| Title: | system management communications forum | 
| Moderator: | CHEST::THOMPSON | 
| Created: | Fri Mar 21 1986 | 
| Last Modified: | Thu Jul 08 1993 | 
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 | 
| Number of topics: | 490 | 
| Total number of notes: | 2018 | 
    I have been labouring under the impression that the DCL $ prompt
    requires a comment character, as $ without a command verb is nolonger
    supported.
    
    IE    $
          $ SHOW DEFAULT
          $                                         
    
    becomes
    
    	  $!
          $ SHOW DEFAULT
          $!
    
    I have been running DCL command procedures on FUTURS without all $ prompts
    being replaced by $!  with no errors.
    
    I cannot find any documentation to support the above. Can somebody
    clarify the situation for me ?
    
    Thanks
    
    Chris
    
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines | 
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 212.1 | No comment!! | CURRNT::BRUNNOCK | Andy Brunnock, UCG A1/4, 781-4416 | Mon Feb 06 1989 10:32 | 20 | 
|     DCL does not require a comment character (!) on a blank line. i.e.
	$
	$ SHOW DEFAULT
	$
    is totally valid. The CLI (Command Language Interpreter [sp?]) takes in
    the line, sees there is nothing there and ignores the line. If you
    place a comment character on a line, the CLI sees that the first
    character is a comment character and ignores the line. Six of one, half
    dozen of the other.
    There is a change to DCL for V5 however (apart from multi-line
    IF...THEN...ELSE...ENDIF structures) and that is in the use of labels.
    In previous versions of VMS, a label did not need to be preceeded by a
    dollar sign (a bug rather than a feature I think). From V5 onwards, the
    dollar sign is required before label names so check your old command
    procedures.
    Andy
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| 212.2 | SUBURB::FRENCHS | Order your rathole today. | Mon Feb 06 1989 14:31 | 20 | |
|     If what I have been told is true I believe the reverse statement is true,
    ie.                              
    
    $ a = "example"
    ! the above is an example
    $ b = "still" + example
    ! the above is still an example.
    
    The comment line will have to have a $ in front of them so it the
    becomes
    
    $ ......
    $!
    $ ......
    $! 
    
    I wonder if I am right.
    
    Simon.
    
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