Question

I have this function in Fortran and i’m trying to recode it in C#

C **************************************************************** 
C    FUNCTION   POLY 
C***************************************************************** 
      FUNCTION POLY(N,A,X) 
      DIMENSION A(N) 
C
      POLY    = 0. 
      L       = N 
      DO 1 K  = 1,N 
      POLY    = POLY*X + A(L) 
1     L       = L-1 
      RETURN 
      END 
C***************************************************************** 

I found out that DIMENSION A(N) creates a vector of N values, but we already have a variable A from the function parameters, does this means that the array values all equal to A? If so then what is the use of A(N).
By the way can anyone just explain what does this function do so i can re-implement it in C#

Answer 1

      FUNCTION POLY(N,A,X)      ! implicitly real (float) function poly(int n,int a,real x)
      DIMENSION A(N)            ! shape A as 1d array of n values in this scope
C                               ! say nothing (blank comment)
      POLY    = 0.              ! initialise return variable to float value 0
      L       = N               ! set L (implicitly integer) to n
      DO 1 K  = 1,N             ! for(int k=1; k<=n; ++k)
      POLY    = POLY*X + A(L)   !    update return variable
1     L       = L-1             !    decrement L
      RETURN                    ! return current value for poly
      END 

so in c-like syntax:

float poly(int n, int a, float x) {
    // redim a(n)
    float result = 0;
    int l = n;
    for(int k=1; k <= n; ++k) {
        result = result*x + a(l);
        --l;
    }
    return result;
}

The bit that doesn’t translate is redimensioning A as an array. In C you would pass a pointer and use it as an array, and in C++/C# you’d probably pass a vector-like structure with its own length property.

In C#, using a list:

float poly(List<float> coeffs, float x) {
    float result = 0;
    for(int i=coeffs.Count-1; i >= 0; --i) {
        result = result*x + coeff[i];
    }
    return result;
}