2.1 Invoking FunnelWeb

2.1 Invoking FunnelWeb

When a user invokes FunnelWeb at the operating system

command level, the user must provide a command line

Tutorial

instructing FunnelWeb what to do. Typically an operating

system command line consists of a 

verb

  indicating that a

Developer

particular program should be run, followed by a list of options.

For example:

Reference

1 Introduction

rename file1 file2

2 Interface

In this case, the verb is rename and the command line options

3 Scanner

are file1 file2.

4 Parser

Operating systems differ greatly in the depth with which they

5 Analyser

process their command lines, ranging from systems that simply

6 Tangle

pass the entire command line string to the invoked program

7 Weave

(e.g. MSDOS) through to systems that perform complete

8 Shell

command line parsing (e.g. OpenVMS). Syntax conventions

9 Commands

vary considerably.

10 Glossary

So as to achieve maximum portability and consistency of

11 References

invocation across different platforms, FunnelWeb reads its

command line as a raw string and performs all its own parsing.

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This is portable because, at the very least, all operating systems

allow invoked programs access to the raw command line.

The command verb used to invoke FunnelWeb should be "

fw

".

FunnelWeb_verb =  "fw"

If this verb is not available, some alternatives are "

funweb

",

"

fun

", and "

funnelweb

". The verbs web or fweb should be

avoided as they are the names of other literate programming

tools.

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Copyright   Ross N. Williams 1992,1999. All rights

reserved.

http://www.ross.net/funnelweb/reference/interface_invoking.html [3/3/2000 10:48:38 PM]