Fortran 77 Tutorial

13. Common blocks

Fortran 77 has no global variables, i.e. variables that are shared among several program units (subroutines). The only way to pass information between subroutines we have seen so far is to use the subroutine parameter list. Sometimes this is inconvenient, e.g., when many subroutines share a large set of parameters. In such cases one can use a common block. This is a way to specify that certain variables should be shared among certain subroutines. But in general, the use of common blocks should be minimized.

Example

Suppose you have two parameters alpha and beta that many of your subroutines need. The following example shows how it can be done using common blocks.

      program main
      some declarations
      real alpha, beta
      common /coeff/ alpha, beta

      statements
      stop
      end

      subroutine sub1 (some arguments)
      declarations of arguments
      real alpha, beta
      common /coeff/ alpha, beta

      statements
      return
      end

      subroutine sub2 (some arguments)
      declarations of arguments
      real alpha, beta
      common /coeff/ alpha, beta

      statements
      return
      end

Here we define a common block with the name coeff. The contents of the common block are the two variables alpha and beta. A common block can contain as many variables as you like. They do not need to all have the same type. Every subroutine that wants to use any of the variables in the common block has to declare the whole block.

Note that in this example we could easily have avoided common blocks by passing alpha and beta as parameters (arguments). A good rule is to try to avoid common blocks if possible. However, there are a few cases where there is no other solution.

Syntax

      common / name / list-of-variables

You should know that

The common statement should appear together with the variable declarations, before the executable statements.
Different common blocks must have different names (just like variables).
A variable cannot belong to more than one common block.
The variables in a common block do not need to have the same names each place they occur (although it is a good idea to do so), but they must be listed in the same order and have the same type and size.

To illustrate this, look at the following continuation of our example:

      subroutine sub3 (some arguments)
      declarations of arguments
      real a, b
      common /coeff/ a, b

      statements
      return
      end

This declaration is equivalent to the previous version that used alpha and beta. It is recommended that you always use the same variable names for the same common block to avoid confusion. Here is a dreadful example:

      subroutine sub4 (some arguments)
      declarations of arguments
      real alpha, beta
      common /coeff/ beta, alpha

      statements
      return
      end

Now alpha is the beta from the main program and vice versa. If you see something like this, it is probably a mistake. Such bugs are very hard to find.

Arrays in common blocks

Common blocks can include arrays, too. But again, this is not recommended. The major reason is flexibility. An example shows why this is such a bad idea. Suppose we have the following declarations in the main program:

      program main
      integer nmax
      parameter (nmax=20)
      integer n
      real A(nmax, nmax)
      common /matrix/ A, n

This common block contains first all the elements of A, then the integer n. Now assume you want to use the matrix A in some subroutines. Then you have to include the same declarations in all these subroutines, e.g.

      subroutine sub1 (...)
      integer nmax
      parameter (nmax=20)
      integer n
      real A(nmax, nmax)
      common /matrix/ A, n

Arrays with variable dimensions cannot appear in common blocks, thus the value of nmax has to be exactly the same as in the main program. Recall that the size of a matrix has to be known at compile time, hence nmax has to be defined in a parameter statement.

This example shows there is usually nothing to gain by putting arrays in common blocks. Hence the preferred method in Fortran 77 is to pass arrays as arguments to subroutines (along with the leading dimensions).