Scope and Association Overview

Program entities are identified by names, labels, input/output unit numbers, operator symbols, or assignment symbols. For example, a variable, a derived type, or a subroutine is identified by its name.

Scope refers to the area in which a name is recognized. A scoping unit is the program or part of a program in which a name is defined or known. It can be any of the following:

• An entire executable program

• A single scoping unit

• A single statement (or part of a statement)

The region of the program in which a name is known and accessible is referred to as the scope of that name. These different scopes allow the same name to be used for different things in different regions of the program.

Association is the language concept that allows different names to refer to the same entity in a particular region of a program.