Describes how I/O data is to be formatted.
Syntax
label FORMAT (format-list) |
- label
is a statement label.
- 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 “Edit descriptors” 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):
Related statements
READ and WRITE
Related concepts
For information about I/O formatting, see Chapter 9 “I/O
formatting”.
Printable version
