3.1.1 VMS, UNIX, & MS-DOS

Each program is executed at the command line (or may be executed from within your applications using the methods provided by the operating system being used). The following rules apply to the command line syntax:  

1. Parameters are required unless noted otherwise. Parameters are shown in angle brackets (SPM_quot<>"'s) in the sections which describe each toolkit program.
2. Qualifiers are optional unless noted otherwise.
3. Qualifiers can be truncated as long as no ambiguities result.
4. Optional parts of a command are shown in brackets (SPM_quot[]"'s) in the sections which describe each toolkit program.
5. A vertical line (SPM_quot|") is used to separate two or more options in those cases when only one of the options may be specified.
6. Wildcard     characters are allowed in CDF names to allow more than one CDF to be specified (where appropriate). Wildcard characters may be used in the CDF name but not the directory path portion of a specification. The wildcard characters supported are similar to those available on the operating system being used.

   UNIX: If a CDF specification is to contain a wildcard character, the entire specification must be enclosed in single quote marks (e.g., '/disk3/sst*').

7. On VMS/OpenVMS systems, qualifiers begin with a slash (/). On UNIX and MS-DOS systems, qualifiers begin with a hyphen (-).

   NOTE: You can override the default notation by specifying a slash or hyphen as the first parameter/qualifier immediately after the program name. When this is done, you may have to adjust the syntax used as follows:

   1. When the slash notation is used on UNIX systems, character stuffing will be necessary in pathnames (e.g., specify ``//disk1//CDFs'' rather than ``/dist1/CDFs''). Also, double quote marks are required around options enclosed in parenthesis.
   2. When the slash notation is used on MS-DOS systems, double quote marks may be needed around entire qualifier/option combinations.

8. On MS-DOS systems the executable   names may be different from the names shown in this chapter (file names are limited to 8.3 characters). Where the names differ, the actual name will be noted.

   If you add the directory containing the toolkit executables to your path, you will have to use the 8-character (or fewer) names. If you use a command aliasing program, you could specify the aliases to be the names shown in this chapter with each pointing to the corresponding executable file name.

9. On UNIX systems all parameters/qualifiers entered at the command line are case sensitive. On VMS, OpenVMS, and MS-DOS systems parameters/qualifiers are not case sensitive. Note that variable names are always case sensitive regardless of the operating system being used.

10. If an option contains blanks, it will generally be necessary to enclose the entire option in double quote marks.

11. On UNIX systems, it may be necessary to execute ``stty tab3'' before running CDFedit, CDFlist, or CDFwalk.

In the following sections the available qualifiers and options for each of the toolkit programs will be presented. The default settings   for these qualifiers and options will not be shown since they can be configured for a particular CDF distribution. Use CDFinquire to determine these defaults.

On VMS/OpenVMS systems you should have executed the command procedure named DEFINITIONS.COM   before running any of the CDF toolkit programs. This will define the necessary logical names and symbols. Your system administrator knows the location of DEFINITIONS.COM.

On UNIX system you should have source'd the script file named definitions.<shell>   where <shell> is the name of the shell you are using. This will define the necessary environment variables and aliases. Your system administrator knows the location of definitions.<shell>.