https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=89077
--- Comment #7 from Harald Anlauf <anlauf at gmx dot de> --- (In reply to Harald Anlauf from comment #6) Playing around and getting completely lost during a gdb session, I became suspicious that the second issue has to do with missed padding that interestingly occurs also with Hollerith constants: program pr89077_3 implicit none integer, parameter :: m = 20 character(*), parameter :: s = 'Forward' character(m), parameter :: t = s character(m), parameter :: u = transfer (s, s) character(m), parameter :: v = 7HFORWARD character(m), parameter :: w = transfer (s, s) // "" print *, t, '#' print *, u, '#' print *, v, '#' print *, w, '#' end program pr89077_3 This prints: % ./a.out | cat -v Forward # Forward^@^@^@Q^@M-P^@p^@^@^@^@a# FORWARD ^@^@Q^@M-P^@M-Pa^H^@M-ha# Forward #