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Showing revision 2There are a couple of popular approaches to the command line language that any given editor can use.
- EmacsFamily uses M-x followed by an interactive function name. Arguments/parameters are specified separately. Essentially, the function is tagged with what argument types are required and the editor prompts as required.
- ViFamily editors use the ':' (aka colon) command to allow an "ex-language" command to be specified. This includes any arguments or parameters.
- IbmEditorFamily editors such as XEDIT are similar to VI in that they execute commands on the command line. A slight difference exists in that
- the command line is always present on screen
- there is a predefined order in which commands are found (a "path" if you will). First macros, then external programs, then finally intrinsics/built-ins. You can use a prefix such as "CMS" to indicate that you specifically want an external CMS command to run. (I believe MACRO will cause a macro to run.)
- a question mark (?) acts as a history recall command and retreives the last command onto the command line for review.
Both the IbmEditorFamily and ViFamily allow you to type operating system command lines and have them interpreted appropriately.
Note: Just because a command has been executed from the command line doesn't mean that it can't be interactive.