Developer Guide and Reference

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

Delimiter Specifier (DELIM=)

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

DELIM=c-expr

c-expr

Is a scalar default character expression that evaluates to 'APOSTROPHE', 'QUOTE', or 'NONE'.

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

If DELIM= does not appear, the delimiter mode is unchanged for the statement. If a DELIM= specifier appears, the I/O control list must contain either a format specifier that is an asterisk (list-directed I/O), or a namelist specifier.

In formatted output, the delimiter mode specifies what character to use as a delimiter around character sequences resulting from the output of CHARACTER data.

If the delimiter mode is 'APOSTROPHE', a character data object in list-directed or namelist output is delimited by apostrophes. If the delimiter mode is 'QUOTE', character data in list-directed or namelist output is delimited by quotes. There are no character delimiters output when the delimiter mode is 'NONE'.