Radio Shack TRS-80 Trsdos & Disk Basic Reference Manual page 33

TRSDOS
Overview
Entering a
Command
Whenever
the
prompt,
DOS READY
is
displayed,
you
may
enter
an operator
command.
In
its
simplest
form, an operator
command
is
just a single
word
-
a
system or library
command,
the
name
of an extended
utility
program,
or the
name
of
a
user
command
program.
All
these categories will
be
detailed later.
As an example,
dip.
Q2QH1
tells
TRSDOS
to display the user
file
directory for drive
0.
In general,
operator
commands
will
require
more
than one word;
for
example,
to
kill
(delete)
a
certain
file,
you
have to specify the
file
name.
-kill xy2
nana
tells
TRSDOS
to find the
file
named XYZ,
eliminate
it
from
the
directory of the diskette
which
contains
it,
and
release
the space
occupied
by
that
file.
In general,
an operator
command
consists
of
a
command
followed by
one
or
more
file
specifications,
followed by
special
parameters:
command
[Wespec] [^(param)} [tfTO]
[tyfilespec]
[^(param)}
where
filespec
is
a valid
TRSDOS
file
specification
(more below)
param
is
a
parameter which
details
how
the
command
affects
the
specified
file(s).
If
this
command
format seems complex, don't
worry;
that's
because
it's
so generalized.
The
actual
commands
can be
quite simple, as
you'll see
from
the
examples
given
with each
command.
Whenever you
finish
typing in a
command,
press
1^113
il
.
TRSDOS
will
then process the
command
as
follows:
1)
Check
to see
if it's
a
system or
library
command;
if so,
execute
it
immediately
. . .
otherwise
2)
Check
to see
if it's
the
name
of
a utility
program;
if
so,
execute
it
via
the
extended
utility
package
. .
.
otherwise
3)
Examine
the
diskette directory
on
each drive to see
if
the
command
is
listed as a
user
command
file;
if so,
load
and
execute the
file.
3-5