spec

Software for Diffraction

1.3.8. - Status and Help



Below is a summary of the diagnostic commands -- most have been previously mentioned.

 syms   lists built-in, global and local symbols. 
 lsdef   lists the names and sizes of macros. 
 prdef   prints out macro definitions. 
 lscmd   lists built-in keywords and functions. 



All the above commands can take pattern arguments, employing the metacharacters ? and *. In a pattern argument, ? stands for any single character, while * stands for any string of characters, including the null string. For example, lsdef ??? lists all the three-letter macros:
1.FOURC> lsdef ???
CEN (10) com (12) ned (14) or0 (549) qdo (10) uct (364) _do (479) lup (419) ond (12) or1 (551) set (344) umk (31) bug (275) mvd (192) onp (11) pts (87) uan (23) umv (19) cat (14) mvr (191) ont (9) pwd (11) ubr (31) upl (24) 2.FOURC>

Likewise, lsdef *scan shows all the macro names that end in scan.
1.FOURC> lsdef *scan
Escan (1448) ascan (865) dscan (95) hscan (139) tscan (732) a2scan (1172) d2scan (564) dtscan (143) kscan (139) a3scan (1439) d3scan (688) hklscan(1639) lscan (139) 2.FOURC>

A single * matches everything.

An on-line help facility exists to display files from spec's help directory:
1.FOURC> help
Help is available on the following subjects (type "h subject"): 386 config files geometry macros powder sizes ackno counting flow gpib news print spec angles debug fourc help pdp serial syms changes do functions history plot simulate syntax 2.FOURC>

help (and simply h) are macros that use the built-in gethelp() function to print files contained in the help directory. The above listing is also produced by typing gethelp ("help") . The command gethelp("news") is automatically executed each time the program starts up. New help files particular to a site may be added to the help directory.