2.1 Command-Line Options

Command-line options for gfortran involve four interrelated pieces within the Fortran compiler code.

The relevant command-line flag is defined in lang.opt, according to the documentation in Options in GNU Compiler Collection Internals. This is then processed by the overall GCC machinery to create the code that enables gfortran and gcc to recognize the option in the command-line arguments and call the relevant handler function.

This generated code calls the gfc_handle_option code in options.c with an enumerator variable indicating which option is to be processed, and the relevant integer or string values associated with that option flag. Typically, gfc_handle_option uses these arguments to set global flags which record the option states.

The global flags that record the option states are stored in the gfc_option_t struct, which is defined in gfortran.h. Before the options are processed, initial values for these flags are set in gfc_init_option in options.c; these become the default values for the options.