https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=82233
--- Comment #3 from urbanjost at comcast dot net --- Created attachment 42193 --> https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/attachment.cgi?id=42193&action=edit specifically even if cmdstat option present, must have cmdmsg or get failure, and man(1) page needs changed After looking over the F2008 standard and the recent gfortran changes indicated in the previous comment it looks like part of the changes between 5.0.4 and 6+ actually made EXECUTE_COMMAND_LINE(3f) more standard-conforming; so (although I prefer the 5.0.4 version's behavior) I'd like to change the problem description to two parts: The man page for gfortran should mention that if CMDSTAT is not present and the command cannot be executed that the program should terminate. It currently does not: https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gfortran/EXECUTE_005fCOMMAND_005fLINE.html and that is a significant change from 5.0.4 (and is apparently what it should do to be f2008 standard conforming). Then, as the second attachment shows, supplying CMDSTAT should be sufficient, but even when CMDSTAT is present if CMDMSG is not the program fails. And I think a simple termination equivalent to "STOP 'message'" is probably the expected behavior, where I am getting what looks to be an abort with traceback/segfault. Terminating the program is so unlike the de-factor standard SYSTEM(3f) or the C routine system(3c) the 5.0.4- version behavior was far more intuitive, but the f2008 standard does say command execution failure without the CMDSTAT option being present terminates the program; although it is very arguable as to exactly what that means on different systems (requiring unavailable resources, file permissions, not being present, getting a "system error" when executing, ...???)