READ command in SQR 3 vs. 4

[John Walker <John_A._Walker@FIRSTENERGYCORP.COM>]

In SQR Ver 3.0 the manual states when using the READ command, "after being
transferred, trailing blanks in the variable are omitted".  This is causing
me some heartburn as I need to preserve all the characters in the file that
I am reading in.  Does this same problem occur in SQR Ver 4?  Has anyone
else hit this problem and developed a workaround?  I thought of using the
length function but I don't know how long the string should be in order to
determine if the blanks have been removed.  Thanks in advance for your
help.