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Annotation of 43BSD/contrib/apl/doc/man.6, revision 1.1.1.1

1.1       root        1: .NH 1
                      2: Special Functions
                      3: .NH 2
                      4: Quad Functions
                      5: .PP
                      6: Quad functions are special operators
                      7: that perform tasks which are
                      8: closer to the system level,
                      9: but are accessible within \*a functins.
                     10: There are many available quad functions
                     11: in \*u \*a,
                     12: but only two are probably of interest
                     13: to you at this time.
                     14: The interested user is referred to
                     15: Appendix C for a complete list.
                     16: .IP "\*(qdrun xxx" 14
                     17: This function can be used to execute
                     18: a \*u process from inside an \*a function.
                     19: The variable ``xxx'' should be a character
                     20: vector containing the command
                     21: to be executed by the \*u
                     22: shell (command program).
                     23: For example,
                     24: to run the ``who'' program,
                     25: the expression might be:
                     26: .sp
                     27:        \*(qdrun \'who\'
                     28: .sp
                     29:        <or, using a variable>
                     30: .sp
                     31:        x { \'who\'
                     32: .br
                     33:        \*(qdrun x
                     34: .sp
                     35: Note that any output generated by
                     36: the program run by ``\*(qdrun'' is
                     37: .I not
                     38: written to a script file if ``)script''
                     39: was used.
                     40: .IP "\*(qdcr xxx" 14
                     41: This quad function is a standard
                     42: \*a quad function.
                     43: The argument ``xxx'' should be
                     44: a character vector containing
                     45: the name of an \*a function
                     46: which exists in the internal workspace.
                     47: ``\*(qdcr'' will return a
                     48: character array containing the
                     49: function definition in ASCII.
                     50: This provides
                     51: a very convenient way
                     52: to get the
                     53: listing of an \*a function.
                     54: For example,
                     55: if you want to define
                     56: the array ``fnlist'' to
                     57: be the function definition
                     58: of the function ``xyz'',
                     59: you can say:
                     60: .sp
                     61:        fnlist { \*(qdcr \'xyz\'
                     62: .sp
                     63: or, equivalently,
                     64: .sp
                     65:        fnname { \'xyz\'
                     66: .br
                     67:        fnlist { \*(qdcr fnname
                     68: .sp
                     69: Another possible use of
                     70: ``\*(qdcr'' is to list a function
                     71: on the terminal without
                     72: having to use ``)editf''.
                     73: (As we discussed earlier,
                     74: when an error occurs
                     75: you cannot edit a suspended
                     76: function without using ``)reset''
                     77: first,
                     78: and ``)reset'' gets rid of
                     79: the current state of \*a.)
                     80: However,
                     81: the ``)list'' system command
                     82: is far more efficient
                     83: for this purpose
                     84: and is therefore strongly recommended.
                     85: .NH 2
                     86: I-Beam Functions
                     87: .PP
                     88: The I-beam function in \*u \*a is a method
                     89: of obtaining system parameters.
                     90: The available I-beams are listed in
                     91: Appendix D
                     92: for the interested user;
                     93: they are not generally required
                     94: for the average \*a session.

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