STZCMD STEEZWARE COMMAND-LINE TOOLS

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
25 July 2013 by Scott McDonell

CONTENTS
Overview ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 2 A Brief History of Extended Console Commands ......................................................................................................................... 2 Commands ................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Requirements .............................................................................................................................................................................. 3 Installation Checklist .................................................................................................................................................................... 4 1 / Download stzCMD .................................................................................................................................................................. 5 2 / Install stzCMD ......................................................................................................................................................................... 5 3 / Edit and Run the Copy-Commands Batch File ........................................................................................................................ 5

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OVERVIEW
stzCMD pronounced steeze-C-M-D is is a set of programs that enhances the ProvideX and PxPlus command-line environment. Some of the tools are based loosely on those I developed while at Sage Software in the late 90s, but in teaming up with ERP Developers, I was able to update the programs to work with PxPlus and to add new commands and increased functionality. stzCMD is used by steezware and ERP Developers for developing PxPlus and Sage 100 applications, but the commands should also work with other versions of ProvideX, such as the 8.31, 9.30 and 9.40 interpreters used by recent versions of MAS 90 and Sage 100.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF EXTENDED CONSOLE COMMANDS

The Business Basic interpreter console mode - often recognized by its READY> prompt - has been used by Business Basic programmers since the advent of the language in the 1970's. Although modern tools allow for program development using a rich UI interface, console mode is still an important and powerful part of the Business Basic language - used for debugging, checking variables on-the-fly, and stepping and tracing through code as it executes. In the late 1980's, a small group of engineers developed MicroShare Basic, a version of Business Basic that supported multitasking and multiple users under MS-DOS. A core feature of MSB was its "extended console commands", which enhanced console mode by having the interpreter automatically redirect commands to called programs. It was a simple and elegant feature, which unburdened the interpreter from many complex and large commands. For example, the MSB interpreter did not have a built-in EDIT function - the methods for editing lines of code in console mode were performed by an extended console command, aptly named EDIT.

H OW CONSOLE COMMANDS WORK

When something is typed at the READY prompt, the interpreter attempts to resolve the syntax and perform the command. For example, PRINT "Hello, World" echoes "Hello, World" on the line below where the command was typed. In Business Basic dialects other than MicroShare, if an unknown or incorrectly structured command is entered, the interpreter returns an ERROR 20 - or possibly some other error, signifying the command could not be interpreted. However, before returning an interpreter error, MicroShare performs one additional step. It parses the command, taking its first argument to use as the name of a called program, with the remainder of the arguments passed as a single string to the called program. For example, entering EDIT 100 calls a program named "EDIT" and passes to it the value "100". The EDIT program then takes that argument, displays line 100, and allows for it to be edited. When the EDIT program is closed, control returns to console command. If a command is entered for which there is no extended console command program, an ERROR 20 message is displayed.

E NHANCEMENTS TO P ROVIDE X...

The early days of developing MAS 90 for Windows were driven to success by the new-kid-on-the-block ProvideX interpreter. Those of us at State of the Art had the amazing opportunity to work closely with Mike King in adding features and capabilities to his already rich language. One of the things I suggested to Mike - since I had formerly been the Director of Product Development at MicroShare - was the idea of extended console commands. Other useful things from MicroShare - such as reserved labels like *NEXT and *CONTINUE - were also added to ProvideX in the late 1990's. I took many of the original ideas from MicroShare and came up with several more to create the MAS 90 console commands, and Mike also added - and continues to add - console commands specific to ProvideX and PvxPlus. I'm sure all good ProvideX programmers know about the console commands, but I am still sometimes surprised when I encounter a fellow Pvx engineer who is unaware of the console commands and their usefulness. Recentyl I was on a call with a programmer and we were debugging an error on a client's system. I told him to type STK at the ready prompt, and he
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asked me, "What does that do? I was very surprised, because the MAS 90 STK command that shows the current program stack is - I feel - one of the most useful console commands at my disposal. After typing STK, he replied, "Wow, how did I not know about that!

COMMANDS
There are eight extended console commands in stzCMD. Each command begins with the letter S, with the second letter indicating the purpose of the tool. SD SF SM SO SP SS ST SZ Displays results of the dump of current memory Shows open files Displays a user-defined menu of the stzCMD tools useful for learning which tools are available Displays active objects in the workplace Show information about the current program labels, variables, functions, methods, properties, and errors Searches strings in the current program Displays the current program stack stzCMD settings stzCMD does not include the simple Sage console commands - such as LD (load a program), E (edit a line), CS (clear screen) or JL (join lines) providing, instead, commands that use full GUI Nomads windows to display information, allowing for filtering and clipboard capture of the results. Future versions of stzCMD will include many of these simple commands, but this release contains only the tools shown above.

REQUIREMENTS
ProvideX or PxPlus The stzCMD tools were written using the ProvideX interpreter and Nomads designer from MAS90 v410, namely: ProvideX Version 6.50.0102 -- Build date Jul 8 2005@01:51:21 Since this early version of Pvx and Nomads were used to create stzCMD, the tools and Nomads windows should be compatible with any later version of ProvideX or PxPlus. PvxDax.DLL The PvxDax.dll object must be registered with the operating system. This is automatically done during the installation process.

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INSTALLATION CHECKLIST

1 2 3 Download stzCMDinstall.exe Install stzCMD Edit and run the batch file to copy commands

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1 / DOWNLOAD STZCMD
Download stzCMDinstall.exe from this site http://www.steezware.com/download.html

2 / INSTALL STZCMD
Run the stzCMDinstall.exe installation program. During installation, you must 1. Agree to the End-User License Agreement

After installation, you should have a c:\steezware main folder with subfolders as shown below

If you have stzUE installed, the stzCMD installation process will overwrite programs and images in the common folder. These files are used by all steezware developer tools, and will not affect or harm the execution of stzUE or alter its settings.

3 / EDIT AND RUN THE COPY-COMMANDS BATCH FILE

Console command programs must be stored in the Pvx LIB\_CMD folder. For stzCMD to function properly, you must move the programs from the installation c:\steezware\stzCMD\_cmd folder to each LIB\_CMD folder where you have Pvx or PxPlus installed. To assist in making this process easier, a batch file installed in the C:\steezware\stzCMD folder can be edited and run to push the programs to each of your _cmd folders. 1. 2. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the C:\steezware\stzCMD folder. Right-click on stzCMDmove.bat and select Edit

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3.

The contents of the batch file are shown below

@echo on ::Modify the path names below to point to the LIB folder of your ::Pvx or PxPlus installations and remove the :: leading characters ::Add additional copy commands as needed ::copy c:\steezware\stzCMD\_cmd\* "C:\PVX Plus Technologies\PxPlus V11\Lib\_cmd" /V ::copy c:\steezware\stzCMD\_cmd\* "C:\Sage410\MAS90\Home\Lib\_cmd"/V ::Done @echo. @echo. ::Remove the :: from the following line to view the copy process ::pause @exit

4.

5.

Edit the ::copy lines a. Remove the :: from the beginning of a line to activate it. b. Modify the to-folder in the copy statement. The to-folder must end with lib\_cmd c. Add additional copy commands for each Pvx installation on which you want to run stzCMD commands. d. If you want to see the progress of the batch file probably a good idea the first time you edit and run it remove the :: from the beginning of the ::pause statement. e. Exit and save the changes Double-click on stzCMDmove.bat to copy the commands to the _cmd folders.

This completes the installation of stzCMD. For instructions on how to use the commands, please refer to the stzCMD-commands.pdf document found in the c:\steezware\stzCMD\docs folder, and also available here: http://www.steezware.com/docs-and-videos.html

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