This section describes the dialects understood by GNU Modula-2. It also describes the differences between the dialects and any command line switches which determine dialect behaviour.
The GNU Modula-2 compiler is compliant with four dialects of Modula-2. The language as defined in ’Programming in Modula-2’ 2nd Edition, Springer Verlag, 1982, 1983 by Niklaus Wirth (PIM2), ’Programming in Modula-2’, 3rd Corrected Edition, Springer Verlag, 1985 (PIM3) and ’Programming in Modula-2’, 4th Edition, Springer Verlag, 1988 (PIM4) http://freepages.modula2.org/report4/modula-2.html and the ISO Modula-2 language as defined in ISO/IEC Information technology - programming languages - part 1: Modula-2 Language, ISO/IEC 10514-1 (1996) (ISO).
The command line switches ‘-fpim2’, ‘-fpim3’, ‘-fpim4’ and ‘-fiso’ can be used to force mutually exclusive features. However by default the compiler will not aggressively fail if a non mutually exclusive feature is used from another dialect. For example it is possible to specify ‘-fpim2’ and still utilize ‘DEFINITION’ ‘MODULES’ which have no export list.
Some dialect differences will force a compile time error, for example
in PIM2 the user must IMPORT SIZE from the module
SYSTEM, whereas in PIM3 and PIM4 SIZE is a pervasive
function. Thus compiling PIM4 source code with the ‘-fpim2’
switch will cause a compile time error. This can be fixed quickly
with an additional IMPORT or alternatively by compiling with
the ‘-fpim4’ switch.
However there are some very important differences between the dialects which are mutually exclusive and therefore it is vital that users choose the dialects with care when these language features are used.
The most dangerous set of mutually exclusive features found in the
four dialects supported by GNU Modula-2 are the INTEGER
division, remainder and modulus arithmetic operators. It is important
to note that the same source code can be compiled to give different
run time results depending upon these switches! The reference manual
for the various dialects of Modula-2 are quite clear about this
behavior and sadly there are three distinct definitions.
The table below illustrates the problem when a negative operand is used.
Pim2/3 Pim4 ISO
----------- ----------- ----------------------
lval rval DIV MOD DIV MOD DIV MOD / REM
31 10 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 1
-31 10 -3 -1 -4 9 -4 9 -3 -1
31 -10 -3 1 -3 1 Exception -3 1
-31 -10 3 -1 4 9 Exception 3 -1
See also P24 of PIM2, P27 of PIM3, P29 of PIM4 and P201 of the ISO Standard. At present all dialect division, remainder and modulus are implemented as above, apart from the exception calling in the ISO dialect. Instead of exception handling the results are the same as the PIM4 dialect. This is a temporary implementation situation.