9.6.3 BLANK Keyword

The BLANK keyword specifies how empty spaces are treated in a file. It takes the following form:

BLANK = blnk

blnk

Is a character expression with one of the following values:

• 'NULL': Ignore all blanks in a numeric field (unless the field is all blank, in which case, treat blanks as zero).

• 'ZERO': Treat all blanks other than leading blanks as zeros.

The default value is 'NULL'. However, if you specify the compiler option NOF77 (or OPTIONS /NOF77), the file is implicitly opened, or the file is opened for internal I/O, the default is 'ZERO'.