program calls a subroutine to read in the values of
!  a dynamically allocated array A and calls several 1D intrinsic
!  array functions
!
!  Uses:  MODULE Dyn_Array
!         SUBROUTINE Get_Data
!         SUBROUTINE Dealloc_Array
!
!---------------------------------------------------------------------
USE Dyn_Array
IMPLICIT NONE

INTERFACE 
   SUBROUTINE Get_Data
   END SUBROUTINE Get_Data
END INTERFACE

INTERFACE 
   SUBROUTINE Dealloc_Array
   END SUBROUTINE Dealloc_Array
END INTERFACE

! Declare local variables
REAL :: Prod_A, Sum_A

! Call subroutine to read in data for array A
CALL Get_Data

! Use intrinsic functions to generate data
Prod_A = PRODUCT(A)

! Write out product of elements of array A
write(*,100) "The product of the elements of array A area", &
              Prod_A

! Use intrinsic function to generate more data
Sum_A = SUM(A)

! Write out sum of elements of array A
write(*,100) "The sum of the elements of array A are", &
             Sum_A 

! Now, deallocate memory containing array A
CALL Dealloc_Array

! Place for format statement to live
100 format (A, 2x, F11.2)

END PROGRAM Play_with_Array

!-----Get_Data--------------------------------------------------------
!
!  Subroutine to read in the number of values to fill A array,
!  allocate space, and to assign the values to A
!
!  Uses:  MODULE Dyn_Array
!
!---------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBROUTINE Get_Data
USE Dyn_Array

IMPLICIT NONE

! Declare local variables
INTEGER :: AllocateStatus

! Read in number of array elements from user
write(*,'(A)', ADVANCE = "NO") "Input the number of elements desired:  "
read(*,*) n

! Allocate storage for array A accordingly
ALLOCATE( A(n), STAT = AllocateStatus)
IF (AllocateStatus /= 0) STOP "*** Not enough memory ***"

! Read in values for A
write(*, '(A)', ADVANCE = "NO") "Input array values:  "
read(*,*) A

END SUBROUTINE Get_Data

!-----Dealloc_Array---------------------------------------------------
!
!  Subroutine to deallocate array space
!
!  Uses:  MODULE Dyn_Array
!
!---------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBROUTINE Dealloc_Array
USE Dyn_Array

IMPLICIT NONE

! Declare local variables
INTEGER :: DeAllocateStatus

! Deallocate storage for array A 
DEALLOCATE( A, STAT = DeAllocateStatus)
IF (DeAllocateStatus /= 0) STOP "*** Trouble deallocating ***"

END SUBROUTINE Dealloc_Array

Here we make use of the module Dyn_Array to declare the array A an allocatable real array. The integer n will be the size of the array when its value is input by the user in subroutine Get_Data. Note how the subroutines used to allocate and deallocate memory use no formal arguments. This is because all of the arguments needed are passed via the module Dyn_Array.

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