The optional truth-valued expression immediately following the command is a command postconditional that controls whether or not GT.M executes the command.

An expression argument supplies the text of a WRITE.

When a WRITE argument consists of a leading asterisk (*) followed by an integer expression, WRITE outputs one ASCII character associated with the ASCII code specified by the integer evaluation of the expression.

WRITE arguments may also be format control characters; format control characters modify the position of a virtual cursor: an exclamation point (!) produces a new line, a number-sign (#) produces a new page and a question-mark (?) followed by an expression moves the virtual cursor to the column specified by the integer evaluation of the expression provided that the virtual cursor is to the "left" of the specified column; if the virtual cursor is not to the left of the specified column, then the text is printed at the current cursor position.

An indirection operator and an expression atom evaluating to a list of one or more WRITE arguments form a legal argument for a WRITE.

In the UTF-8 mode, the WRITE command uses the character set specified on the device OPEN as the character encoding of the output device. If character set specifies "M" or "UTF-8", GT.M WRITEs the data with no transformation. If character set specifies "UTF-16", "UTF-16LE" or "UTF-16BE", the data is assumed to be encoded in UTF-8 and WRITE transforms it to the character encoding specified by character set device parameter.

If a WRITE command encounters an illegal character in UTF-8 mode, it produces a run-time error irrespective of the setting of VIEW "BADCHAR".