FORTRAN

[′fȯr‚tran]

(computer science)

A family of procedure-oriented languages used mostly for scientific or algebraic applications; derived from formula translation.

Fortran

(language)

(Formula Translation) The first and, for a long time, the most widely used programming language for numerical and scientific applications. The original versions lacked recursive procedures and block structure and had a line-oriented syntax in which certain columns had special significance.

There have been a great many versions.

The name is often written "FORTRAN", harking back to the days before computers were taught about lower case, but ANSI decreed, in about 1985 via the ANSI FORTRAN Technical Committee TC, that it should be "Fortran".

See also: Fortrash.

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

FORTRAN

(FORmula TRANslator) The first high-level programming language and compiler, developed in 1954 by IBM. It was originally designed to express mathematical formulas, and although it has been used for business applications, it is primarily used for scientific, engineering and mathematical problems. FORTRAN IV is an ANSI standard, but FORTRAN V has various proprietary versions. The following FORTRAN example converts Fahrenheit to Celsius:

   write(6,*) 'Enter Fahrenheit '
   read(5,*) XFAHR
   XCENT = (XFAHR - 32) * 5 / 9
   write(6,*) 'Celsius is ', XCENT
   stop
   end

Copyright © 1981-2025 by The Computer Language Company Inc. All Rights reserved. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Fortran

a programming language; more precisely, a family of such languages that evolved from the original version developed in 1957 in the USA under the supervision of J. W. Backus. The name derives from “formula translation,” referring to the translation of programs written in FORTRAN into machine language. FORTRAN contains statements for assignment, conditions, cyclic operation, subroutines, storage allocation, and real and complex variables, which may have logical, integer, real, or complex values; it also includes highly developed statements for input-output. FORTRAN is the most widely used programming language for scientific and engineering calculations. The language’s specifications are fixed in several national and international standards.

REFERENCES

Pervin, Iu. A. Osnovy FORTRANa, Moscow, 1972.
Germain, C. Programmirovanie na IBM/360, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1973. (Translated from English.)
Fortran (programming textbook). Kiev, 1976.
American Standard FORTRAN: Approved March 7, 1966. New York, 1966.