Lesson 8 Online Help

Lesson 8 presents the online help facility:

information on your terminal screen about the MPE/iX commands
how to study MPE/iX command syntax on your own

The online help facility

The help facility contains almost all of the references of the MPE/iX Commands Reference Manual (32650-60002). Because it is online, help gives you its information on your terminal screen.

The command to start the help facility is HELP.

Getting into help

Try it:

   HELPReturn

You will see this on the screen:

                This is the MPE XL Help Facility



     *     Enter SUMMARY, CLASS, a commandname, or HELPSTUDY       *

           -------------------------------------------------

     SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . A summary of changes in MPE XL.



     CLASS. . . . . . . . . .    Classes of Commands

                         SESSIONS, JOBS, FILES, SUBSYSTEMS, ETC.



     < command name >. . . . . . COMMAND entries, by name



     < command name >< keyword > COMMAND entry with keyword

                                 PARMS, OPERATION, EXAMPLE



     HELPSTUDY . . . . . . . . . A beginner's introduction to Help



     EXIT. . . . . . . . . . . . To leave the Help Facility.



                   HELP has a hierarchical structure.

                  You can use UPPERCASE or lowercase.





     >>>>>>>>>>>  The name of this screen is HELPMENU  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

>

Notice that the help facility has its own prompt, the "greater than" (>) symbol.

Getting out of help

When you are using the help facility, you see the help prompt whenever the scrolling has stopped.

To get out of help, type EXIT or E at the help prompt and press Return. Do that now to get out of help.

   >EReturn

When you see the system prompt (:), you are no longer in help. You are back to where you started before you asked for help.

The instructions here for using the help facility are very abbreviated.

Getting around in help

Suppose that you want to learn about the REDO command.

Start the help facility again.

   HELPReturn

The help prompt at the lower left corner of your screen tells you that the help facility is waiting for your instruction.

Enter:

   REDOReturn

What happens?

You will see this on the screen:

   :REDO



      Allows the user to edit and reexecute any command still

      retained in the command line history stack.  (MODIFIED)



   SYNTAX



      :REDO [ [CMD=]cmdid][ [;EDIT=]editstring]



   NOTE:



   This command follows the more flexible MPE/iX command line syntax.

   Refer to the MPE/iX Commands Reference Manual (32650-60002).



   KEYWORDS: PARMS,OPERATION,EXAMPLE

>

Syntax

Syntax is a formal way of diagramming a command and all of its parameters. The rest of the help entry on each command is devoted to explaining the command, its parameters, and how to use them. You can study syntax diagrams in the MPE/iX Commands Reference Manual (32650-60002) and in the HELPSTUDY portion of the help facility.

The help keywords

A keyword tells you about other information that is available on the command you that want to look up:

The PARMS keyword (short for parameters) shows you definitions of the parameters for a command.
Enter:
REDO PARMSReturn
The OPERATION keyword explains the operation of the command.
Enter:
REDO OPERATIONReturn
The EXAMPLE keyword shows you one or more examples of the command as it is used.

Enter:

   REDO EXAMPLEReturn

If you enter REDOReturn, you can press Return to jump forward to PARMS.

Press Return again and jump forward to OPERATION, and then to EXAMPLE.

A final press of Return takes you to the next command entry.

Try looking up a command (SHOWJOB, for instance). Then press Return one or more times to see how it works.

The help facility screen

Whenever you ask for information on a command (without specifying a keyword) you will see:

the command name
a definition of the command
the command syntax
any special notes about the command
keywords for the command

A more detailed discussion of commands and their syntax can be found in the 900 Series HP3000: Advanced Skills course, and in the help facility itself, under the entry HELPSTUDY.

The help facility's online tutorial

The help facility has a self-paced, online tutorial called HELPSTUDY.

To get to HELPSTUDY, you must first be in the help facility. Once there, enter:

   helpstudyReturn

Here is what you see:

             OOOO  OOOO               OOO               OO

              OO    OO                OO               OOOO

              OO    OO    OOOOOOO     OO     OOOOOOO    OO

              OOOOOOOO   OO    OO     OO    OO    OO

              OO    OO   OOOOOOOO     OO    OO    OO    OO

              OO    OO   OO           OO    OO    OO   OOOO

             OOOO  OOOO   OOOOOOO    OOOO   OOOOOOO     OO

                                            OO

                                            OO

        This is a study aid for             OO

        beginners in MPE XL                OOO



CHOOSE ONE...                  AND DO THIS...



1) FIND A COMMAND           Enter its name and press <RETURN >



2) QUIT HELP                Enter E (or e) and press <RETURN >



3) SHOW ME MORE             Simply press <RETURN >



   ABOUT HELP AND           ...useful if you are new to HP computers

   COMMANDS                 ...or just new to computers

>

Press Return.

Use Return to "page" forward. You may wish to spend a few minutes to skim the text.

To leave HELPSTUDY and stay in the help facility, enter the name of any command that you want to look up. Enter HELPMENU to go back to the very beginning of the help facility.

When you are ready to leave the help facility, do this:

   EReturn

Lesson 8 Exercises

Which HP 3000 command allows you to get online reference to all commands on the system?
Use the online help facility to answer the following questions:
1. Does the SHOWME command have any parameters?
2. Is the SHOWJOB command operational in both jobs and sessions?
3. What is the date and time given in the SHOWTIME example?