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From: Beebe@SCIENCE (Nelson H.F. Beebe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran77 internal files
Message-ID: <12326727466.15.BEEBE@SCIENCE.UTAH.EDU>
Date: Sat, 15-Aug-87 13:36:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: SCIENCE.12326727466.15.BEEBE
Posted: Sat Aug 15 13:36:19 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Aug-87 11:30:31 EDT
Lines: 30
In-Reply-To: <325@daisy.warwick.ac.uk>

X-Us-Mail: "Center for Scientific Computation, South Physics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112"

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Regarding the following observation from T.Clark@daisy.warwick.ac.uk 
>>       CHARACTER*8 BUFF
>>       BUFF = '1'
>>       READ(BUFF,'(F8.0)') X
>>       WRITE(*,*) X
>>       STOP
>>       END
>> 
>> Unix 4.2 bsd f77 yeilds:-
>>    1.00000
>> 
>> whilst IBM's VS FORTRAN yields:-
>>   10000000.0

Sun OS 3.3 (~4.2BSD) gives 1.0, while DEC VAX VMS and
TOPS-20 give the same value as IBM.  The Standard is silent
on the question of BLANK=ZERO or BLANK=NULL for internal
files.  Historically (pre-Fortran 77), BLANK=ZERO was the
default, and on that basis, Unix is wrong, and DEC and IBM
are right.  However, if the BLANK= specifier is omitted in
an OPEN statement, the default is BLANK=NULL, which would
suggest that Unix is correct, and the others are wrong.
However, no OPEN statement is involved for internal files,
so it appears we have a definite ambiguity in ANSI
X3.9-1978.

A programming solution is simply to change the format to use
a BN or BZ item, depending on the desired interpretation of
blanks.
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