http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=52062
--- Comment #4 from Dominique d'Humieres <dominiq at lps dot ens.fr> 2012-01-31 21:46:05 UTC --- AFAICT this is fixed in 4.6.3 r182981: [macbook] f90/bug% /opt/gcc/gcc4.6p/bin/gfortran -v Using built-in specs. COLLECT_GCC=/opt/gcc/gcc4.6p/bin/gfortran COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/opt/gcc/gcc4.6p/libexec/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin10.8.0/4.6.3/lto-wrapper Target: x86_64-apple-darwin10.8.0 Configured with: ../p6_work/configure --prefix=/opt/gcc/gcc4.6p --enable-languages=c,c++,lto,fortran,objc,obj-c++,java --with-gmp=/opt/mp --with-system-zlib --with-cloog=/opt/mp --enable-cloog-backend=isl --enable-lto Thread model: posix gcc version 4.6.3 20120107 (prerelease) [4_6-branch revision 182981] (GCC) [macbook] f90/bug% /opt/gcc/gcc4.6p/bin/gfortran pr52062.f90 [macbook] f90/bug% a.out "rhubarb" is character kind = 1 len = 7 666.0 is real kind = 4 > IMHO the wisdom of J3 is HUGE but not INF :-) Well, it would be nice if true!-(but I guess we are to live with its shortcoming).