# Calling anyone with knowledge of FORTRAN **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 9, 2003, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888 "2003-12-09T10:29:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/1 "2003-12-09T10:29:02Z")
Right, so I’m editing someone else’s Fortran program to get it to do what I’d like (big mistake, I know, but hey, it beats having to write the thing from scratch!), and I’m having a minor problem with one of the format statements. The statement is: > [@](#): > > format(1x,a,$) Now, I understand what each bit means, but my compiler does not like the “$” bit at all. Anyone got any ideas as to what’s going on? I’m using an f95 compiler on Redhat. ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/2 "2003-12-09T11:35:41Z")
isn’t **Kferr** an old fortraner? ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@MonkeyMule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMule)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/3 "2003-12-09T11:45:56Z")
I know some FORTRAN. But damned if I remember any of it. IT was probley the most useless thing I ever learned in 1998 ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/4 "2003-12-09T12:19:32Z")
Well, I fixed the problem. I deleted the “$” sign. The program still works, and gives me the right results, so, no loss there. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/5 "2003-12-09T12:22:52Z")
I last did fortran in 1982, but found this [link](http://h18009.www1.hp.com/fortran/docs/lrm/lrm0398.htm#format_spec). The $ suppresses trailing carriage return during interactive I/O. Don’t know why its choking on it. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@MonkeyMule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMule)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/6 "2003-12-09T12:35:58Z")
You know what I Always hated about de buging fortran? NO Numbered lines! you have to count oall the line to find problems,. reall pain in the ass ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/7 "2003-12-09T12:38:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MonkeyMule \* > \*\*You know what I Always hated about de buging fortran? > > NO Numbered lines! you have to count oall the line to find problems,. reall pain in the ass \*\* Here, emacs is your friend. It tells you which line you’re on. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/8 "2003-12-09T13:05:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Angua \* > \*\*Here, emacs is your friend. It tells you which line you’re on. 🙂 \*\* Since, by the time I looked up the answer, I found that the problem no longer existed - what’s left is to turn this thread into a vi-emacs war 😛 On second thought, nevermind… ---
**Author:** ![VenusProbe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e495f1/32.png) [@VenusProbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VenusProbe)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/9 "2003-12-09T15:24:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Angua \* > \*\*Here, emacs is your friend. It tells you which line you’re on. 🙂 \*\* I used to use emacs for everything! Mail, newreader, editing, the works, I did a lot of perl and sql at that time. Then they took my trusty old SPARC 10 away and stuck me with this Dell :eek: and Win2k :rolleyes: now I use [TextPad](http://www.textpad.com/) for writing/editing, mostly TCL and [MQL](http://www.matrixone.com/) with a little SQL on the side. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/10 "2003-12-09T15:49:04Z")
Wheee!! Another emacs afficionado!! Now, I’m trying out some numerical integration… ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/11 "2003-12-09T17:37:23Z")
People still use FORTRAN? I thought it had been replaced by C++. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/12 "2003-12-09T21:48:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by VenusProbe \* > \*\*I used to use emacs for everything! Mail, newreader, editing, the works, I did a lot of perl and sql at that time. Then they took my trusty old SPARC 10 away and stuck me with this Dell :eek: and Win2k :rolleyes: now I use [TextPad](http://www.textpad.com/) for writing/editing, mostly TCL and [MQL](http://www.matrixone.com/) with a little SQL on the side. \*\* Arise and walk, my crippled friend! [Xemacs](http://www.xemacs.org/) and [Gnu Emacs](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html) are available for Windows. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/13 "2003-12-09T22:18:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by asterion \* > \*\*People still use FORTRAN? I thought it had been replaced by C++. \*\* Not in the sciences. Fortran is still very common. There are efficient Fortran compilers for number crunching, and there are still lots of professors who only know Fortran themselves, so that’s the codes their students use. I’m not 100% sure, but I’m pretty sure that $ is not standard Fortran. I would guess it’s probably an extension for a particular compiler. I’ve never seen it before, and I’ve seen a lot of Fortran. ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/14 "2003-12-09T22:25:32Z")
I knew before I opened the thread that it was going to be a question about a FORMAT statement. I just knew it. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/15 "2003-12-09T23:53:45Z")
Hehe 🙂 Yeah, FORTRAN is still used extensively in the sciences, and this was a program given to me by our head of group that he’d written a few years ago, to try and hack into some sort of fit state to extract densities from a model spectrum. (Don’t ask). ---
**Author:** ![kasuo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8c91f0/32.png) [@kasuo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kasuo)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-anyone-with-knowledge-of-fortran/217888/16 "2003-12-10T00:55:29Z")
vi must perish in the flames of emacs’ hatred! Ah screw it, I’m using Kate.