The EXPLAIN command is a simple way to get information about the system. You can use it to find out such things as
and many other such details.
The simplest EXPLAIN command looks like
expl topic sub-topic sub-topic ...
For example, if you wanted to find out how to use the B command you would type
expl b command
To find out about the COPY command you would say
expl copy
It's that simple. The EXPLAIN command (commonly abbreviated to EXPL) will go off and attempt to locate the information you want.
An index of the information available to EXPL may be displayed by typing
expl index
Indices are also available for most major topics; for example,
expl fortran index
gives a list of the sub-topics available under the main topic "fortran". Some of these sub-topics have further sub-topics and so on -- an attempt has been made to break up explain descriptions into manageable chunks so people aren't swamped with vast quantities of unwanted material. Each explain description is designed to cover a single "item" in as much detail as the normal user should need.
When an explain description is too big to be displayed conveniently on the terminal (e.g. reference manuals), EXPLAIN can be used to run the description off on the line-printer. In this case, EXPLAIN will ask you if you want a manual or not; if you type "y" for yes, it will send a copy of the manual to the printer and you will eventually receive your copy when the operators file printer output.
Copyright © 1996, Thinkage Ltd.