INTRO(1-SysV) RISC/os Reference Manual INTRO(1-SysV)
NAME
intro - introduction to commands and application programs
DESCRIPTION
This section describes, in alphabetical order, commands and
application programs available in RISC/os. Certain distinc-
tions of purpose are made in the headings.
RISC/os is based on System V with BSD enhancements. The
System V based commands and applications are described in
this section, (1-SysV), and the BSD based commands are
described in section (1-BSD) of this book.
To access the commands described in this section, be sure
that your PATH variable contains /bin, and /usr/bin. To
access the BSD based commands from within a System V
environment, add /bsd43/bin and /usr/ucb to your path after
/bin and /usr/bin (see cshrc(5) and login(1)). For more
information on using BSD-based commands on RISC/os, refer to
Guide to Using BSD on RISC/os, which is shipped with each
RISC/os system.
The RISC/os Reference Manuals are organized into the follow-
ing sections:
RISC/os User's Reference Manual:
Section (1-SysV) user commands and application programs
Section (1-BSD) BSD-based commands and application programs
Section (6-BSD) games
RISC/os System Administrator's Reference Manual:
Section (1M-SysV) system maintenance and administration
Section (7-SysV) special files and device drivers
Section (8-BSD) BSD-based administration commands
Section (1M-Posix) posix system maintenance
Section (7-Posix) posix special files
RISC/os Programmer's Reference Manual:
Section (2-SysV) system calls
Section (3-SysV) subroutines and library subroutines
Section (4-SysV) system files
Section (5-SysV) system interfaces
Section (2-BSD) system calls
Section (3-BSD) library subroutines
Section (4-BSD) general terminal interface
Section (5-BSD) miscellaneous BSD calls and system files
Section (2-Posix) posix system calls
Section (3-Posix) posix library subroutines
Section (5-Posix) posix miscellaneous functions
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INTRO(1-SysV) RISC/os Reference Manual INTRO(1-SysV)
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, below).
argletter A single letter representing an option
requiring an option-argument.
optarg An option-argument (character string)
satisfying 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).
cmdarg Path name (or other command argument)
not beginning with ``-'', or ``-'' by
itself indicating the standard input.
Command Syntax Standard: Rules
These command syntax rules are not followed by all current
commands, but all new commands will obey them. getopts(1)
should be used by all shell procedures to parse positional
parameters 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.
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INTRO(1-SysV) RISC/os Reference Manual INTRO(1-SysV)
2. Command names must include only lower-case 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
getopts(1), login(1).
exit(2), wait(2), getopt(3C), cshrc(5) in the Programmer's
Reference Manual.
Guide to Using BSD on RISC/os.
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 non-zero to indicate troubles
such as erroneous parameters, or bad or inaccessible data.
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It is called variously ``exit code'', ``exit status'', or
``return code'', and is described only where special conven-
tions are involved.
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.
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