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(g77-295.info)Tabs

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Tabs
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   A source line with a <TAB> character anywhere in it is treated as
entirely significant--however long it is--instead of ending in column
72 (for fixed-form source) or 132 (for free-form source).  This also is
different from `f2c', which encodes tabs as `\t' (the ASCII <TAB>
character) inside character and Hollerith constants, but nevertheless
seems to treat the column position as if it had been affected by the
canonical tab positioning.

   `g77' effectively translates tabs to the appropriate number of
spaces (a la the default for the UNIX `expand' command) before doing
any other processing, other than (currently) noting whether a tab was
found on a line and using this information to decide how to interpret
the length of the line and continued constants.

   Note that this default behavior probably will change for version 0.6,
when it will presumably be available via a command-line option.  The
default as of version 0.6 is planned to be a "pure visual" model, where
tabs are immediately converted to spaces and otherwise have no effect,
so the way a typical user sees source lines produces a consistent
result no matter how the spacing in those source lines is actually
implemented via tabs, spaces, and trailing tabs/spaces before newline.
Command-line options are likely to be added to specify whether all or
just-tabbed lines are to be extended to 132 or full input-line length,
and perhaps even an option will be added to specify the truncated-line
behavior to which some Digital compilers default (and which affects the
way continued character/Hollerith constants are interpreted).