# H Editing

The H edit descriptor transfers data between the external record and the H edit descriptor itself. The H edit descriptor is a deleted feature in the Fortran Standard. Intel® Fortran fully supports features deleted in the Fortran Standard.

An H edit descriptor has the form of a Hollerith constant, as follows:

nHstring

n | Is an unsigned, positive default integer literal constant (with no kind parameter) indicating the number of characters in string (including blanks and tabs). The range of n is 1 through 2147483647 (2**31-1) on Intel® 64 architecture; 1 through 32767 (2**15-1) on IA-32 architecture. Actual useful ranges may be constrained by record sizes (RECL) and the file system.
string | Is a string of printable ASCII characters.

On input, the H edit descriptor transfers n characters from the external field to the edit descriptor. The first character appears immediately after the letter H. Any characters in the edit descriptor before input are replaced by the input characters. If the edit descriptor appears in a FORMAT statement, the replaced characters are preserved for future uses of that FORMAT statement; otherwise, the replacement is discarded.

On output, the H edit descriptor causes n characters following the letter H to be output to an external record.

## Examples

     !     These WRITE statements both print "Don't misspell 'Hollerith'"
     !     (The leading blanks are carriage-control characters).
     !     Hollerith formatting does not require you to embed additional
     !     single quotation marks as shown in the second example.
     !
           WRITE (*, 960)
     960   FORMAT (27H Don't misspell 'Hollerith')
           WRITE (*, 961)
     961   FORMAT (' Don''t misspell ''Hollerith''')

Parent topic: Character String Edit Descriptors

## See Also

Deleted and Obsolescent Language Features
Format Specifications