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OS/2 Shareware BBS: 16 Announce
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REXXLIB.TXT
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1993-04-08
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REXXLIB
for OS/2
Essential library functions
for REXX
REXX is a great language, and its availability for OS/2 is a big
plus for OS/2. However, it falls short of its full potential for
enhancing your productivity under OS/2 because it lacks certain
very key functions - things like sorting, mathematics,
interprocess communication, date handling, and user interfacing.
Quercus Systems has been involved with REXX since 1985, so we
understand very well how people use REXX and the sorts of
capabilities they need in REXX. We have worked hard to include
these things in our Personal REXX product. When IBM came out with
a REXX implementation for OS/2, we noted with some interest that
almost all of these essential functions were not there.
So we decided to do something about it: REXXLIB. This is a
package of all the most important functions from our DOS and OS/2
versions of Personal REXX - and a large number of new ones we've
added to take full advantage of the tremendous power of OS/2 2.0.
There are over 150 functions altogether.
REXXLIB is a standard part of our latest release of Personal REXX
for OS/2. While we feel that many people will choose Personal
REXX because of the significant advantages it has over the plain
vanilla REXX which comes with OS/2, we want to help REXX succeed
in OS/2 by offering this package of functions to everyone.
Here's a quick overview of what REXXLIB contains:
Stem/array functions. Think how often you have wanted a
convenient way to find out all the "tails" of a given compound
variable, or sort a whole array, or copy it to another stem,
or save the whole array in a disk file.
Mathematical functions. REXX comes with great "infinite"
precision arithmetic, but it has no support at all for common
functions like square root, exponential (non-integral power),
logarithms, or trig functions. REXXLIB fixes that.
Interprocess communication. One of the stand-out features of
OS/2 is its wide array of interprocess communication
facilities, which are so useful in building applications using
a client-server model. REXXLIB now lets REXX programs use some
of these tools, like semaphores and named pipes.
OS/2 system services. REXXLIB lets REXX programs list file
extended attributes, list running processes, change file dates
or sizes, test the validity of file names, and much more.
In more detail...
REXXLIB contains over 150 functions, many of which have multiple
subfunctions. Numbers alone don't tell the whole story, of
course, since REXXLIB, like the REXX language itself, has been
designed to package functionality in the most logical and useful
way, rather than merely offer a large number of poorly chosen and
poorly organized functions.
The following sections can list only some of the more noteworthy
capabilities provided.
Stem/array functions
Copy or insert elements of one array into another
Delete a range of elements from an array
Sort an array, using multiple fields in each element
List all "tails" of a compound variable (with optional
selection based on pattern matching)
Write collections of variables to a file and read them back
Interprocess communication
Create, post, reset, query, or wait on an event semaphore
Create, release, request, or query a mutual exclusion
semaphore
Create, connect, disconnect, query, or wait on a named pipe
Mathematical functions
Trigonometric functions: sin, cos, tan, acos, asin, atan
Hyperbolic functions: cosh, sinh, tanh
Logarithm, exponential, power functions
Miscellaneous: erf, erfc, gamma
Operating system and other services
Convert dates between any standard REXX formats (which permits
date arithmetic)
List all extended attributes of a file
List all processes running in the system
Query and change file dates, sizes, and attributes
Parse file names, test file name validity, or do wildcard
editing of file names
Read or write a whole file to or from a REXX array
Search for all file records containing a string or pattern
Calculate the CRC of a file
Use REXX macro spaces
User interface
Read or write directly to the screen (text mode)
Build and display menus, windows, and data entry panels (text
mode)
Read user input with cursor and editing control
Summary
Except for certain functions which are included for
compatibility with Personal REXX, REXXLIB takes account of
functions already available in IBM's OS/2 REXX and REXXUTIL
and does not unnecessarily duplicate services.
REXXLIB is fully 32-bit code that is designed for OS/2 2.0.
REXXLIB is included with Personal REXX for OS/2 and is
designed to be a fully compatible add-on function package for
IBM's OS/2 REXX.
Package includes 87 pages of printed documentation and
corresponding online documentation file in INF format.
Price: $50
Quercus Systems
P. O. Box 2157
Saratoga, CA 95070
Phone: (408) 867-7399
Fax: (408) 867-7489
BBS: (408) 867-7488