ARPUS/ce, Version 2.6.2 (03/10/05) (SCCS 1.3) _______________________________________________________________________________ prefix '<string>' "Set Scan Prefix" DESCRIPTION: 'prefix' is a special command which modifies the way data being written to the transcript pad in a ceterm is processed. <string> is a set of one or more characters to be looked for at the start of each line written to the transcript pad. If a match is found, the rest of the line is assumed to be Ce commands and executed instead of being put in the transcript pads. NOTE: Prefix is not active in vt100 emulation mode. If multiple 'prefix' commands are executed, a stack of prefixes is created. All the prefixes are tested. Thus if "prefix'xxxx';prefix'yyyy'" were executed, lines starting with either xxxx or yyyy would be assumed to be Ce commands. If a prefix command is executed with no parameter or a null parameter the top prefix test in the stack is eliminated. Thus in the previous example, if "prefix" were executed, the "prefix 'yyyy'" would be undone leaving only the xxxx prefix. DEFAULT PREFIX: By default, when a ceterm is initialized, a prefix string of 0x0202 is assumed. This is a string of 2 characters with the hex value 02. Executing a prefix command with no arguments will eliminate this feature. USING PREFIX: There are two interesting uses to this feature. A program other than the shell can be run from a ceterm. If this program is "Ce aware", it can use the xdmc program to run the prefix command and then pass Ce commands in it's stdout intermixed with normal output. The prefix command could also be executed using the -cmd option to ceterm when the program is fired up or from the ceterm.cmd X resource. See the -name option in the xresource help file for more ways of doing this. The Ce aware program could also just make use of the default prefix string. The default prefix could be used in the users prompt to pass information concerning the current working directory to ceterm from the shell. This allows the ceterm process to track the working directory in the shell and thus make clicking on a file name work seamlessly without reverting to building an alias for the cd command. For example: execute the Ce command: kd ^2 er 02 ke This makes <ctrl>-2 enter a hex 02. Then in your .profile set PS1 to: PS1="xxcd \$PWD Unix: " export PS1 Where instead of typing x's you would type <ctrl>-2. This will set the ksh prompt. It will put a cd to the current working directory in each prompt line with instructions for ceterm to pull this out and do the cd. This is probably the best way of keeping the working directory for the Ce command window and the shell window in sync. The author of this help page uses the following prompt: PS1="cd \$PWD $OS[$HOSTNAME]: " PS2="More: " export PS1 PS2 A few things to remember. If you set the prompt this way in your .profile, .dtprofile, .vueprofile, or .kshrc file, make sure you export PS1. Also, when using a .kshrc file, make sure that in your .profile, .dtprofile, or .vueprofile, you have the line: ENV=$HOME/.kshrc ;export ENV This is what tells the ksh to look at .kshrc! RELATED HELP FILES: sp (Set Prefix) xresources (Arguments and X resources) support (customer support) _______________________________________________________________________________ Copyright (c) 2005, Robert Styma Consulting. All rights reserved.