9.143 ICHAR — Character-to-integer conversion function

Description:

ICHAR(C) returns the code for the character in the first character position of C in the system’s native character set. The correspondence between characters and their codes is not necessarily the same across different GNU Fortran implementations.

Standard:

Fortran 95 and later, with KIND argument Fortran 2003 and later

Class:

Elemental function

Syntax:

RESULT = ICHAR(C [, KIND])

Arguments:

C	Shall be a scalar CHARACTER, with INTENT(IN)
KIND	(Optional) An INTEGER initialization expression indicating the kind parameter of the result.

Return value:

The return value is of type INTEGER and of kind KIND. If KIND is absent, the return value is of default integer kind.

Example:

program test_ichar
  integer i
  i = ichar(' ')
end program test_ichar

Specific names:

Name	Argument	Return type	Standard
ICHAR(C)	CHARACTER C	INTEGER(4)	Fortran 77 and later

Note:

No intrinsic exists to convert between a numeric value and a formatted character string representation – for instance, given the CHARACTER value '154', obtaining an INTEGER or REAL value with the value 154, or vice versa. Instead, this functionality is provided by internal-file I/O, as in the following example:

program read_val
  integer value
  character(len=10) string, string2
  string = '154'
  
  ! Convert a string to a numeric value
  read (string,'(I10)') value
  print *, value
  
  ! Convert a value to a formatted string
  write (string2,'(I10)') value
  print *, string2
end program read_val

See also:

ACHAR, CHAR, IACHAR