5.8 PAUSE Statement

The PAUSE statement displays a message on the terminal and temporarily suspends program execution, so that you can take some action. It takes the following form:

PAUSE [disp]

disp: Is an optional character constant or a string of up to six digits. (FORTRAN-77 limits digits to five.)

Rules and Behavior

If you do not specify a value for disp, the system displays the following default message:

FORTRAN PAUSE

The system then displays one of the following prompts:

On OpenVMS systems, the system prompt
On Tru64 UNIX systems, the following prompt:
```
PAUSE prompt>
```

If you specify a value for disp, this value is displayed instead of the default message. For example:

PAUSE 'ERRONEOUS RESULT DETECTED'

In this case, the system replaces the default message with the following:

ERRONEOUS RESULT DETECTED

You then see your prompt.

Effect on an Interactive or Foreground Process

If a program is an interactive or foreground process, the program is suspended until you enter a command.

To resume processing, proceed as follows:

On Tru64 UNIX systems, enter CONTINUE and execution will resume at the next executable statement. Any other command terminates execution.

On OpenVMS systems, enter one of the following DCL commands:

CONTINUE: To resume execution at the next executable statement.
DEBUG: To resume execution under control of the OpenVMS Debugger.
EXIT: To terminate execution.
Any command (other than CONTINUE or DEBUG) terminates execution.

Effect on a Batch or Background Process

If a program is a batch or background process, the effect differs as follows:

On OpenVMS systems, the program is not suspended. If you specify a value for disp, this value is written to the system output file.
On Tru64 UNIX systems, the behavior depends on stdin, as follows:
- If stdin is redirected to a file, the system displays the following (after the message and prompt):
```
To continue from background, execute 'kill -15 n'
```
  In this message, n is the process id of the program.
- If stdin is not redirected to a file, the program becomes a suspended background job, and you must specify fg to bring the job into the foreground. You can then enter a command to resume or terminate processing.

For More Information:

For details on stdin, see your user manual.

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