Repeating a command

You might have noticed that as soon as you press the Enter key after typing a command on a panel, the command disappears. A way to keep the command displayed on an edit panel is to precede it with &. When you press the Enter key, the command is issued. With the &, you can issue the command repeatedly without retyping it, or modify the command without having to retype it.

Exercise
Display the contents of a data set in an edit session and enter on the COMMAND line: `&f the` Notice that the command remains after the cursor moves to the first instance of "the". Press the Enter key again. The cursor moves to the second instance of "the". Now change the string to another word such as "in", and press the Enter key.