Intel® Fortran Compiler 18.0 Developer Guide and Reference

NULL

Transformational Intrinsic Function (Generic): Initializes a pointer as disassociated when it is declared.

result = NULL ([ mold])

mold

(Optional) Must be a pointer; it can be of any type. Its pointer association status can be associated, disassociated, or undefined. If its status is associated, the target does not have to be defined with a value.

Results

The result type and kind are the same as mold, if present; otherwise, it is determined as follows:

If NULL ( ) Appears...

Type is Determined From...

On the right side of pointer assignment

The pointer on the left side

As initialization for an object in a declaration

The object

As default initialization for a component

The component

In a structure constructor

The corresponding component

As an actual argument

The corresponding dummy argument

In a DATA statement

The corresponding pointer object

The result is a pointer with disassociated association status.

CAUTION

If you use module IFWIN or IFWINTY, you will have a name conflict if you use the NULL intrinsic. To avoid this problem, rename the integer parameter constant NULL to something else; for example:

   USE IFWIN, NULL0 => NULL 

This example lets you use both NULL0 and NULL( ) in the same program unit with no conflict.

Example

Consider the following:

  INTEGER, POINTER :: POINT1 => NULL( )

This statement defines the initial association status of POINT1 to be disassociated.