10.4 Compiler Constants

g77 strictly assigns types to all constants not documented as “typeless” (typeless constants including `'1'Z', for example). Many other Fortran compilers attempt to assign types to typed constants based on their context. This results in hard-to-find bugs, nonportable code, and is not in the spirit (though it strictly follows the letter) of the 77 and 90 standards.

g77 might offer, in a future release, explicit constructs by which a wider variety of typeless constants may be specified, and/or user-requested warnings indicating places where g77 might differ from how other compilers assign types to constants.

See Context-Sensitive Constants, for more information on this issue.