shell(1F) UNIX System V(Form and Menu Language Interpreter Utilities) shell(1F)


NAME
      shell - run a command using shell

SYNOPSIS
      shell command [ command ] . . .

DESCRIPTION
      The shell function concatenates its arguments, separating each by a
      space, and passes this string to the UNIX system shell ($SHELL if set,
      otherwise /usr/bin/sh).

EXAMPLES
      Since the Form and Menu Language does not directly support background
      processing, the shell function can be used instead.

            `shell "build prog > /dev/null &"`

      If you want the user to continue to be able to interact with the
      application while the background job is running, the output of an
      executable run by shell in the background must be redirected: to a file
      if you want to save the output, or to /dev/null if you don't want to save
      it (or if there is no output), otherwise your application may appear to
      be hung until the background job finishes processing.

      shell can also be used to execute a command that has the same name as an
      FMLI built-in function.

NOTES
      The arguments to shell will be concatenated using spaces, which may or
      may not do what is expected.  The variables set in local environments
      will not be expanded by the shell because ``local'' means ``local to the
      current process.''

SEE ALSO
      sh(1)



















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