NAME

intro - introduction to commands and application programs

DESCRIPTION

This section  describes,  in  alphabetical  order,  commands
available  for  the AT&T 3B2 Computer.  Certain distinctions
of purpose are made in the headings.  The following  Utility
packages are delivered with the computer:
  BSD Compatibility Package
  Basic Networking Utilities
  C Programming Language Utilities
  Directory and File Management Utilities
  Distributed File Systems Utilities
  Editing Utilities
  Encryption Utilities (CRYPT)
  Essential Boot Utilities
  Essential Utilities
  Ethernet Media Driver Utilities
  Extended Software Generation System Utilities
  Framed Access Command Environment (FACE) Utilities
  Inter-Process Communication (IPC) Utilities
  Internet Utilities
  Line Printer Spooling Utilities
  Network File System Utilities
  Networking Support Utilities
  OPEN LOOK/Graphics Utilities
  Remote File System Utilities
  Remote Procedure Call Utilities
  Spell Utilities
  System Administration Utilities
  System Header Files
  System Performance Analysis Utilities (SPAU)
  Terminal Information Utilities
  UFS Utilities
  User Environment Utilities
  Windowing Utilities
  XENIX Compatibility Package

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.

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).
exit(2), wait(2), getopt(3C) in the  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 termination, and (in the case of ``normal'' termination) one supplied 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. It is called variously ``exit code'', ``exit status'', or ``return code'', and is described only where special conventions 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 confused upon encountering a null character (the string terminator) within a line.