2.1.4 Passing File Names to Programs

The file system does not have any automatic facility to associate a logical unit number in a Fortran program with a physical file.

However, there are several satisfactory ways to communicate file names to a Fortran program.

2.1.4.1 Via Runtime Arguments and GETARG

The library routine getarg(3F) can be used to read the command-line arguments at runtime into a character variable. The argument is interpreted as a file name and used in the OPEN statement FILE= specifier:

demo% cat testarg.f
         CHARACTER outfile*40
C  Get first arg as output file name for unit 51
         CALL getarg(1,outfile)
         OPEN(51,FILE=outfile)
         WRITE(51,*) ’Writing to file: ’, outfile
         END
demo% f95 -o tstarg testarg.f
demo% tstarg AnyFileName
demo% cat AnyFileName
 Writing to file: AnyFileName
demo%

2.1.4.2 Via Environment Variables and GETENV

Similarly, the library routine getenv(3F) can be used to read the value of any environment variable at runtime into a character variable that in turn is interpreted as a file name:

demo% cat testenv.f
         CHARACTER outfile*40
C  Get $OUTFILE as output file name for unit 51
         CALL getenv(’OUTFILE’,outfile)
         OPEN(51,FILE=outfile)
         WRITE(51,*) ’Writing to file: ’, outfile
         END
demo% f95 -o tstenv testenv.f
demo% setenv OUTFILE EnvFileName
demo% tstenv
demo% cat EnvFileName
 Writing to file: EnvFileName
demo%

When using getarg or getenv, care should be taken regarding leading or trailing blanks. (Fortran 95 programs can use the intrinsic function TRIM, or the older FORTRAN 77 library routine LNBLNK()) Additional flexibility to accept relative path names can be programmed along the lines of the FULLNAME function in the example at the beginning of this chapter.

2.1.4.3 Command-Line I/O Redirection and Piping

Another way to associate a physical file with a program’s logical unit number is by redirecting or piping the preconnected standard I/O files. Redirection or piping occurs on the runtime execution command.

In this way, a program that reads standard input (unit 5) and writes to standard output (unit 6) or standard error (unit 0) can, by redirection (using <, >, >>, >&, |, |&, 2>, 2>&1 on the command line), read or write to any other named file.

This is shown in the following table:

See the csh, ksh, and sh man pages for details on redirection and piping on the command line.