HP Fortran Programmer's Reference

FORMAT
DescribeshowI/Odataistobeformatted.
Syntax
label FORMAT (format-list)
label is a statement label.
HP Fortran statements
FORMAT
format-list is a comma-separated list of format items, where each item in the list can be
either one of the edit descriptors described in Table 9-1 or (format-list). If
format-list is a list item, it may be optionally preceded by a repeat
specification—a positive integer that specifies how may times format-list
is to be repeated.
Description
The FORMAT statement holds the format specification that indicates how data in formatted I/O
is to be translated between internal (binary) representation and formatted (ASCII)
representation. The translation makes it possible to represent data in a humanly readable
format.
Although a format specification can be embedded within a data transfer statement, the point
to using a FORMAT statement is to make it available to any number of data transfer
statements. Several data transfer statements can use the same format specification contained
in a FORMAT statement by referencing label.
Another advantage of the FORMAT statement over the use of embedded format specifications is
that it is ”pre-compiled”, reducing the runtime overhead of processing the format specification
and providing compile-time error checking of the FMT= specifier.
Examples
PROGRAM format_example
WRITE (15,FMT=20) 1234, 45, -12
20 FORMAT (I6, 2I4)
END PROGRAM format_example
When compiled and executed, this program outputs the following (where b represents the
blank character):
bb1234bb45b-12
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