Any question answered...

Found that bit about formatted direct i/o here: http://docs.sun.com/source/819-3685/2_io.html

You have a small kink due the newlines in your file.. You just have to adjust your record size and format to account for it.. This program will read the first nine records:

Thanks, yep I read somewhere that new line counts for two bytes. So it's food to see what it counts for on a formatted situation thanks.

[code] PROGRAM reader

      INTEGER :: a, i
      CHARACTER*1 :: nl

      OPEN(2, FILE='file.dat', ACCESS='DIRECT', RECL=2, FORM='FORMATTED') 

    DO i=1, 9
      READ( 2, '(I1,A)', REC= i ) a, nl
      WRITE(*,*) 'record ', i, ' is ', a
    ENDDO

  END PROGRAM[/code]

Hope you get it sorted - fortran can be really esoteric, especially when dealing with code written in the 80's.. does my head in..

Tell me about it. Trying to do simple things can be a right PITA!