where fl is an identifier of type FILE that points to a file that was opened using an OPEN statement, in INPUT mode. The variables are identifiers of type integer, float, or string.
Each READ statement reads a line from the file. The numeric elements in the input line are separated by blank or tabs. Reading to a string variable reads the rest of the line.
read(fd, i, str)
where i is an integer and str is a string. This statement, when applied to an input line: 12 May 1991, results in: i=12, str=‘May 1991’.
The READ statement may operate as a function that returns either stm_success, stm_cannot_read_file, or stm_end_of_file.