Fortran Format Statements

Certain parts of the Vulcan system rely on the use of a subset of the Fortran style format statements to define the format in which data is expected. The most commonly used field descriptors (fields) that are supported are listed below. Refer to your Fortran Manual for details on other field descriptors.

I (Integer)
F (Floating Point number)
A (ASCII text)
T (Tab to a specified column)
X (Skip the specified number of characters)

The format of each field descriptor is as follows:

Field descriptor	Format
Integer	<count>I<width> where <count> = an optional repeat count; < width > = the number of digits to read. This should not be zero.
Floating Point	<count>F<width>.<digits> where <count> = an optional repeat count; <width> = the total number of digits to read (including the decimal point). The width should not be zero; <digits> = the number of digits in the decimal part of the number. At least this number of digits will be read and placed to the right of the decimal point.
ASCII	<count>A<width> where <count> = an optional repeat count; <width> = the total number of characters to read.
Tab	T<position> where <position> = absolute position of the next character to be read from the data.
Skip	<count>X where <count> = an integer constant denoting the number of characters to skip.

The complete list of field descriptors is surrounded by brackets with individual elements separated by commas.

Examples

(I3,3X,F12.3,2X,F11.3,X,F11.3)

(A8,T35,A5,T9,2F12.3,T41,F8.3)