TACL Reference Manual

Overview of TACL
HP NonStop TACL Reference Manual—429513-018
1-3
Developing TACL Programs
To obtain syntax help while you are typing a command, press the F16 key (or the
appropriate help key defined in your environment) at the point in the command where
you want help.
The Guardian User’s Guide provides detailed instructions for using TACL interactively,
including:
•
Logging on and logging off
•
Obtaining information about system users
•
Editing command lines
•
Managing files
•
Starting and controlling processes
•
Defining function keys
•
Creating and using DEFINEs
The use of commands is the simplest interactive use of TACL. You can, however,
access TACL built-in variables and functions or run your own procedural constructs
interactively, as follows:
•
Display the contents of TACL built-in variables by typing the variable name
(including the initial number sign).
•
Invoke a TACL built-in function by typing the function name enclosed in square
brackets.
(First, set the #INFORMAT value to TACL as described in #INFORMAT Built-In
Variable on page 9-197. Otherwise, TACL will not recognize the square brackets as
special characters.)
To define and use your own variables, you must understand the use of square
brackets and other lexical elements;
For additional information, see Section 2, Lexical
Elements, and Section 4, Variables.
Developing TACL Programs
The development of TACL programs is a more advanced use of TACL; programs are
useful if you plan to run the same set of TACL commands or built-in functions
frequently.
TACL allows you to interact with processes, handle results, and make decisions about
further actions; it provides string-handling capabilities, character-handling capabilities,
exception-handling capabilities, and many built-in functions that provide information
about the system environment. You can use TACL to interface with the Subsystem
Programmatic Interface (SPI), the Event Management Service (EMS), and other
utilities and programs.