I see this notation all over the place in documentation that refers to intrinsic procedures:
tostring(3f)
reshape(3f)
huge(3f)
But I can’t find any explanation of what (3f) means.
I’m guessing you are referring to the Fortran-Lang intrinsics page: Fortran Intrinsics — Fortran Programming Language
If I’m not mistaken it is a convention for looking up man pages (scroll to the section “Command Usage” for a full explanation).
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It is meaningless unless you have compiled unix-style man pages for Fortran. For me, it is noise and I’d rather it not be part of the fortran-lang documentation pages and tutorials.
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I agree totally.
I surmise the “man page” codes go with @urbanjost who is simply unable to discern when to insert and when to not include them!
Circa 2017-20 prior to Fortran Discourse, in comp.lang.fortran discussions - all text-based forum, mind you - the codes with (3f) being a favorite - would show up in posts by @urbanjost, making readers wonder as to their relevance!
That feels a bit uncharitable. If memory serves, they have homegrown tools that do make use of the man page convention. The appearance of (3f) and such in fortran-lang materials is just a byproduct of @urbanjost being a prolific contributor. It doesn’t seem too onerous to strip them out and open a PR.
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