8 I/O Formatting

Formatting I/O statements specify the form of data being transferred. They also specify the data conversion (editing) required to achieve that form. The primary formatting statement is the FORMAT statement: a nonexecutable statement used in conjunction with formatted I/O statements and ASSIGN statements.

This chapter contains information on the following:

• FORMAT statement syntax (Section 8.1)

• General rules for writing FORMAT statements (Section 8.2)

• Data edit descriptors (Section 8.3)

• Control edit descriptors (Section 8.4)

• Additional descriptors: colon, dollar sign, and Q (Section 8.5)

• Carriage control options for output records (Section 8.6)

• Format specification separators (Section 8.7)

• External field separators (Section 8.8)

• Run-time formats (Section 8.9)

• Format control interactions with I/O lists (Section 8.10)

For More information:

• On the ASSIGN statement, see Section 3.5.

• On format specifiers in control lists, see Section 7.1.1.4.

• On formatted READ statements, see Section 7.2.

• On formatted WRITE statements, see Section 7.3.

• On formatted REWRITE statements, see Section 7.4.