FORTRAN 77中的*是什么

Question

I'm using Radau.f Fortran ode-solver and my gfortran complains about the use of *

For example in:

            FF(I)=TI711*Z1I+TI712*Z2I+TI713*Z3I+TI714*Z4I+TI715*Z5I
     *               +TI716*Z6I+TI717*Z7I

what is * standing for? Is it an & such that the line should be:

            FF(I)=TI711*Z1I+TI712*Z2I+TI713*Z3I+TI714*Z4I+TI715*Z5I+&
     &               +TI716*Z6I+TI717*Z7I

Or is it supposed to be a comment or something else?

Answer 1

An asterisk in column 6 is a line continuation symbol and equivalent to & in fixed form . See here for details. In fact, "any character (except a zero or blank)" is valid to indicate a line continuation.

An ampersand at the last position (and optionally in the beginning of the next line) does the same for free form Fortran. For fixed form, the second ampersand is mandatory.

An asterisk in the first column, on the other hand, denotes a comment line (as do c and ! ).