MIDAS Help files

Each command in MIDAS must have it own help-file which can be used by the on-line help facility. The name of the file is constructed from the command name and qualifier. The name is in lower case and consists of the first six charachers of the command name with the first four characters of the qualifier appended. If the command name is shorter than six characters an underscore '_' is inserted to separate the two fields. The help files have the extension '.hlq'. It contains a number of sections as shown in Table .

 

Table: Sections in help-files.

Help section	Start label	End label	Contents
Section	\se	\es	Command qualifier section
Command	\co	\oc	Command name and date
Purpose	\pu	\up	General purpose of command
Subject	\sb	\bs	Subject keywords
Short help	\su	\us	Short command description
Syntex	\sy	\ys	Command syntax
Parameter	\pa	\ap	Parameter item
Note	\no	\on	General notes
See also	\sa	\as	Command cross references
Outputs	\op	\po	Command outputs
Restrictions	\rs	\sr	Command restrictions
Examples section	\xs	\sx	Example section
Examples item	\ex	\xe	Example item

 

This files will be processed by TEX using a special macro. Thus, care should be taken that the text is compatible with TEX. An example of a help file for the command READ/DESC is given in Figure .

  

Figure: example of helpfile for READ/DESC command

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