Re: QSHELL commands (was: Stmf copy with add)

Hi John
On Saturday 13 October 2001 10:20 pm, jpcarr@tredegar.com wrote:
[snip]
>
> Leif,  Martin
>
> I agree with both of you that there are some powerful functions in the
> QSH, My point is
>
> I wish I had a sanitized, Keyword Driven, visible Default Value,  F1 F4
> aware,   interface for them.
> The ( jar -cfM myfile.zip file1.csv.......) is a good example  Just
> look at it.  letting the F1 F4 issue aside for a moment,  wouldn't it
> be better to have that function look like
>
> CPYF  FROMFILE(mylib/myfile) TOFILE(somelib/somefile)   etc  ???

You're preaching to the converted. I like the power & flexibility of the
*nix tools, with the idea of doing one thing, and doing it really well,
but the command syntax sucks ;-) I would love commands to be promptable
and to be able to get help whilst prompting. It's easy enough (on Linux
at least) to get help *before* running the command, but not once you
start typing it. I usually search back through command history[1] to pull
back a command that did what I wanted, rather than try to figure out all
the options again. As an example, doing some video capture on my home box
from the commandline:

lavrec -f a -i P -d 1 -q 100 -R l -c 2 -s -r 44100 -a 16 -v 2 svcd.avi

As I've used it a lot, I know what the flags & arguments (parameters ;-)
mean, but it doesn't look very self explanatory. Throw in some pipes and
yet more commands and it gets really hairy. In my case I usually opt for
the gui, where I can set the options much like command prompting in a
Graphical Access session.

> I love the Pipeing too Leif  but it's not a "To Unix or Not to Unix"
> I would like a simple parameter on the DSPMSGD MSGID(mymsgf/msgid)
> PIPETO(mylib/myfile)   doncha think that and others like it would be
> neat???

Definitely agreed.

> Sorry I was misconstrued.   I want understandable KeyWords, Visible
> Defaults,  F1 F4 prompting, Like I have already have had for 20 years.
> It's like going back to Sys/34 Procs with Positional Parameters like
>
> MYPROC y,,Myfile,.*FIRST,N,,2,mylib  ( what the @#$% does that do??)
>
> We grew past that syntax,  but Linux, and Unix never did.
>
> I want the Function of QSH,  with MY CMD interface.
>
> Just My Opinion.

I think it's the opinion of quite a number of us :-) I want a CMD
interface on my Linux box too...

> P.S.  I also agree with your position on Ops Nav too Leif.
>
> John Carr

Regards, Martin
--
martin@dbg400.net / jamaro@firstlinux.net
http://www.dbg400.net  DBG/400 - DataBase Generation utilities
Open Source test environment tools for the AS/400 / iSeries and
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