2.2 Aids to the User

Xselect has several on-line features to help the user. The first is the on-line help, an interactive browser over the Xselect help file. To get help on a particular topic, just type

xsel > help topic

A command name on its own is looked up under the Commands topic, so

xsel > help extract

goes straight to the extract command text. Within the browser, type a (sub)topic name to descend (the tab key completes topic names), ? to redisplay the current topic, and $<$CR$>$ to move back up a level; an EOF (control-D), or $<$CR$>$ at the top level, returns to Xselect.

If you type ? or ??, you will get a list of all the available commands.

The next useful command is LPARM. This will list all the parameters that a given command takes, as well as their types, current values, and prompts. It is very useful for reminding yourself of what options any given command has. Typing a command name followed by a ? (e.g. extract ?) shows the same listing.

All the commonly used parameters will be prompted for, if not entered on the command line. It is often best, when you are not sure of the order of parameters in a command, to just type the command name and let Xselect prompt you for the values it wants. Whenever a given command has a number of subcommands (e.g. SHOW STATUS, SHOW DATA,...), Xselect will list the available subcommands before giving the prompt.

On UNIX systems, Xselect uses the READLINE command line interpreter. This supports command line editing, filename completion ( use the tab key, hit once it makes the longest unique completion, and if there is more than one completion, a second tab will show you all the possible options) and up and down arrow keys for command recall.

Finally, if you cannot remember the name of some file, or what exactly you called the directory where you stored your data, the $ command, with no arguments, will always break to the shell. You return to Xselect by typing exit, and you will come back at the point you left.