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1986-11-14
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^1 ECCO (Italian: "Behold!")
By Bryan Higgins
Echo arguments for MS-DOS, PC-DOS
This is a substitute for the ECHO command in MS-DOS. Like ECHO, ECCO outputs
a given line (all characters following the word "ECCO" on the command line) to
the standard output device (the screen, unless redirected through the ">"
operator or the CTTY command).
Then why is ECCO needed, if it only duplicates an existing command? Because
ECHO has a few problems. For instance, it is difficult to use ECHO to output
the words "ON" and "OFF", since these are special commands. It is also
difficult to cause special control characters to be output, such as linefeeds,
bells, backspaces, etc. These difficulties are remedied with ECCO.
ECCO does not recognize "ON" and "OFF" as commands, thus allowing you to
output strings that begin with these words. (You need to use the ECHO command
if you actually do want to issue an "ECHO ON" or "ECHO OFF" command.) Also, a
method (described below) is provided to insert whatever bizarre control
characters you wish, without actually having to type them.
ECCO is useful for causing lines to be output within batch files. It will work
whether or not "ECHO OFF" is set. For example,
ECCO Compiling program
will write "Compiling program" to the terminal.
Unusual characters may be specified with a backslash followed by the three-
digit octal ASCII code for the character. All three digits must be given.
ECCO \007Ding, ding!\007
ECCO Here are\015\012two lines
(Note: 007 is the octal code for a bell character, which causes a beep to
sound. 015 is a carriage return, and 012 is a line feed. A carriage return
followed by a linefeed causes your PC to go to the start of a new line.)
To output a true backslash, use two:
ECCO Here is one backslash: \\; two: \\\\
Special use of ECCO for DEC Rainbow users:
To get rid of the nauseating ECHO OFF which appears when you first turn echo
off (anyone out there know how to patch COMMAND.COM to fix this?):
echo off
ecco \033[2A\033[J\033[A
The second line sends the escape sequences to move the cursor up and erase the
offending prose. (033 is the octal code for the ESC character, and the other
characters are command sequences recognized by the Rainbow's operating
system.) I don't think it's that easy on the IBM PC (unless running the funky
ANSI driver).
Copyright (c) 1985, 1986 by Bryan Higgins.
DISK FILES THIS PROGRAM USES:
ECCO.COM
ECCO.DOC (This documentation)