Does -fdefault-real-8 in GFortran affect the kind of real literals?

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1

If I use the -fdefault-real-8 flag, do I still need to add the suffix d after real literals? In addition, will the real() function have the same effect as dble() when converting an integer to double?

!-fdefault-real-8 is used 

real :: x
x = 3.1415926 !not sure if the suffix d0 is needed

real :: y
y = real(5) !not sure if this is the same as dble(5)
3

From gfortran manual:

-fdefault-real-8
Set the default real type to an 8 byte wide type. This option also affects the kind of non-double real constants like 1.0. This option promotes the default width of “DOUBLE PRECISION” and double real constants like “1.d0” to 16 bytes if possible. If “-fdefault-double-8” is given along with “fdefault-real-8”, “DOUBLE PRECISION” and double real constants are not promoted. Unlike -freal-4-real-8, “fdefault-real-8” does not promote variables with explicit kind declarations.

The REAL function seems to output KIND=8 result as well.

Well, this is not quite true. You’d need it to call an external subprogram which expects double precision argument if the actual parameter is not a double. Unless you mean using REAL(x,KIND=KIND(1d0)) instead of DBLE(x)

5

Actually, the manual warnings are placed under -freal-N-real-M options only, not -fdefault-real-N, but I agree that all of them should be used with care. The OP asked about literal constants under the option so I answered.
Still, I remember dealing (some 30 years ago) with a 30,000 line F77 code when I had to check the performance/accuracy loss/gain when converted from REAL to DP while heavily updating the code itself. I can assure**2 you that it was much simpler and less error-prone to use -fdefault-real-8 option than to edit those 30,000 lines changing REAL → DOUBLE PRECISION in declarations and REAL → DBLE in explicit conversions and keeping both versions in sync of the other changes. DBLE was a generic (group) function in those days.