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User Commands Intro(1)
NAME
Intro, intro - introduction to commands and application pro-
grams
DESCRIPTION
This section describes, in alphabetical order, commands
available with this operating system.
Pages of special interest are categorized as follows:
1B Commands found only in the SunOS/BSD Compatibility
Package.
1C Commands for communicating with other systems.
1F Commands associated with Form and Menu Language
Interpreter (FMLI).
1S Commands specific to SunOS.
OTHER SECTIONS
See these sections of the man pages section 1M: System
Administration Commands for more information.
o Section 1M in this manual for system maintenance com-
mands.
o Section 4 of this manual for information on file for-
mats.
o Section 5 of this manual for descriptions of publicly
available files and miscellaneous information pages.
o Section 6 in this manual for computer demonstrations.
For tutorial information about these commands and pro-
cedures, see:
o Solaris Advanced User's Guide
Manual Page Command Syntax
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Unless otherwise noted, commands described in the SYNOPSIS
section of a manual page accept options and other arguments
according to the following syntax and should be interpreted
as explained below.
name [-option...] [cmdarg...] where:
[ ] Surround an option or cmdarg that is not
required.
... Indicates multiple occurrences of the option
or cmdarg.
name The name of an executable file.
{ } The options and/or arguments enclosed within
braces are interdependent, such that every-
thing enclosed must be treated as a unit.
option (Always preceded by a "-".) noargletter...
or, argletter optarg[,...]
noargletter A single letter representing an option
without an option-argument. Notice that more
than one noargletter option can be grouped
after one "-" (Guideline 5, below).
argletter A single letter representing an option
requiring an option-argument.
optarg An option-argument (character string) satis-
fying a preceding argletter. Notice that
groups of optargs following an argletter
must be separated by commas, or separated by
a tab or space character and quoted (Guide-
line 8, below).
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cmdarg Path name (or other command argument) not
beginning with "-", or "-" by itself indi-
cating the standard input.
Unless otherwise specified, whenever an operand or option-
argument is, or contains, a numeric value:
o The number is interpreted as a decimal integer.
o Numerals in the range 0 to 2147483647 are syntactically
recognized as numeric values.
o When the utility description states that it accepts
negative numbers as operands or option-arguments,
numerals in the range -2147483647 to 2147483647 are
syntactically recognized as numeric values.
o Ranges greater than those listed here are allowed.
Command Syntax Standard: Guidelines
These command syntax guidelines are not followed by all
current commands, but new commands are likely to obey them.
getopts(1) should be used by all shell procedures to parse
positional parameters and to check for legal options. It
supports Guidelines 3-10 below. The enforcement of the other
guidelines must be done by the command itself.
1. Command names (name above) should be between two and
nine characters long.
2. Command names should include only lower-case letters and
digits.
3. Option names (option above) must be one character long.
4. All options must be preceded by "-".
5. Options with no arguments can be grouped after a single
"-".
6. The first option-argument (optarg above) following an
option must be preceded by a tab or space character.
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7. Option-arguments cannot be optional.
8. Groups of option-arguments following an option must
either be separated by commas or separated by tab or
space character and quoted (-o xxx,z,yy or -o"xxx z
yy").
9. All options must precede operands (cmdarg above) on the
command line.
10. "--" can be used to indicate the end of the options.
11. The order of the options relative to one another should
not matter.
12. The relative order of the operands (cmdarg above) can
affect their significance in ways determined by the com-
mand with which they appear.
13. "-" preceded and followed by a white space character
should only be used to mean standard input.
An expanded set of guidelines referred to as CLIP for Com-
mand Line Interface Paradigm has been developed for Solaris
and other Sun products. Its intent is to provide a command
line syntax more closely aligned with the GNU command line
syntax popular on Linux systems.There is no intent to retro-
fit existing utilities or even to apply this to all new
utilities. It is only intended to be applied to sets of
utilities being developed when appropriate.
CLIP is a full superset of the guidelines discussed above
which are closely aligned with IEEE Std. 1003.1-2001
(SUSv3). It does not include all the GNU syntax. The GNU
syntax allows constructs that either conflict with the IEEE
rules or are ambiguous. These constructs are not allowed.
The expanded CLIP command line syntax is:
utility_name -a --longopt1 -c option_argument -f option_argument --longopt2=option_argument --longopt3 option_argument operand
The utility in the example is named utility_name. It is fol-
lowed by options, option-arguments, and operands, collec-
tively referred to as arguments. The arguments that consist
of a hyphen followed a single letter or digit, such as -a,
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are known as short-options . The arguments that consist of
two hyphens followed by a series of letters, digits and
hyphens, such as --longopt1, are known as long-options .
