shell(1fmli)

shell -- run a command using shell

Synopsis

   shell command [command] . . .

Description

The shell function concatenates its arguments, separating each by a space, and passes this string to the UNIX system shell ($SHELL if set, otherwise /usr/bin/sh).

Examples

Since the Form and Menu Language does not directly support background processing, the shell function can be used instead.

   `shell "build prog > /dev/null &"`

If you want the user to continue to be able to interact with the application while the background job is running, the output of an executable run by shell in the background must be redirected: to a file if you want to save the output, or to /dev/null if you don't want to save it (or if there is no output), otherwise your application may appear to be hung until the background job finishes processing.

shell can also be used to execute a command that has the same name as an FMLI built-in function.

Notices

The arguments to shell will be concatenated using spaces, which may or may not do what is expected. The variables set in local environments will not be expanded by the shell because ``local'' means ``local to the current process.''

References

sh(1)