Truncating commands

Instead of forcing the user to enter the full command name when typing a command in the command area, you can a shortcut for the user by defining command truncations for commands. The user can issue a truncated command in the command area by entering the minimum number of characters you specify for the command.

To specify truncation for a command, you code the T (truncation) tag within the external-command-name of the command.

For example, to specify "qu" as the minimum command for the QUIT command, you add the T tag to the external-command-name, like this:

<cmdtbl applid=brws>
  <cmd name=quit>qu<t>it
    <cmdact action='alias exit'>
⋮
</cmdtbl>

The T tag follows the characters you specify as the minimum command.

With this truncation, the user can issue the QUIT command by typing the command in one of these ways:

qu
qui
quit

However, you should be careful to avoid adding truncations that duplicate other truncations in the command table. For example, these two truncations define minimum commands ("co") that are identical:

<cmdtbl applid=brws>
  <cmd name=comp>co<t>mpare
    <cmdact action=passthru>
  <cmd name=copy>co<t>py
    <cmdact action=passthru>
</cmdtbl>

The preceding definition would cause the conversion utility to issue a warning message.

To avoid this type of duplication, place the T tag appropriately in the CMD tag content. The duplication shown in the example can be avoided by coding the truncations in this way:

<cmdtbl applid=brws>
  <cmd name=comp>com<t>pare
    <cmdact action=passthru>
  <cmd name=copy>cop<t>y
    <cmdact action=passthru>
</cmdtbl>