Character conversion (The GNU Fortran Compiler)

#### 5.1.15 Character conversion ¶

Allowing character literals to be used in a similar way to Hollerith constants is a nonstandard extension. This feature is enabled using -fdec-char-conversions and only applies to character literals of `kind=1`.

Character literals can be used in `DATA` statements and assignments with numeric (`INTEGER`, `REAL`, or `COMPLEX`) or `LOGICAL` variables. Like Hollerith constants they are copied bytewise fashion. The constant is padded with spaces or truncated to fit the size of the variable in which it is stored.

Examples:

          integer*4 x
          data x / 'abcd' /

          x = 'A'       ! Is padded.
          x = 'ab1234'  ! Is truncated.