How to get rid of unwanted spacing in Fortran's print output?

Question

It may look like a trivial issue, but I couldn't find any answer through googling. I have this little program :

Program Test_spacing_print
  Integer:: N
  Real:: A,B

  N=4; A=1.0; B=100.0

  print*,'N =',N

  print*,'A =',A,' B =',B
  print '(2(A3,F8.2,1X))' ,'A =',A,' B =',B
  print 20, A,B
  20 format('A =',F8.2,x,'B =',F8.2)

End Program Test_spacing_print

which gives me the output:

     N =           4
 A =   1.00000000      B =   100.000000
A =    1.00  B   100.00
A =    1.00 B =  100.00

I want to get rid of the unwanted space that I get after = sign, i.e. my desired output should look like (1 space after =):

 N = 4
 A = 1.00000000 B = 100.000000
 A = 1.00 B = 100.00
 A = 1.00 B = 100.00

Is it possible in fortran ?

Answer 1

You say that you have "unwanted" space in the output, but you have exactly the space that you asked for with your specified explicit formats. When you didn't provide a format, list-directed output means that you have no say on the spacing.

To output A you have the edit descriptor F8.2: the field width will be 8. With two digits after the decimal point and the decimal point itself that leaves you with five digits for the digits (and sign) before the decimal point. So, for A value 1. without the optional sign printed you will have four blanks.

Much as Fortran 95 introduced the I0 edit descriptor so it allows F0.d. [And for other descriptors, although G0.d was added even later.] F0.2 will provide the minimal field width with those two digits after the decimal point, which is what you want. Note, though, that you will need to explicitly add a blank after the = sign:

print '("N = ", I0)', N
print '(2(A4,F0.2,:,1X))' ,'A = ',A,'B = ',B

[I've also used the : edit descriptor to avoid trailing blanks.]

If you want a truly Fortran 90 answer, as you've tagged, then it won't be as nice but it still can be done.