I have a line of Fortran code, which includes some text. I’m changing the text, which makes the code line too long for Fortran, so I split it over two lines using ‘a’.
Was:
IF (MYVAR .EQ. 1) THEN WRITE(iott,'(A) (A)') 'ABC=', SOMEVAR Changed to:
IF (MYVAR .EQ. 1) THEN WRITE(iott,'(A) (A)') 'ABC DEF GHI JK a ' // 'L=', SOMEVAR My question is, on the new line (starting with ‘a’), does the white space between the ‘a’ and the first ‘ get appended to the string? Or do I need the ‘ to be the char next to a to prevent additional white space?
As you can tell, I’m not used to Fortran…
If you’re worried about exceeding a 72 column limit, then I assume you’re using Fortran 77. The syntax for Fortran 77 requires that you start with column 7, except for continued lines, which need a continuation character in column 6. I use the following method to tell me how many lines are continued for one statement (the first line is just to show the columns):
This would print:
You don’t have to worry about spaces that aren’t in quotes. All whitespace gets compressed in Fortran, anyway.
It’s worthwhile learning how to use format statements. They can make output a lot easier. It’s somewhat similar to printf statements, if you’re coming from C. You specify a format with different types of parameters, then give variables or literals to fill out that format.
And don’t worry that you’re not working with the hot, new, language of the day. You can learn a lot from Fortran, even Fortran 77, and when used properly, Fortran can even be elegant. I’ve seen Fortran 77 written as if it were an object oriented language, complete with dynamic memory. I like to say, ‘old.ne.bad’.