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From: rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell)
Subject: Re: IAC (was Re: Clipboard (was Re: The Amiga's Future))
Message-ID: <1991Jun8.091822.13675@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu
Organization: The Internet
References: <1991Jun8.044840.1404@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Jun8.074935.781@neon.Stanford.EDU> <1991Jun8.090052.12906@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 91 09:18:22 GMT
Lines: 41

    Let me clarify a few points to Evan that I forgot in my last 
message. Recognize the difference between Arexx the language and
arexx commands. Arexx is a standardized language dating back to
really old mainframes. ANSI is standardizing it now to bring
IBM OS/2's Rexx, Amiga, and everyone else into sync with the new features.
(Arexx's creator, Bill Hawes was at the ANSI committee to insure
the Arexx's features and flavors are reviewed. )

 Arexx commands are the stuff applications recognize. Once you address
an Application's message port, the Arexx commands cannow be accesses
as if they were part of Arexx's base language.


Example:

/* A program to print numbers 1 to 100 to my terminal */
address 'VLT' /* Connect to VLT's port. This doesn't have to be here
                if you're running this script from the term's menu
                 option to execute Arexx scripts */

do i = 1 to 100
  send 'i*R' /* The *R is an escape code to send a newline */
end

end example:

 There, that was easy. The send command is normally not part of Arexx's
language and will generate a syntax error if the term isn't 
loaded.

 Arexx supports structures/array, interpreter/self modifying (like lisp),
loops, flow constructs, a switch like statement (named select),
procedures, local variables, recursion and everything else you'd
expect.


--
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