The PAD specifier indicates whether a formatted input record is padded with blanks when an input list and format specification requires more data than the record contains.
The PAD specifier takes the following form:
| 'YES' | Indicates the record will be padded with blanks when necessary. |
| 'NO' | Indicates the record will not be padded with blanks. The input record must contain the data required by the input list and format specification. |
The default is 'YES'.
This behavior is different from FORTRAN 77, which never pads short records with blanks. For example, consider the following:
READ (5,'(I5)') J
If you enter 123 followed by a carriage return, FORTRAN 77 turns the I5 into an I3 and J is assigned 123.
However, Compaq Fortran pads the 123 with 2 blanks unless you explicitly open the unit with PAD='NO'.
You can override blank padding by explicitly specifying the BN edit descriptor.
The PAD specifier is ignored during output.