Array expressions and assignments

Last updated on 2026-02-21 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • How do I assign values to Fortran arrays?
  • Can I work at once with subsets of an array?
  • How can I reduce or extract information from an array?

Objectives

  • Learn the syntax used to work with array sections.
  • Learn about array reductions.
  • Understand how to use arrays in logical expressions.

Array sections

A general subset of array elements, an array section, may be constructed from a triplet with a start and end subscript and a stride:

FORTRAN 

  [subscript] : [subscript] [: stride]

Given a rank 1 array a(:), some valid array sub-objects are:

FORTRAN 

  a         ! the whole array
  a(:)      ! the whole array again
  a(1:4)    ! array section [ a(1), a(2), a(3), a(4) ]
  a(:4)     ! all elements up to and including a(4)
  a(2::2)   ! elements a(2), a(4), a(6), ...

If an array subscript is present, it must be valid; if the stride is present it may not be zero.

Array expressions and assignments

Intrinsic operations can be used to construct expressions which are arrays. For example:

FORTRAN 

  integer, dimension(4, 8) :: a1, a2
  integer, dimension(4)    :: b1

  a1 = 0                      ! initialise all elements to zero
  a2 = a1 + 1                 ! all elements of a2(:,:)
  a1 = 2*a1                   ! multiplied element-wise

  b1 = a1(:, 1)               ! b1 set to first column of a1

Such expressions and assignments must take place between entities with the same shape (they are said to conform). A scalar conforms with an array of any shape.

Given the above declarations, the following would not make sense:

FORTRAN 

  b1 = a1

Exercise (2 minutes)

Challenge

Array appearance

A caution. How should we interpret the following assignments?

FORTRAN 

  d = 1.0
  e(:) = 1.0

Compile the accompanying program example1.f90, check the compilation errors and improve the program.

The first assignment given above is ambiguous. Is d a scalar variable, or an entire array? The second assignment is clearly on every element of the rank-1 array e.

The compiler errors you get when compiling example1.f90 may spell out exactly what is going wrong. At line 13,

FORTRAN 

b1 = a1

b1 is a rank-1 array; the rank-2 array a1 cannot be used to assign values to it. Change it to

FORTRAN 

b1(:) = a1(:,1)

Then, the second issue is the assignment

FORTRAN 

b1(1:4) = a2(1, 4:4)

as the section a2(1, 4:4) is an array of the incorrect size (note that a2(1, 4) would work as it becomes a scalar, but wouldn’t set b2 to the first half of the first row of a2). To correct the error, fix the start index:

FORTRAN 

b1(1:4) = a2(1, 1:4)
Callout

Array style

Following this exercise, you hopefullly agree it may be a good idea to prefer use of a(:) over a when referencing the whole array. The former has the appearance of an array, while the latter may incorrectly appear to be a scalar to an unfamiliar reader of the code (or you yourself if it’s been a while since you last read it).

Elemental intrinsic functions

Many intrinsic functions are elemental: that is, a call with a scalar argument will return a scalar, while a call with an array argument will return an array with the result of the function for each individual element of the argument. For example,

FORTRAN 

   real, dimension(4) :: a, b
   ...
   b(1:4) = cos(a(1:4))

will fill each element of b with the cosine of the corresponding element in a.

Reductions

Other intrinsic functions can be used to perform reduction operations on arrays, and usually return a scalar. Common reductions are

FORTRAN 

   a = minval( [1.0, 2.0, 3.0] )  ! the minimum value from the array
   b = maxval( [1.0, 2.0, 3.0] )  ! the maximum value from the array
   c = sum(array(:))              ! the sum of all values in the array

Logical expressions and masks

There is an array equivalent of the if construct called where, e.g.,:

FORTRAN 

  real, dimension(20) :: a
  ...
  where (a(:) >= 0.0)
    a(:) = sqrt(a(:))
  end where

which performs the appropriate operations element-wise. Formally,

FORTRAN 

  where (array-logical-expr)
    array-assignments
  end where

in which all the array-logical-expr and array-assignments must have the same shape.

Logical functions any(), all(), and others may be used to reduce logical arrays or array expressions. These return a logical value so can be used in an if statement:

FORTRAN 

   if (any(a(:) < 0.0)) then
     ! do something if at least one element of a(:) is negative
   end if
   if (all(a(:) < 0.0)) then
     ! do something if every element of a(:) is negative
   end if

Some intrinsic functions have an optional mask argument which can be used to restrict the operations to certain elements, e.g.,

FORTRAN 

  b = min(array(:), mask = (array(:) > 0.0))     ! minimum of positive value
  n = count(array(:), mask = (array(:) > 0.0))   ! count the number of positive values

These may be useful in certain situations.

Another caution

There may be a temptation to start to construct array expressions of baroque complexity, perhaps in the search for brevity. This temptation is probably best avoided:

  1. Such expressions can become very hard to read and interpret for correctness;
  2. Performance: compilers may struggle to generate the best code if expressions are very complex. Array expressions and constructs may not work in parallel: explicit loops may provide better opportunities.

If array expressions are used, simple ones are best.

Exercise (5 minutes)

Discussion

Quadratic equation

The template exercise1.f90 re-visits the quadratic equation exercise. Check you can replace the scalars where appropriate. See the template for further instructions.

Challenge

Sieve of Eratosthenes

Here’s an additional exercise: write a program to implement the Sieve of Eratosthenes algorithm which performs a search for prime numbers. See exercise2.f90 for a template with some further instructions. How much array syntax can you reasonably introduce?

A sample solution is provided in solution.f90.

Key Points
  • Fortran allows flexible operations on arrays or subsets of array elements and provides numerous intrinsic functions for such operations.
  • Some of these, such as all() and any() can be useful in directing the logical flow of a program.