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Conference hylndr::dclreview

Title:DCLREVIEW
Moderator:HYLNDR::SYSTEM
Created:Sun Apr 19 1987
Last Modified:Fri May 23 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:773
Total number of notes:5391

771.0. "the undocumented backslash feature ?" by JAMIN::OSMAN (Eric Osman, dtn 226-7122) Tue Apr 29 1997 09:37

    
    I seem to have discovered an undocumented feature !
    
    The feature is that you can use the backslash character "\"
    to prevent symbol substitution.
    
    For example, suppose we say
    
    	$ show = "blecch"
    
    Obviously if we just attempt
    
    	$ show def
    
    we get
    
    	Unrecognized command verb - blecch
    
    However, we can say
    
    	$ show\ def
    
    to get the expected
    
    	user1:[osman]
    
    
    Is this use of "\"just an accident ?  I tried
    
    	help \
    
    and don't get any information.  Should I ?
    
    Is there some qar database this should be reported in ?
    
    /Eric
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
771.1TLE::REAGANAll of this chaos makes perfect senseTue Apr 29 1997 09:577
    Wrong notesfile.  This notesfile is for discussion of the DCL syntax
    of products, not for the discussion of DCL's own syntax or the OpenVMS
    implementation of DCL.
    
    Perhaps you want to ask this in VMSNOTES or enter a QAR on TRIFID.
    
    				-John
771.2QUARK::LIONELFree advice is worth every centTue Apr 29 1997 14:5411
Any characters after the first four in a verb name are ignored.

Note that:

	help \

is not the same as:

	help\

			Steve
771.3JAMIN::OSMANEric Osman, dtn 226-7122Wed Apr 30 1997 09:4445
    
    Steve, your comment gave me a clue, and I've done some more
    experimentation.
    
    The "\" character seems to be treated as an alphabetic in symbol
    names !
    
    So, for example, if you say
    
    	dire = "blecch"
    
    and then type
    
    	direz
    
    you'll get a regular directory, as though you had typed
    
    	direc
    
    Typing
    
    	dire\
    
    is equivalent to typing
    
    	direz
    
    Of course, if you type just
    
    	dire
    
    you'll get an error about "blecch".
    
    You can also say
    
    	di\ = 3
    	show sym di\
    	3
    
    demonstrating that the "\" character is treated as an alphabetic.
    (is that documented or intentional ??)
    
    Thanks.
    
    /Eric
771.4QUARK::LIONELFree advice is worth every centWed Apr 30 1997 10:077
Backslash is documented as a "reserved special character" - I take that as
meaning that DCL doesn't treat it as a delimiter at present.

If you wish to continue this discussion (though for what reason, I can't
imagine), please do so in VMSNOTES.

					Steve