Quadratic Equation Solver - Revisited (Again)

Problem Statement

Given a quadratic equation as follows:

if b*b-4*a*c is non-negative, the roots of the equation can be solved with the following formulae:

Write a program to read in the coefficients a, b and c, and uses an internal subroutine to solve the equation. Note that a quadratic equation has repeated root if b*b-4.0*a*c is equal to zero.

Solution

! --------------------------------------------------------------------
! PROGRAM  QuadraticEquation:
!    This program calls subroutine Solver() to solve quadratic
! equations.
! --------------------------------------------------------------------

PROGRAM  QuadraticEquation
   IMPLICIT  NONE

   INTEGER, PARAMETER :: NO_ROOT       = 0   ! possible return types
   INTEGER, PARAMETER :: REPEATED_ROOT = 1
   INTEGER, PARAMETER :: DISTINCT_ROOT = 2

   INTEGER            :: SolutionType        ! return type variable
   REAL               :: a, b, c             ! coefficients
   REAL               :: r1, r2              ! roots

   READ(*,*)  a, b, c                        ! read in coefficients
   CALL  Solver(a, b, c, r1, r2, SolutionType)    ! solve it
   SELECT CASE (SolutionType)                ! select a type
      CASE (NO_ROOT)                         !   no root
         WRITE(*,*)  "The equation has no real root"
      CASE (REPEATED_ROOT)                   !   repeated root
         WRITE(*,*)  "The equation has a repeated root ", r1
      CASE (DISTINCT_ROOT)                   !   distinct roots
         WRITE(*,*)  "The equation has two roots ", r1, " and ", r2
   END SELECT

CONTAINS

! --------------------------------------------------------------------
! SUBROUTINE  Solver():
!    This subroutine takes the coefficients of a quadratic equation
! and solve it.  It returns three values as follows:
!    (1) Type   - if the equation has no root, a repeated root, or
!                 distinct roots, this formal arguments returns NO_ROOT,
!                 REPEATED_ROOT and DISTINCT_ROOT, respectively.
!                 Note that these are PARAMETERS declared in the main
!                 program.
!    (2) Root1 and Root2 -  if there is no real root, these two formal
!                 arguments return 0.0.  If there is a repeated
!                 root, Root1 returns the root and Root2 is zero.
!                 Otherwise, both Root1 and Root2 return the roots.
! --------------------------------------------------------------------

   SUBROUTINE  Solver(a, b, c, Root1, Root2, Type)
      IMPLICIT  NONE

      REAL, INTENT(IN)     :: a, b, c
      REAL, INTENT(OUT)    :: Root1, Root2
      INTEGER, INTENT(OUT) :: Type

      REAL                 :: d         ! the discriminant

      Root1 = 0.0                       ! set the roots to zero
      Root2 = 0.0
      d     = b*b - 4.0*a*c             ! compute the discriminant
      IF (d < 0.0) THEN                 ! if the discriminant < 0
         Type  = NO_ROOT                !    no root
      ELSE IF (d == 0.0) THEN           ! if the discriminant is 0
         Type  = REPEATED_ROOT          !    a repeated root
         Root1 = -b/(2.0*a)
      ELSE                              ! otherwise,
         Type  = DISTINCT_ROOT          !    two distinct roots
         d     = SQRT(d)
         Root1 = (-b + d)/(2.0*a)
         Root2 = (-b - d)/(2.0*a)
      END IF
   END SUBROUTINE  Solver

END PROGRAM  QuadraticEquation

Click here to download this program. 

Program Input and Output

• If the input to the program consists of 3.0, 6.0 and 2.0, we have the following output.

  3.0  6.0  2.0
  
  The equation has two roots -0.422649741 and -1.57735026
  

• If the input to the program consists of 1.0, -2.0 and 1.0, we have the following output.

  1.0  -2.0  1.0
  
  The equation has a repeated root 1.
  

• If the input to the program consists of 1.0, 1.0 and 1.0, we have the following output.

  1.0  1.0  1.0
  
  The equation has no real root
  

Discussion

• The main program reads in the coefficients of a quadratic equation and calls subroutine Solver() to find the roots. Because there are three possible cases (i.e., no root, a repeated root and two distinct roots), the main program defines three PARAMETERs for these cases: NO_ROOT for no real root, REPEATED_ROOT for repeated root, and DISTINCT_ROOT for distinct roots. Since they are declared in the main program, they are global and can be "seen" by all internal functions and subroutines.
• The main program passes the coefficients to Solver() and expects the subroutine to return the roots through r1 and r2 and the type of the roots with SolutionType. After receiving the type, the main program usesSELECT CASE to display the results.
• Subroutine Solver() receives the coefficients from a, b and c. If the equation has no root (resp., repeated root or distinct roots), NO_ROOT (resp., REPEATED_ROOT or DISTINCT_ROOT) is stored into formal argument Type.
• Note that formal arguments Root1 and Root2 are initialized with zero. Therefore, in case they do not receive values in subsequent computations, they still return values. In the subroutine, if the equation has no root, both Root1 and Root2 return zero; if the equation has a repeat root, Root1 contains the root and Root2 is zero; and if the equation has distinct roots, the roots are stored in Root1 and Root2.