(j3.2006) Seeming problem with NAMELIST output of character variables

[Bill Long]

I got an interesting test case that exposed what seems to be an unfortunate consequence in the standard.

9.5.6.8 says that the default for the DELIM= specifier is ?NONE? in an OPEN statement.

10.10.4 says that list-directed output of character values when DELIM is ?NONE? does not include enclosing quotes.

10.11.4.2 says that namelist output editing is the same as for list-directed output. And NOTE 10.39 says that DELIM=?NONE? [which is the default]  will output character values that cannot be read by a namelist read.

So, in the default case (no DELIM specified in OPEN) we have the situation that namelist output of character data cannot be read by a namelist input statement.  Which is an unexpected situation for many users.  

Did we really intend that this be the case?  

At least one compiler (gfortran) ignores this combination of rules and includes the ? ? around character values in namelist output, which is what the user wanted/expected.

Cheers,
Bill



Bill Long                                                                       longb at cray.com
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