Reference > Commands

The form of the REPLY command is:

REPLY variable . text,

where variable must be an ivar or an svar. Both text and variable must appear. Text may not be more than 60 characters in length.

IMPORTANT: if the variable is not previously defined, then a letter (S or I) must appear before the variable in the command, denoting its type.

Text definitions immediately following a REPLY command can be used to assign text to the variable in the command, as if they had been defined following the definition of the variable.

The REPLY command is used to read the answer to a yes-no question keyed in at the terminal and to save it as a value in an ivar or svar. When a REPLY command is encountered, text is displayed at the screen, followed by a question mark, and execution control is transferred to you at the terminal.

You must enter either the letter Y (YES) or the letter N (NO); or you may just hit the <RETURN> key. If you enter Y, the variable is set to 1, if N, the variable is set to 2, and if nothing the variable is set to 0.

You may also use the ESCAPE key, in which case control is transferred to the next CP (checkpoint) command in the CL script.

A summary of the number of times each REPLY command was executed appears in the Report file.

If the run control parameter NODIS is set, REPLY commands are ignored at execution time.

Examples of REPLY commands:

replys $st . 'are you married',

replyi $iv1.'is this a question',