Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!ccelsn.ARPA!art
From: art@ccelsn.ARPA (Art McClinton (703)883-6356)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re:  FORTRAN singularity
Message-ID: <8802081648.AA03754@ccelsn.sun.com>
Date: 8 Feb 88 16:48:34 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 32


	 "Curley, Robert F." <CURLEY@wharton.upenn.edu>
	I tripped over the following this week (VMS 4.6, FORTRAN 4.71-271)
	$TYPE TEST.FOR
		CHARACTER*8 RED
		RED = ''
		END
	
	$ FORTRAN TEST
	%FORT-E-ZERLENSTR, Zero-length string 
	-----------------------------------------------------------------------
	Colorado TSC said that there are no zero length strings permitted in
	FORTRAN.
	
	-------
	
Yes Bob, the TSC is correct.   Fortran does not allow a null character 
string.  It resulted in our not using the character variable in several
of our projects.  However, even if it did allow a null string, the
statement RED='' would result in RED being set to 8 blanks.  To set
RED to a single character A, one would use the statement RED(1:1)='A'.
*
*---Art
*
*Arthur T. McClinton Jr.     ARPA: art@mitre.arpa
*Mitre Corporation           Phone: 703-883-6356
*7525 Colshire Drive         Internal Mitre: ART@MWVMS or M10319@MWVM
*McLean, Va. 22102-3481      DCS: MCCLINTON
*
* I apologize for the presently non-replyable return addresses.  Hope to
* fix that soon.