intro(1) INTERACTIVE UNIX System intro(1)
NAME
intro - introduction to commands and application programs
DESCRIPTION
This section describes, in alphabetical order, commands
(including system maintenance commands) available for your
computer. The commands in this section should be used along
with those listed in Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the
INTERACTIVE SDS Guide and Programmer's Reference Manual.
References of the form name(1), name(2), name(2P), name(3),
name(3P), name(4), name(5), and name(5P) refer to entries in
that manual. References of the form name(1), name(1M),
name(1C), name(1G), name(1P), name(5), name(5P), name(7),
and name(8) refer to entries in this manual. Entries of the
form name(nP) refer to POSIX entries, which pertain to the
operating system environment specified by U.S. Government
standard IEEE Std. 1003.1-1988.
Manual Page Command Syntax
Unless otherwise noted, commands described in the SYNOPSIS
section of a manual page accept options and other arguments
according to the following syntax and should be interpreted
as explained below.
name [-option...] [cmdarg...]
where:
[ ] Surround an option or cmdarg that is not
required.
... Indicates multiple occurrences of the option or
cmdarg.
name The name of an executable file.
option (Always preceded by a ``-''.)
noargletter... or,
argletter optarg[,...]
noargletter A single letter representing an option without
an option-argument. Note that more than one
noargletter option can be grouped after one
``-'' (Rule 5 in the following text).
argletter A single letter representing an option requir-
ing an option-argument.
optarg An option-argument (character string) satisfy-
ing a preceding argletter. Note that groups of
optargs following an argletter must be
separated by commas or separated by white space
and quoted (Rule 8 below).
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cmdarg Path name (or other command argument) not
beginning with ``-'', or ``-'' by itself indi-
cating the standard input.
Command Syntax Standard: Rules
These command syntax rules are not followed by all current
commands, but all new commands use them. getopts(1) should
be used by all shell procedures to parse positional parame-
ters and to check for legal options. It supports Rules 3-10
below. The enforcement of the other rules must be done by
the command itself.
1. Command names (name above) must be between two and
nine characters long.
2. Command names must include only lowercase letters
and digits.
3. Option names (option above) must be one character
long.
4. All options must be preceded by ``-''.
5. Options with no arguments may be grouped after a
single ``-''.
6. The first option-argument (optarg above) following
an option must be preceded by white space.
7. Option-arguments cannot be optional.
8. Groups of option-arguments following an option
must either be separated by commas or separated by
white space and quoted (e.g., -o xxx,z,yy or -o
"xxx z yy").
9. All options must precede operands (cmdarg above)
on the command line.
10. ``--'' may be used to indicate the end of the
options.
11. The order of the options relative to one another
should not matter.
12. The relative order of the operands (cmdarg above)
may affect their significance in ways determined
by the command with which they appear.
13. ``-'' preceded and followed by white space should
only be used to mean standard input.
SEE ALSO
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intro(1) INTERACTIVE UNIX System intro(1)
getopts(1).
exit(2), wait(2), getopt(3C) in the INTERACTIVE SDS Guide
and Programmer's Reference Manual.
How to Get Started at the front of this document.
DIAGNOSTICS
Upon termination each command returns two bytes of status,
one supplied by the system and giving the cause for termina-
tion and (in the case of ``normal'' termination) one sup-
plied by the program (see wait(2) and exit(2)). The former
byte is 0 for normal termination; the latter is customarily
0 for successful execution and nonzero to indicate troubles
such as erroneous parameters or bad or inaccessible data.
It is called variously ``exit code,'' ``exit status,'' or
``return code'' and is described only where special conven-
tions are involved.
BUGS
Regrettably, not all commands adhere to the aforementioned
syntax.
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WARNINGS
Some commands produce unexpected results when processing
files containing null characters. These commands often
treat text input lines as strings and therefore become con-
fused upon encountering a null character (the string termi-
nator) within a line.
ADDED VALUE
This entry, supplied by INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation,
contains enhancements to UNIX System V.
Rev. 1.2 Page 4