MPE/iX Commands Reference Manual (32650-90877)

Chapter 2 23
Command Structure Defined
Native Mode Command Structure
• By combining positional and keyword specification
Another difference between the NM parser and the CM parser is that the CM parser
restricts a single comand parameter value to be <=255 characters. On the NM side, the
value is limited by the size of the CI’s command buffer.
Formal Command Specification
You may enter an NM-parsed command as shown in the syntax diagram for each
command, for example:
COMMAND KEYWORD1=A;KEYWORD2=B;KEYWORD3=C
Positional Parameter Specification
You may also enter an NM-parsed command by omitting the keyword parameter name and
only entering the values as positional parameters, for example:
COMMAND A,B,C
If you omit the keyword specifications and enter the values as positional parameters, the
values must be treated as such, and all rules for positional parameters must be followed.
For example, if you only specify A and C, you must use the positional place holder (,) as
shown in the following example:
COMMAND A,,C
Combining Positional/Keyword Parameters
Another option is to enter NM-parsed commands by using a combination of positional and
keyword specifications, for example:
COMMAND A,B;KEYWORD3=C
There is one important rule to remember when you combine positional and keyword
parameters: once you specify a keyword parameter, you may not use positional
parameters. For example, entering the following command would produce an error:
COMMAND A;KEYWORD2=B,C
An exception to the rule is that you may specify positional parameters that are
subparameters of a keyword parameter. For example, in the BUILD command shown
below, REC is a keyword but the next four parameters (which define records as being 80
bytes long, blocked at 1 and in Fixed ASCII format) are
positional . This syntax is
acceptable because they are
subparameters of the key word REC.
BUILD filename ;REC=-80,1,F,ASCII
The following example shows the correct way to combine positional and keyword
parameters where the keyword has no subparameters:
COMMAND A;KEYWORD2=B;KEYWORD3=C
Entering Numbers in Commands
You may enter numbers as parameters to NM-parsed commands as follows: