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From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Using END= and ERR= in READs
Message-ID: <9969@lanl.gov>
Date: 2 Mar 89 22:15:42 GMT
References: <448@orange19.qtp.ufl.edu>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 25

From article <448@orange19.qtp.ufl.edu>, by bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu (David E. Bernholdt):
> 
> Actually, VMS FORTRAN has nothing to do with it.  Can you show me a
> FORTRAN compiler that does NOT produce and ERROR message on an
> end-of-file if it is not trapped?  I haven't yet seen one.
>

From ANSI X3.9-1978 FORTRAN 77, Page 12-9, lines 22-25:
      ...
      if an end-of-file condition occurs during execution of a
      READ statement that contains neither an input/output status
      specifier nor an end-of-file specifier (12.7.2), execution
      of the executable program is terminated.

This does not say anything about an error message.  In fact, a Fortran
environment which produces an error message in this case can be considered
non-standard.  Many programs may rely on this behaviour to correctly
terminate when their input file is exhausted.

In point of fact, most systems _do_ issue a message on this condition.
It would be incorrect for the message to imply that the condition was an
error.

J. Giles
Los Alamos