Fortran Object Oriented Programming Type constructor
Example
Custom constructors can be made for derived types by using an interface to overload the type name. This way, keyword arguments that don't correspond to components can be used when constructing an object of that type.
module ball_mod
implicit none
! only export the derived type, and not any of the
! constructors themselves
private
public :: ball
type :: ball_t
real :: mass
end type ball_t
! Writing an interface overloading 'ball_t' allows us to
! overload the type constructor
interface ball_t
procedure :: new_ball
end interface ball_t
contains
type(ball_t) function new_ball(heavy)
logical, intent(in) :: heavy
if (heavy) then
new_ball%mass = 100
else
new_ball%mass = 1
end if
end function new_ball
end module ball_mod
program test
use ball_mod
implicit none
type(ball_t) :: football
type(ball_t) :: boulder
! sets football%mass to 4.5
football = ball_t(4.5)
! calls 'ball_mod::new_ball'
boulder = ball_t(heavy=.true.)
end program test
This can be used to make a neater API than using separate initialisation routines:
subroutine make_heavy_ball(ball)
type(ball_t), intent(inout) :: ball
ball%mass = 100
end subroutine make_heavy_ball
...
call make_heavy_ball(boulder)
