Glossary F

field	Can be either of the following: A set of contiguous characters, considered as a single item, in a record or line. A substructure of a STRUCTURE declaration.
field descriptor	See data edit descriptor.
field separator	The comma (,) or slash (/) that separates edit descriptors in a format specification.
field width	The total number of characters in the field. See also field, the first definition.
file	A collection of logically related records. If the file is in internal storage, it is an internal file; if the file is on an input/output device, it is an external file.
file access	The way records are accessed (and stored) in a file. The standard Fortran file access modes are sequential and direct.
file handle	A unique identifier that the system assigns to a file when the file is opened or created. A file handle is valid until the file is closed.
file organization	The way records in a file are physically arranged on a storage device. Standard Fortran files can have sequential or relative organization.
final subroutine	A subroutine whose name appears in a FINAL statement in a type definition. It can be automatically invoked by the processor when an object of that type is finalized.
final task	A task that forces all of its descendant tasks to become included tasks.
fixed-length record type	A file format in which all the records are the same length.
floating-point environment	A collection of registers that control the behavior of floating-point (FP) machine instructions and indicate the current FP status. The floating-point environment may include rounding mode controls, exception masks, flush-to-zero controls, exception status flags, and other floating-point related features.
focus window	The window to which keyboard input is directed.
foreground process	On Linux* systems, a process for which the command interpreter is waiting. Its process group is the same as that of its controlling terminal, so the process is allowed to read from or write to the terminal. Contrast with background process.
foreground window	The window the user is currently working with. The system assigns a slightly higher priority to the thread that created the foreground window than it does to other threads.
foreign file	An unformatted file that contains data from a foreign platform, such as data from a CRAY, IBM, or big endian IEEE* machine.
format	A specific arrangement of data. A FORMAT statement specifies how data is to be read or written.
format specification	The part of a FORMAT statement that specifies explicit data arrangement. It is a list within parentheses that can include edit descriptors and field separators. A character expression can also specify format; the expression must evaluate to a valid format specification.
formatted data	Data written to a file by using formatted I/O statements. Such data contains ASCII representations of binary values.
formatted I/O statement	An I/O statement specifying a format for data transfer. The format specified can be explicit (specified in a format specification) or implicit (specified using list-directed or namelist formatting). Contrast with unformatted I/O statement. See also list-directed I/O statement and namelist I/O statement.
frame window	The outermost parent window in QuickWin.
function	A series of statements that perform some operation and return a single value (through the function or result name) to the calling program unit. A function is invoked by a function reference in a main program unit or a subprogram unit. In Standard Fortran, a function can be used to define a new operator or extend the meaning of an intrinsic operator symbol. The function is invoked by the appearance of the new or extended operator in the expression (along with the appropriate operands). For example, the symbol * can be defined for logical operands, extending its intrinsic definition for numeric operands. See also function subprogram, statement function, and subroutine.
function reference	Used in an expression to invoke a function, it consists of the function name and its actual arguments. A function reference returns a value (through the function or result name) that is used to evaluate the calling expression.
function result	The result value associated with a particular execution or call to a function. This result can be of any data type (including derived type) and can be array-valued. In a FUNCTION statement, the RESULT option can be used to give the result a name different from the function name. This option is required for a recursive function that directly calls itself.
function subprogram	A sequence of statements beginning with a FUNCTION (or optional OPTIONS) statement that is not in an interface block and ending with the corresponding END statement. See also function.