[Info-vax] Command Line Versus Command Line

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

On Thu, 23 May 2024 15:05:42 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:

> On 5/23/2024 12:16 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> VMS really wants you to use a DCL-style syntax for your command lines.
>> It does weird things like uppercasing text in the command buffer,
>> except for parts in quotes, which are left as-is, but then the quotes
>> are also left in place, so command-line parsers have to worry about
>> dealing with text that might or might not be quoted.
> 
> That is an oversimplified view on a complex issue.

What you have done is rely on library routines to impose a commonality on 
the underlying raw command buffer contents. And those library routines are 
CLI-specific, as I recall; notwithstanding their “cli$” name prefix, they 
are part of DCL itself.

Like I said, on *nix systems, there is no automatic assumption that you 
need the intervention of a CLI/shell just for one program to execute 
another.