Hi,

I've quite a few subroutines for my CFD code. In most subroutines, I need them to accept input variables such as arrays. One e.g. is

subroutine area(xy,ab,cd,ans)

real(8), intent(in) :: xy(size_x,size_y),ab(size_x,size_y),cd(size_x,size _y)

real(8), intent(out) :: ans(size_x,size_y)

ans=ab*cd+xy

end subroutine area

Another way to do this is:

subroutine area

ans=ab*cd+xy

end subroutine area

where ans,ab,cd,xy are global variables.

If I do it by the 2nd method, will I save speed and memory? I've quite a few of the 1st type of subroutines and I wonder if I am wasting memory and slowing the code down. Of cos, for the 1st type, I could input different variables such as xy2,xy3 and it makes my code more compact.

Thank you.

It doesn't take up any extra memory since the arrays are not been reallocated/duplicated. Basically the first method simply passes the memory address of where the arrays are stored and then performs the calculation on that area of memory (just as if the arrays were global).

Oic... thanks a lot for the clarification, Tom!