| Re: NEW_LINE function only returns one character |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
Group: comp.lang.fortran · Group Profile
Author: Clive PageClive Page Date: Aug 14, 2008 01:57
Thanks for that summary, Richard.
>question is instead used internally in Fortran. The run-time library
>takes care of translation between this character and the OS record
>structure as needed. This is very much like C and its derivatives,
>intentionally so.
I hadn't appreciated that C also behaved that way. One of the (few)
attractions of C, it seems to me, is the impression that one is getting
at the bits in memory (or on disc) without any barriers or possibly
misleading translation stages in the way. Of course the operating
system is always in the way, but it doesn't always interfere. That's
one reason why I welcomed the addition of stream I/O in Fortran - in the
unformatted form at least, it gives the programmer access to the bits in
any file. Maybe that's an illusion, but so far I've been taken in, and
most files that I've wanted to read with it have worked as I expected.
>I almost think that the new_line intrinsic has negative value in that it
>doesn't do anything really useful in practice, but misleads people into
>thinking that it does. I seem to recall that I voted against adding the
>intrinsic, but obviously was on the loosing side. Ah well, I have
>certainly lost on far more significant votes than that one.
I think you are right - and I'm sorry that you lost the vote. But, as
you say, it's a pretty minor issue.
--
Clive Page
| 
