https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=70913
--- Comment #3 from Gerhard Steinmetz <gerhard.steinmetz.fort...@t-online.de> --- Another situation : $ cat z4.f90 program p character(3) :: a(2) = ['abc', 'xyz'] character(3) :: b(1,2) = ' ' equivalence (b, a) end $ gfortran-6 z4.f90 internal compiler error: in gfc_encode_character, at fortran/target-memory.c:227 --- Interestingly, this works without initializer of b : $ cat z5.f90 program p character(3) :: a(2) = ['abc', 'xyz'] character(3) :: b(1,2) equivalence (b, a) print *, b end $ gfortran-6 z5.f90 $ a.out abcxyz Even more, with option -finit-character/-finit-local-zero : $ gfortran-6 -g -O0 -Wall -fcheck=all -finit-character=7 z5.f90 $ a.out abcxyz