Absoft Corp. (http://www.absoft.com) has announced Fx3 stand-alone
debugger, a more advanced debugging option for Fortran developers on
Mac OS X running on Intel Macs. It provides a full graphical
interface for Fortran developers.
Previously available only as part of Absoft’s Pro Fortran suite, it
can now be purchased as a stand-alone item and is compatible with
Absoft Pro Fortran and Intel Fortran compilers, Apple C and gnu c
compilers, and assembly language. Linux versions are also available.
Prices start at US$99.
Absoft says Fx3 is especially beneficial for the Mac OS X/Intel
community because Fx3 is the only graphical Fortran debugger from a
commercial vendor currently available for the platform. The
alternatives are either command line or designed for C/C++ with no
knowledge of Fortran, says Absoft President Wood Lotz.
The Apple debugger included with Xcode has a graphical interface, but
was designed for C/C++ and has no knowledge of Fortran. For example,
customers using the Fx3 debugger with Fortran compilers from Absoft
or Intel can graphically display and modify the values of program
variables located in COMMON blocks, allocated in static storage, or
declared inside Fortran 90 modules. Fx3’s rollover feature displays
the value of variables. Similar functionality is not available using
the Apple or open source gdb debugger on Fortran code, Lotz says.
Fx3 is compatible with both 32 and 64 bit executables on Mac OS
X/Intel-based systems. Single user and floating licenses are
available. Linux versions of Fx3 are compatible with Absoft Fortran,
Intel Fortran, Pathscale Fortran, Apple C and gnu c.