Abbreviations

· The first mechanism relies on the unknown command whose behavior is described in Command Processing.

· The second mechanism is built-into the individual dcecp commands themselves. This allows the operation name to be abbreviated to the shortest unique operation supported for an object, and the options to be abbreviated to the shortest unique string representing an option supported by an object and operation.

For example, consider the directory create operation:

directory create /.:/admin/printers/ascii -replica -clearinghouse SFO_CH

In the abbreviated form, the same operation can be entered as:

dir cre /.:/admin/printers/ascii -r -c SFO_CH

Although abbreviating commands is a good way to save typing in interactive commands, abbreviations are not recommended for use in scripts. New procedures in scripts can cause abbreviations to become ambiguous. Furthermore, abbreviations are not always portable. When scripts move to other machines, some definitions may be left behind so scripts will not work correctly. Always spell out complete names in scripts.