Issuing Commands to Host System
In this REXX version all the commands are executed via
command interpreter (normally COMMAND.COM)
So valid environments are:
o COMMAND, SYSTEM, DOS, '': load and execute command
interpreter from COMSPEC env. variable.
+ o INT2E: executes commands via interrupt 2E
+ the undocumented back door to COMMAND.COM.
+ Normally it is faster then environments COMMAND etc.
+ because there is no need to load an extra copy of
+ COMMAND.COM before execute the command.
+ Note. Commands executed through INT2E cannot be
+ redirected to stack. There is a BUG that causes
+ sometimes a Fatal error. While executing a cmd
+ via int2e and you press Control-C you may have
+ some very strange results.
A command is an expression, which may include
function-calls, arithmetic operations, and so on. Operators
or other special characters (for example, "(" or "*") must
be specified in a string if they are to appear in the
issued command.
| Commands to environments COMMAND, SYSTEM may return its
| result to REXX stack when at the end of cmd appears the
| string (STACK, (FIFO or (LIFO (with the parenthesis).
| "dir (stack"
| If the string STACK> appears in the beginning of cmd, then
| stack is redirected to stdin of cmd.
| "stack> date"
| Stack is flushed after redirecting it to stdin.
Redirection to or from STACK will create a temporary file
with name like OAA.AAB that will be erased. It is nice
to redirect all your temporary pipe files to a temporary
directory. To do this set in your AUTOEXEC.BAT a new line
containing:
SET TEMP=C:\TEMP
where C:\TEMP is the temporary directory (which must exist)
and you must have Read/Write authority.
(Look also below at LOAD function )