Rules of META Commands

Meta commands are high-level commands, many of which work in both Survent and Mentor. Meta commands are preceded by a greater than (>) character. When the program reads this > sign, it knows that a special program command is being requested.

General Rules

  • Meta commands must start in column one. (Unless you use >ALLOW_INDENT.)
  • Meta commands are used to turn options on and off by placing a minus sign (-) after the greater than sign (>) and before the command.
    • For EXAMPLE: >-ALLOW_INDENT.
  • Options to meta commands can be entered in any order (unless otherwise indicated).
  • The command as shown on the first line of each section (in the left margin) reflects the full version of the command.
  • Underscores used to separate words are always optional.
    • For EXAMPLE: DB_TO_FILE can be abbreviated DBTOFILE.
  • Plural commands can be abbreviated without the S.
    • For EXAMPLE: COLORS can be shortened to COLOR.

The syntax for META commands is:

>meta command <options>