Previous: about-vectors Up: ../slides.html Next: escape
On systems which make it possible for a user program to pass a command to the operating system for execution and then return to the user program, this command makes it possible to do so. A typical use might be to obtain a file directory listing because the user forgot the name of a required input file. This command is also available as the SYSTEM command, but this short form is convenient and conventional on Unix systems. # Commentstring Comment line; all text up to the next comment marker (#) or to end-of-line, whichever occurs first, is ignored. However, a comment marker inside a quoted string, or prefixed by the current quoting character (see the EDIT command), is treated as an ordinary character. The COMMENT ... ENDCOMMENT command is useful for multi-line comments. The comment marker character can be changed by the EDIT command.