title: Read textfile with characters in legacy Fortran
body: <p>In a project wrapping legacy Fortran code in R a text-file is read by the subroutine "rfort". A working simplified version of the subroutine looks like follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>  SUBROUTINE rfort()
    implicit none
  
    INTEGER I,IX,IY
    DIMENSION IX(10),IY(10)
    CHARACTER*6 NAME(10)
  
    OPEN(UNIT=8,FILE='TEST.DAT',STATUS='OLD')
    OPEN(UNIT=9,FILE='RESULT.DAT',STATUS='UNKNOWN')
  
    DO I=1,10
    READ(8,1020)IX(I),IY(I),NAME(I)
  1020      FORMAT(8X,2I8,A6)
    WRITE(9,1030)IX(I),IY(I),NAME(I)      
  1030      FORMAT(8X,2I8,A6)
    ENDDO
    CLOSE (8)
    CLOSE (9)
    END
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The text-file ("TEST.DAT") consists of four variables: a row identifier (ignored), two integer variables ("IX", "IY") and one character variable ("NAME").</p>
  
  <pre><code>       1     395    1232 1084
         2     415    1242 1024
         3     433    1253 125
         4     409    1204 1256
         5     427    1217 105
         6     446    1226 1253
         7     489    1239 1254
         8     560    1255 1260a
         9     720    1270 1067
        10     726    1293 1078d
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>While the subroutine compiles fine (on MacOS 10.11.6, R 3.5.0) with</p>
  
  <pre><code>R CMD SHLIB rfort.f
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and can also invoked in R with</p>
  
  <pre><code>dyn.load("rfort.so")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and runs without error with</p>
  
  <pre><code>.Fortran("rfort")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>it strangely reads in only the integer columns as is tested by "RESULT.DAT". The character column is ignored, whatever I tried. The very same code works as expected as a stand-alone Fortran-programme (compiled with gfortran 6.1.0), so I suspect it has something to do with the formatting. However, I am at my wits' end, so any help is appreciated!</p>