TACL Reference Manual

Statements and Programs

HP NonStop TACL Reference Manual—429513-018

5-6

?BLANK Directive

Use the ?BLANK directive to insert a blank line into a variable; this can be useful when

you load text that is to be displayed. The syntax is:

?BLANK

?FORMAT Directive

Use the ?FORMAT directive to specify how TACL interprets metacharacters in the

TACL statements following the directive. The ?FORMAT directive is similar to the

#INFORMAT built-in variable, but acts on statements in a file instead of text from the

IN file. The syntax is:

?FORMAT { PLAIN | QUOTED | TACL }

PLAIN

causes TACL to interpret metacharacters and all other characters in the file as

ordinary text. For example, braces and double equal signs are read as such and

are not interpreted as comments in PLAIN mode.

QUOTED

causes TACL to interpret metacharacters as metacharacters (the same as the

TACL option), unless text with metacharacters is enclosed in quotation marks. In

this case, TACL treats metacharacters as if they were ordinary text (tildes are not

needed).

TACL

causes TACL to interpret metacharacters as metacharacters and store them in

internal notation. TACL reads square brackets as the beginning and ending of an

invocation. A vertical line indicates a label in an enclosure. TACL reads braces and

double equals as comments.

Using a tilde causes TACL to interpret the next character as plain text, rather than

a delimiter; for example, TACL reads ~[ as an ordinary open square bracket, rather

than the beginning of an invocation. To use a tilde character as text, enter it twice

(~~). The tilde has no effect on its own, but only in conjunction with other

characters.

When using the TACL format, you can put several commands on a single line by

separating the commands with a tilde and a semicolon (~;). TACL translates these

metacharacters into internal end-of-line characters.

You can also use a tilde and an underscore (~_) when ?FORMAT is set to TACL.

TACL translates this notation into an internal space, which is printed as a space if

you use the PRETTY option with #OUTFORMAT; otherwise, the tilde and

underscore are treated as ordinary characters.