https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=72698
--- Comment #1 from Gerhard Steinmetz <gerhard.steinmetz.fort...@t-online.de> --- This variant seems to work : $ cat z3.f90 program p character(:), allocatable :: z allocate (z, source=repeat('', 4)) print *, len(z), ' >>' // z // '<<' end $ gfortran-7-20160724 z3.f90 $ a.out 0 >><<