Code::Blocks Fortran DLL Primer Tutorial

Code::Blocks Fortran DLL Primer Tutorial

The tutorial today is about a programming IDE called Code::Blocks, and we use this to create a project in which a Fortran Windows 32bit application calls a Fortran DLL doing some simple work with a two-dimensional array (and saying hello … bienvenuto … selamat pagi … g’day).

Programming IDEs take a lot of the hard work out of tasks such as compiling and linking in languages such as D, Matlab, Fortran (Code::Blocks) or Java, C, C++, VB.Net and C# (NetBeans) … and please know that there are many other languages and many other IDEs. In the case of Code::Blocks IDE, which this blog reintroduces to you today (it’s customary to shake hands, and no Klingon is necessary), it can create a C++ Win32 GUI project environment. To cut a long story short, there aint nothin’ wrong with a good ol’ IDE, but beware of IDEs in March.

In saying that about IDEs, and how they make programming easier, often with Open Source programming, it is advantageous to know what goes on “under the hood” (or even “in the ‘hood” … chortle, chortle). So if you ever get an opportunity to get helped creating your own makefile (or make it yourself, even with the Sweet Green Icing … knew it could be worked in!) for something, take the opportunity to learn how to do this, as the Open Source world will become a little easier to navigate with such types of knowledge. You’ve got to admire those early designers of computer languages, and those days when all you had was this tiny bit of memory (64k or “into the heliosphere on 8,000 bytes of memory”) to play with to create your program.

In today’s tutorial we write a simple Fortran Windows 32bit application that calls a DLL.

Points of some interest (with thanks for tutorials) are:

• Code::Blocks can live with two or more compiler definition sets … this tutorial uses GNU Fortran … after “up the garden path” with “Simply Fortran”
• Useful tutorial
• Useful tutorial2 (with array code)
• Useful tutorial3
• Useful tutorial4
• Useful tutorial5
• Useful tutorial6 (good overall view of installs required)

Code::Blocks can be an IDE for much more than Fortran … it can supervise C++ and C, D, Matlab, Fortran, ARM, AVR, Direct/X, FLTK, GLFW, GLUT, GTK+, Irrlicht, Lightfeather, MCS51, Ogre, OpenGL, PowerPC, QT4, SDL, SFML, STL port, SmartWin, TriCore and wxWidgets projects.

Link to Code::Blocks “spiritual home” download page at Code::Blocks.

Link to some downloadable Fortran DLL programming source code … rename to main.f90
Link to some downloadable Fortran application programming source code … rename to main.f95

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