Writing Your Own Command Files

 To save time and keystrokes when reducing your data, you can write command files that will do the tedious work for you. When writing command files it is usually faster to be outside of SPECX. To do this you can either do

1.

$\gt\!\gt$ exit; which will take you out of SPECX completely, or

2.

$\gt\!\gt$ $
Shell command line? This is your cue to enter any shell command that you would like, such as, say,

emacs &

to start up emacs in a separate window which will remain until you specifically close it.

3.

You can just type this without asking for the prompt, of course:

>> $ emacs &

4.

If you are using a windowed terminal, open a completely separate xterm, say, for the purpose.

A command file is very simple to understand because it's just a list of SPECX commands. The only pitfalls are knowing what order to submit the commands to SPECX and knowing in advance what questions SPECX is going to ask. This implies a little experience is useful before trying to write your own command procedures. Which is why this information is not placed earlier in this Cookbook.