The *FILE Lines

• The module is enclosed in a *FILE *ENDFILE pair each having the compulsory keyword MEMBER.

• The *FILE line may have other optional keywords the most important of which are:-

  LIBRARY

  Allows the software to be structured into libraries. We should break SNOMAN up into a number of libraries to make it more manageable.

  LANGUAGE

  Can be anything you like e.g. INC for include files, DOC for documents. Any language that starts FORT is assumed to be FORTRAN which can effect the output extension name.

  DATE

  Should be the last modified date.

  LEADING_SOURCE

  As certain UNIX script files insist that the very first line is a special comment the FILE line can appear after the first line so long as:-

  • it appears somewhere in the first 4 lines

  • the FILE line contains the keyword LEADING_SOURCE.

  This feature should only be used if absolutely necessary; having source before the *FILE line is likely to cause confusion!

• If there is too much information for one line it can overflow on to additional *FILE lines.