(j3.2006) question about generic resolution

[Malcolm Cohen]

Hi Bill,

The "POINTER vs ALLOCATABLE" generic feature is fundamentally misguided.

> Either of the specific interfaces appears to be viable as a callee. I assume 
> that we intend that suba is called.

Bad assumption.  There is no such intent.

> However, I don't see anything in [303:12.5.5.2]  (resolving generics) that 
> says this.

The whole point of our generic distinguishability rules is to avoid ambiguous 
situations like this.

>   Did these two new features just fly by each other, or (hopefully) did I miss 
> some part of the text that points out where the above example goes wrong, or 
> is disambiguated.

It is just broken.

The obvious fix is to disallow the ambiguous generic.  That has the unfortunate 
side-effect of completely removing the "POINTER vs. ALLOCATABLE" generic 
feature.  However, that feature is so limited that
(a) it is certainly not a poster child for allowing an ambiguous overload with a 
"priority" rule for selection;
(b) removing it results in the loss of virtually no useful functionality.

Cheers,
-- 
................................Malcolm Cohen, Nihon NAG, Tokyo.