I thought that by having the IOSTAT=error_condition, I would detect whether I'm opening a file that does not exist. Apparently I was wrong. In my code, I have : open( unit=...., ..., IOSTAT=error_condition) if ( error_condition == 0 ) ! read the file ... end if it appears that even though the file does not exist, I get error_condition = 0, and the my reading of the files fails. I have the same behaviour with 3 different compilers ( IBM, SUN and Compaq/TRU64). I searched the F95 standard, but it does not say explicitly (or not explicitly enough for me) whether opening a non-existing file should be an error. Does anybody ahve the final word about that? B. Meltz **************************************** * * * Bertrand Meltz * * CEA / Bruyeres-le Chatel * * BP 12 * * 91680 Bruyeres-le-Chatel * * FRANCE * * * * Tel : (33) [0] 1 69 26 57 83 * * Fax : (33) [0] I 69 26 73 84 * * * * e_mail : [log in to unmask] * * * **************************************** %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%