我不时地读到Fortran在繁重的计算中比C更快。这是真的吗?我必须承认我几乎不懂Fortran,但是到目前为止我看到的Fortran代码并没有显示出该语言具有C语言所不具备的特性。
如果是真的,请告诉我原因。请不要告诉我什么语言或库适合处理数字,我不打算写一个应用程序或库来做这个,我只是好奇。
我不时地读到Fortran在繁重的计算中比C更快。这是真的吗?我必须承认我几乎不懂Fortran,但是到目前为止我看到的Fortran代码并没有显示出该语言具有C语言所不具备的特性。
如果是真的,请告诉我原因。请不要告诉我什么语言或库适合处理数字,我不打算写一个应用程序或库来做这个,我只是好奇。
当前回答
Fortran速度更快有几个原因。然而,它们的重要性是如此无关紧要,或者可以通过任何方式解决,所以它不应该是重要的。现在使用Fortran的主要原因是维护或扩展遗留应用程序。
PURE and ELEMENTAL keywords on functions. These are functions that have no side effects. This allows optimizations in certain cases where the compiler knows the same function will be called with the same values. Note: GCC implements "pure" as an extension to the language. Other compilers may as well. Inter-module analysis can also perform this optimization but it is difficult. standard set of functions that deal with arrays, not individual elements. Stuff like sin(), log(), sqrt() take arrays instead of scalars. This makes it easier to optimize the routine. Auto-vectorization gives the same benefits in most cases if these functions are inline or builtins Builtin complex type. In theory this could allow the compiler to reorder or eliminate certain instructions in certain cases, but likely you'd see the same benefit with the struct { double re; double im; }; idiom used in C. It makes for faster development though as operators work on complex types in Fortran.
其他回答
使用现代标准和编译器,不!
Some of the folks here have suggested that FORTRAN is faster because the compiler doesn't need to worry about aliasing (and hence can make more assumptions during optimisation). However, this has been dealt with in C since the C99 (I think) standard with the inclusion of the restrict keyword. Which basically tells the compiler, that within a give scope, the pointer is not aliased. Furthermore C enables proper pointer arithmetic, where things like aliasing can be very useful in terms of performance and resource allocation. Although I think more recent version of FORTRAN enable the use of "proper" pointers.
对于现代实现,C通用优于FORTRAN(尽管它也非常快)。
http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/fortran.html
编辑:
一个公平的批评似乎是,基准测试可能是有偏见的。这里是另一个来源(相对于C),将结果放在更多的上下文中:
http://julialang.org/benchmarks/
你可以看到C在大多数情况下优于Fortran(再次看到下面的批评也适用于这里);正如其他人所指出的,基准测试是一门不精确的科学,很容易偏袒一种语言而不是其他语言。但它确实说明了Fortran和C语言有相似的性能。
Fortran有更好的I/O例程,例如隐含的do工具提供了C标准库无法比拟的灵活性。
Fortran编译器直接处理更复杂的 涉及到语法,而且这样的语法不能轻易简化 参数传递形式,C不能有效地实现它。
Fortran和C之间的速度差异更多的是编译器优化和特定编译器使用的底层数学库的函数。Fortran没有什么固有的特性可以使它比C更快。
不管怎样,一个优秀的程序员可以用任何语言编写Fortran。
Fortran速度更快有几个原因。然而,它们的重要性是如此无关紧要,或者可以通过任何方式解决,所以它不应该是重要的。现在使用Fortran的主要原因是维护或扩展遗留应用程序。
PURE and ELEMENTAL keywords on functions. These are functions that have no side effects. This allows optimizations in certain cases where the compiler knows the same function will be called with the same values. Note: GCC implements "pure" as an extension to the language. Other compilers may as well. Inter-module analysis can also perform this optimization but it is difficult. standard set of functions that deal with arrays, not individual elements. Stuff like sin(), log(), sqrt() take arrays instead of scalars. This makes it easier to optimize the routine. Auto-vectorization gives the same benefits in most cases if these functions are inline or builtins Builtin complex type. In theory this could allow the compiler to reorder or eliminate certain instructions in certain cases, but likely you'd see the same benefit with the struct { double re; double im; }; idiom used in C. It makes for faster development though as operators work on complex types in Fortran.
This is more than somewhat subjective, because it gets into the quality of compilers and such more than anything else. However, to more directly answer your question, speaking from a language/compiler standpoint there is nothing about Fortran over C that is going to make it inherently faster or better than C. If you are doing heavy math operations, it will come down to the quality of the compiler, the skill of the programmer in each language and the intrinsic math support libraries that support those operations to ultimately determine which is going to be faster for a given implementation.
编辑:@Nils等人提出了一个很好的观点,即C语言中指针使用的差异,以及可能存在的别名,这可能会使C语言中最简单的实现变慢。然而,在C99中有一些方法可以解决这个问题,比如通过编译器优化标志和/或C语言的实际编写方式。这在@Nils的回答和随后的评论中有很好的介绍。