The T edit descriptor is a positional tabulation specifier. It takes the form:
Tn
The term n indicates the character position of the external record. The value of n must be greater than or equal to one.
In an input statement, the T edit descriptor positions the
external record to its nth character position. For
example, consider that an input statement reads a record containing
ABCXYZ
, and this record is controlled by the following
format statement:
10 FORMAT (T7,A3,T1,A3)
On execution, the input statement first reads the characters XYZ and then reads the characters ABC.
In an output statement, the T edit descriptor specifies that subsequent data transfer begins at the nth character position of the external record. The first position of a record to be printed is usually reserved for a carriage control character, which is not printed. For example:
PRINT 25 25 FORMAT (T51,'COLUMN 2',T21,'COLUMN 1')
These statements print the following line (assuming normal carriage control processing):
Position 20 Position 50 | | COLUMN 1 COLUMN 2
For more information on carriage control characters, see Section 8.6.