Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!NETCON.CUA.EDU!pritchard%cuavax.dnet
From: pritchard%cuavax.dnet@NETCON.CUA.EDU (Hugh Pritchard/Systems Programming)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: DCL continuation lines
Message-ID: <8807131906.AA05390@netcon.cua.edu>
Date: 13 Jul 88 19:06:16 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 32

One of our consultants found this quirk in the display of DCL 
continuation prompts; I was unable to explain it.  Can anyone
help explain it?

Quirk:

Normally, the prompt for a continuation of a DCL command (command line 
ending in a hyphen [-]) is the existing prompt preceded by an underscore
(_).

$ command stuff -
_$ more stuff

This works for real commands and symbols which translate to (most) real
commands, but not symbols which translate to "@...."  For these symbols,
the continuation prompt is the same as the ordinary prompt! 

$ some_symbol == "@some_com_file"
$ some_symbol stuff -
$ more stuff	!Note absence of preceding underscore!

Everything seems (?) to work properly, but the absence of the underscore 
is unnerving.

/Hugh Pritchard,             |on BITNET:    PRITCHARD@CUA
Systems Programming          |on INTERNET:  PRITCHARD%CUAVAX.DNET@NETCON.CUA.EDU
                             |     or       PRITCHARD%CUA.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

The Catholic University of America Computer Center  (202) 635-5373
Washington, DC  20064  USA

Disclaimer:  My views aren't necessarily those of the Pope.