Permits dummy arguments to be omitted in a procedure reference. The OPTIONAL attribute can be specified in a type declaration statement or an OPTIONAL statement, and takes one of the following forms: Type Declaration Statement: type, [att-ls,] OPTIONAL [,att-ls] :: d-arg [,d-arg]... Statement: OPTIONAL [::] d-arg [,d-arg]... type Is a data type specifier. att-ls Is an optional list of attribute specifiers. d-arg Is the name of a dummy argument. The OPTIONAL attribute can only appear in the scoping unit of a subprogram or an interface body, and can only be specified for dummy arguments. A dummy argument is "present" if it associated with an actual argument. A dummy argument that is not optional must be present. You can use the PRESENT intrinsic function to determine whether an optional dummy argument is associated with an actual argument. To call a procedure that has an optional argument, you must use an explicit interface. The OPTIONAL attribute is compatible with the DIMENSION, EXTERNAL, INTENT, POINTER, TARGET, and VOLATILE attributes. EXAMPLES: The following example shows a type declaration statement specifying the OPTIONAL attribute: SUBROUTINE TEST(A) REAL, OPTIONAL, DIMENSION(-10:2) :: A END SUBROUTINE The following is an example of the OPTIONAL statement: SUBROUTINE TEST(A, B, L, X) OPTIONAL :: B INTEGER A, B, L, X IF (PRESENT(B)) THEN ! Printing of B is conditional PRINT *, A, B, L, X ! on its presence ELSE PRINT *, A, L, X ENDIF END SUBROUTINE INTERFACE SUBROUTINE TEST(ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR) INTEGER ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR OPTIONAL :: TWO END SUBROUTINE END INTERFACE INTEGER I, J, K, L I = 1 J = 2 K = 3 L = 4 CALL TEST(I, J, K, L) ! Prints: 1 2 3 4 CALL TEST(I, THREE=K, FOUR=L) ! Prints: 1 3 4 END Note that in the second call to subroutine TEST, the second positional (optional) argument is omitted. In this case, all following arguments must be keyword arguments.