Developer Guide and Reference

ID 767251
Date 10/31/2024
Public
Document Table of Contents

Blank Specifier (BLANK=)

The blank specifier temporarily changes the blank interpretation mode set when the file was opened. BLANK= cannot appear in an I/O control list of a WRITE statement. This specifier takes the following form:

BLANK=c-expr

c-expr

Is a scalar default character expression that evaluates to 'NULL' or 'ZERO'.

Trailing blanks in the expression are ignored. The values specified are without regard to case.

If BLANK= does not appear, the blank interpretation mode is unchanged. If a BLANK= specifier appears, a namelist or a format specifier must also appear in the I/O control list.

The blank interpretation mode determines how non-leading blanks in a numeric input field are to be interpreted. If BLANK='NULL', nonleading blanks are ignored. Ignoring blanks has the effect of removing the blanks and right justifying the non-blank remaining portion of the field, with the blanks removed becoming leading blanks in the field. If BLANK='ZERO', nonleading blanks in a numeric field are treated as zeros as if the blanks were replaced by zero. A field containing only blanks has the value zero.

Blank interpretation mode only affects numeric editing.

If the BN or BZ edit descriptors are specified for a formatted input statement, they supersede the interpretation of blanks set with a BLANK= specifier in the I/O control list.

See Also