Examples

Example 1: Character strings and arrays of character strings:

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       CHARACTER*17 A, B(3,4), V(9) 
       CHARACTER*(6+3) C 

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The above code is exactly equivalent to the following:

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       CHARACTER A*17, B(3,4)*17, V(9)*17 
       CHARACTER C*(6+3) 

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Both of the above two examples are equivalent to the nonstandard variation: @

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       CHARACTER A*17, B*17(3,4), V*17(9)	 nonstandard

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There are no null (zero-length) character-string variables. A one-byte character string assigned a null constant has the length zero.

Example 2: No null character-string variables:

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       CHARACTER S*1
       S = ''

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During execution of the assignment statement, the variable S is precleared to blank, and then zero characters are moved into S, so S contains one blank; because of the declaration, the intrinsic function LEN(S) will return a length of 1. You cannot declare a size of less than 1, so this is the smallest length string variable you can get.

Example 3: Dummy argument character string with constant length:

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       SUBROUTINE SWAN( A ) 
       CHARACTER A*32 

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Example 4: Dummy argument character string with length the same as corresponding actual argument:

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       SUBROUTINE SWAN( A ) 
       CHARACTER A*(*) 
       ... 

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Example 5: Symbolic constant with parenthesized asterisk:

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       CHARACTER *(*) INODE 
       PARAMETER (INODE = 'Warning: INODE corrupted!')

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The intrinsic function LEN(INODE) returns the actual declared length of a character string. This is mainly for use with CHAR*(*) dummy arguments.

Example 6: The LEN intrinsic function:

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       CHARACTER A*17
       A = "xyz"
       PRINT *, LEN( A )
        END

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The above program displays 17, not 3.