Conventions Used in this Chapter

• This chapter explains the commands by listing the verbs in alphabetic order. Each section is organized as follows.

  Format:

  SPECTRA> verb/qualifier parameter

  Description:

  A general description.

  /qualifier

  What the qualifier does.

  e.g.:

  SPECTRA> ...
  The description of the example.

  2. Format:

  SPECTRA> verb/other_qualifier parameter

  2. Description:

  The description of the second format.

  In general there is only one format line. But for some of the verbs it is more convenient to split the information into several parts, e.g. the verb create appears with /array, /scan, /text or /ub. Since these qualifiers are used with different sub qualifiers, each one of them has its own format line followed by a description.

• Optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets. The following example explains that the verb ACTIVATE can be used with no, one or two parameters:

  SPECTRA> activate [id1 [id2]]

  The strings id1 and id2 are place-holders for names or numbers. In most cases it is convenient to refer to GQEs using numbers instead of names. The following command line tells SPECTRA to activate the four GQEs following SCAN number 2:

  SPECTRA> activate 2.1 2.4

• The format line shows keywords in bold faced characters. Text which has to be supplied by the user appears in normal style.
• Examples from command files are printed in typewriter style.
• An asterisk in a keyword indicates, how a keyword can be abbreviated.

• Two "prompt" character strings appear in the examples of this chapter, "SPECTRA>" and "$". "SPECTRA>" indicates that a command is entered to SPECTRA. The "$" prompt precedes commands which are input of the DCL interpreter (DIGITAL command language).

• GQE stands for graphic queue element.
• The qualifier values can be of the type text_expr, int_expr or float_expr. These term stand for expressions that result in a string, an integer number or a floating point number. Expressions are explained in section 14.1.