B.2 Special Characters

The parser recognizes the following special characters:

! - indicates the rest of the line is a comment
@ - starts reading commands from a command file
$ - spawn to the system
" - protects other special characters
= - seperate parameter-value pairs

As a result, you should observe the following rules when entering expressions on the command line.

• An argument with imbedded spaces must be delimited by double quotes.

• An argument containing an @ or a ! must be surrounded by double quotes.

• A leading minus sign on a filename (used to remove the file from a filter list) must also be protected by double quotes.

• = signs are trapped by the parser, so use .eq. in selection expressions, or surround your expressions with double quotes. In fact, to be safe it is always best to do this anyway.