How to use a user-defined-type in a Fortran interface - interface

Question

In a Fortran 2003 module I'm defining a type called t_savepoint and, later, I want to define an interface for a subroutine called fs_initializesavepoint, which takes an object of type t_savepoint as only argument.
Here is the code for the whole module:
module m_serialization
implicit none
type :: t_savepoint
integer :: savepoint_index
real :: savepoint_value
end type t_savepoint
interface
subroutine fs_initializesavepoint(savepoint)
type(t_savepoint) :: savepoint
end subroutine fs_initializesavepoint
end interface
end module m_serialization
The reason why I want such an interface is that later on I will make this fortran module interoperate with C.
If I try to compile it (gfortran-4.7.0), I get the following error message:
type(t_savepoint) :: savepoint
1
Error: The type of 'savepoint' at (1) has not been declared within the interface
The error disappears if I move the definition of the type inside the subroutine; but if then I want to use the same type within many subroutines, should I repeat the definition in all of them?
Thank you in advance.
EDIT: a solution would be to move the definition of the type onto another module and then to use it in every subroutine. However I don't like this solution too much, because the type t_savepoint and the subroutines are part of the same conceptual topic.

Answer 1

Rightly or wrongly in an interface block you don't have access to the environment by host association. To fix this you need to import the datatype exlicitly:
[luser#cromer stackoverflow]$ cat type.f90
module m_serialization
implicit none
type :: t_savepoint
integer :: savepoint_index
real :: savepoint_value
end type t_savepoint
interface
subroutine fs_initializesavepoint(savepoint)
Import :: t_savepoint
type(t_savepoint) :: savepoint
end subroutine fs_initializesavepoint
end interface
end module m_serialization
[luser#cromer stackoverflow]$ gfortran -c type.f90
This is f2003.
However I suspect the way you have put this suggests you are not going about coding this up the best way. Better is simply to put the routine itself in the module. Then you don't need bother with the interface at all:
module m_serialization
implicit none
type :: t_savepoint
integer :: savepoint_index
real :: savepoint_value
end type t_savepoint
Contains
Subroutine fs_initializesavepoint(savepoint)
type(t_savepoint) :: savepoint
Write( *, * ) savepoint%savepoint_index, savepoint%savepoint_value
End Subroutine fs_initializesavepoint
end module m_serialization
[luser#cromer stackoverflow]$ gfortran -c type.f90
Given that modules are really designed to deal with connected entities this is really the way to do it in Fortran. It also has the advantage of only requiring a f95 compiler, so is universally available (though admittedly import is commonly implemented)