Obsolete commands

This document describes obsolete EDA commands.

EDA WORKFILE

This section describes the syntax of all commands relating to the EDA work file.

These commands are obsolete and might disappear from future versions of EDA.

NEW users: Skip to the next section!!!!! IMPORTANT the old commands have been converted to options of a single command called *WORK. You should adapt command files and command sequences.

The command and its options shown here used to be the initial EDA system file management commands.

The command is provided for compatibility reasons with older EDA versions. Users are encouraged to transfer these files into standard EDA system file. On new implementations these facilities are no longer available.

The next version of EDA will drop the possibility of writing such files. Based on public demand (hopefully absence of public demand) save files will stay or disappear.

ATTACH

*WORK ATTACH   ["fname"] [CREATE]
Connects the file "fname" (default name is EDAWORK ) for use as EDA workfile. The CREATE option is used to create a new file. For more details refer to the section on file assignments.

*COPY

*WORK b#,v1[,v2] COPY


*WORK b#,v1[,v2] COPY ADD
*WORK b#,v1[,v2] COPY PERCENT


*WORK b#,v1[,v2] COPY CASE=c# [ADD]
This command copies v1 from block number b into the WA as variable v2 (or v1 if v2 is not present) from the attached workfile file. The second command format adds the source variable to v2. The third format computes the destination variable as percent of the variable on the EF, without loading it into the WA. The 4th format copies (optionally adds) the source variable to the case specified, i.e. this facility transposes the variable when copying it.

LOAD

*WORK b# LOAD  ["filename"]
Loads block b into WA. The variables residing in the work area are lost. If no file is attached, the EDA-file in the option field (or the default file) is attached.

PASSWORD

*WORK PASSWORD  old
Purpose: changes the password. If old is not the correct old password, the new password cannot be entered. (Bad password message).

*RELEASE

*WORK RELEASE
Releases the attached EF (direct access). Together with the *ATTACH command this commands allows dynamic assigning of different eda-files, without leaving EDA.

SAVE

*WORK B SAVE  B# [password]
Purpose: Saves the WA into block number b; if b is not specified, or if the specified block is not empty the WA is copied into the next empty block. Block label and description are entered at this point. If a password has been stored with the file, it must be given as option.

INFORMATION

*WORK [b#] INFORMATION FILE        
*WORK [b#] INFORMATION BLOCKS      
*WORK [b#] INFORMATION COMPLETE    
*WORK [b#] INFORMATION ALLOCATION
Informs the user about the attached workfile. 
   b      same as DESCRIBE ALL for a non-loaded
          block.
   FILE   information about the attached EF.
   BLOCKS all information attached to the blocks.
   ALLO   number of variables for each block in EF
   COMPLETE all available information

PURGE

*WORK B# PURGE  [password]
Delete block b from eda-file. If a password has been specified for the file, it must be given, otherwise the purge is not done.

EDA save file

Important: check the system documentation whether these commands are implemented or not. If these commands are not active in your implementation it means that their use is not reasonable on your system (depending upon the system either files produced by these facilities are so huge that it exceeds file quota for normal users or time needed to produce these files is just not worth the effort of having these facilities, instead of using PUT/GET. [For knowledgeable persons, this is a problem with direct access files].

RESTORE

RESTORE  <option>
Restore the previously SAVEd work are. (See the SAVE command for more details and the meaning of the <option>. .command SAVE 
SAVE        | <option> |  [KEEP | NOKEEP]
SSAVE       | ALL      |
            | ?        |
            | INFO     |


RESTORE       <option>
SRESTORE
SAVES, resp. RESTores the WA or items specified by <option> to a (usually) temporary file, either for security purposes (system crash, user faults, add security when typing in data or modifying it) or editing purposes.

This file is deleted when EDA terminates normally, unless the KEEP parameter is specified either on a SAVE or on the STOP/QUIT command (KEEP on the save command sets a flag which may be cleared by a SAVE NOKEEP). Note that the KEEP/NOKEEP parameters are not separate commands, they are always given with some other save function; use INFO or ? if no action is desired). If EDA does not terminate normally the file is not deleted and the next time the user calls eda the file is re-attached and the wa reloaded (see the section on wa security). The same holds if the keep option has been used.

The save file contains two distinct areas the first one is used with the save/restore command, the second with ssave and srestore commands.

The items specified by <params> are saved, resp. Restored. The SAVE/SSAVE command have three more parameters: ALL for saving all items (if they exist); ? And info are used to get information on what is saved on the file. The ? Indicates only the items saved, info additionally displays the names (labels and descriptors) for the WAs, MATRIces and CONFIGs saved.

The following items are specified with <params>, if no are present the items marked with a * are saved/restored (these starred items are labelled "WA" on the INFO/? inquiry). 

   * LABELS          variable labels
   * DESCRIPTORS     variable descriptors
   * CASIDS          case identifiers
   * DATA            variables in the wa
   * GVAR            the grouping variable
   * TABLE           the table ties
     MATRIX          matrix area
     C1              configur
     C2              configur2
     CLABEL          variable labels attached to configs and
                     MATRIX
     CCAS            case(dimension)labels used with configs
     MACROS          single line macros
     VARIABLES       letter variables
Note that CLABEL and CCASID are implied by c1 or c2 if they are attached to it. The separate command are used to do some trickier things if the automatic mechanism does not give the desired results.

SAVE PLOT This is a special form producing a file for EDAPLOT. This WA file is automatically loaded, when the plotter interface is called. This file has no meaning for the EDA main program and cannot be RESTored.