Collectively, short-options and long-options are referred to
as options (or historically, flags ). Certain options are
followed by an option-argument, as shown with -c
option_argument . The arguments following the last options
and option-arguments are named operands. Once the first
operand is encountered, all subsequent arguments are inter-
preted to be operands.
Option-arguments are sometimes shown separated from their
short-options by <BLANKS>s, sometimes directly adjacent.
This reflects the situation that in some cases an option-
argument is included within the same argument string as the
option; in most cases it is the next argument. This specifi-
cation requires that the option be a separate argument from
its option-argument, but there are some exceptions to ensure
continued operation of historical applications:
o If the SYNOPSIS of a utility shows a <SPACE> between a
short-option and option-argument (as with -c
option_argument in the example), the application uses
separate arguments for that option and its option-
argument.
o If a <SPACE> is not shown (as with -f option_argument
in the example), the application expects an option and
its option-argument directly adjacent in the same argu-
ment string, without intervening <BLANK>s.
o Notwithstanding the preceding requirements, an applica-
tion should accept short-options and option-arguments
as a single argument or as separate arguments whether
or not a <SPACE> is shown on the synopsis line.
o Long-options with option-arguments are always docu-
mented as using an equals sign as the separator between
the option name and the option-argument. If the OPTIONS
section of a utility shows an equals sign (=) between a
long-option and its option-argument (as with --
longopt2= option_argument in the example), a applica-
tion shall also permit the use of separate arguments
for that option and its option-argument (as with --
longopt1 option_argument in the example).
CLIP expands the guidelines discussed with the following
additional guidelines:
14. The form command subcommand [options] [operands] is
appropriate for grouping similar operations.
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Subcommand names should follow the same conventions
as command names as specified in guidelines 1 and
2.
15. Long-options should be preceded by -- and should
include only alphanumeric characters and hyphens
from the portable character set. Option names are
typically one to three words long, with hyphens to
separate words.
16. --name=argument should be used to specify an
option-argument for a long-option. The form --name
argument is also accepted.
17. All utilities should support two standard long-
options: --version (with the short-option synonym
-V ) and --help (with the short-option synonym -?
). The short option synonyms for --version can vary
if the preferred synonym is already in use (but a
synonym shall be provided). Both of these options
stop further argument processing when encountered
and after displaying the appropriate output, the
utility successfully exits.
18. Every short-option should have exactly one
corresponding long-option and every long-option
should have exactly one corresponding short-option.
Synonymous options can be allowed in the interest
of compatibility with historical practice or com-
munity versions of equivalent utilities.
19. The short-option name should get its name from the
long-option name according to these rules:
1. Use the first letter of the long-option
name for the short-option name.
2. If the first letter conflicts with other
short-option names, choose a prominent con-
sonant.
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User Commands Intro(1)
3. If the first letter and the prominent con-
sonant conflict with other shortoption
names, choose a prominent vowel.
4. If none of the letters of the long-option
name are usable, select an arbitrary char-
acter.
20. If a long-option name consists of a single charac-
ter, it must use the same character as the short-
option name. Single character long-options should
be avoided. They are only allowed for the excep-
tionally rare case that a single character is the
most descriptive name.
21. The subcommand in the form described in guideline 1
of the additional CLIP guidelines is generally
required. In the case where it is omitted, the com-
mand shall take no operands and only options which
are defined to stop further argument processing
when encountered are allowed. Invoking a command of
this form without a subcommand and no arguments is
an error. This guideline is provided to allow the
common forms command --help, command -?, command
--version, and command -V to be accepted in the
command-subcommand construct.
Several of these guidelines are only of interest to the
authors of utilities. They are provided here for the use of
anyone wanting to author utilities following this syntax.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for a discussion of the attributes listed
in this section.
SEE ALSO
getopts(1), wait(1), exit(2), getopt(3C), wait(3UCB), attributes(5)
DIAGNOSTICS
Upon termination, each command returns two bytes of status,
one supplied by the system and giving the cause for termina-
tion, and (in the case of "normal" termination) one supplied
by the program [see wait(3UCB) and exit(2)]. The former byte
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is 0 for normal termination. The latter byte is customarily
0 for successful execution and non-zero to indicate troubles
such as erroneous parameters, or bad or inaccessible data.
It is called variously "exit code", "exit status", or
"return code", and is described only where special conven-
tions are involved.
WARNINGS
Some commands produce unexpected results when processing
files containing null characters. These commands often treat
text input lines as strings and therefore become confused
upon encountering a null character (the string terminator)
within a line.
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No manual entry for 6.
© 1994 Man-cgi 1.15, Panagiotis Christias <christia@theseas.ntua.gr>