If you write your own Command Processors, and you intend to use the Parse Service Routine to determine which operands have been entered following the command name, your command operands must adhere to the syntactical structure described in this section.

Command operands must be separated from one another by one or more of the separator characters: blank, tab, comma, or a comment (see Table 1). The command operands end either at the end of a logical line (carrier return), or at a semicolon. If the command operands end with a semicolon, and other characters are entered after the semicolon but before the end of the logical line, the Parse Service Routine ignores the portion of the line that follows the semicolon. The parse service routine does not issue a message to indicate this condition.