Arbortext Command Language > Using the Arbortext Command Language > The sh Command
  
The sh Command
Information can be processed by either Arbortext Editor, using ACL, or it can be passed to the operating system shell for processing. Various features of Arbortext Editor allow you to pass information between the shell and Arbortext Editor.
The sh command passes the given command(s) to the system shell.
The following example displays the Windows Character Map window which allows you to insert extended characters not found on all keyboards:
sh charmap &
Use the ampersand (&) when launching any program that displays a window. The ampersand allows Arbortext Editor to continue processing while the window is displayed.
sh runs the commands in a new shell. This means that you cannot use the command to set environment variables in the login shell (cmd.exe).
When running a single command, quotes around it are allowed but not necessary.
sh ls -lag
sh 'ls -lag'
sh "ls -lag"
When running multiple commands, or commands that contain curly braces ({}), quotes are necessary and the commands must be delimited by semicolons (;) For example:
sh 'cd c:\temp;dir *.xml'
Note that single quotes inhibit variable substitution. When a variable is to be substituted, use double quotes. For example:
sh "cd %HOME%;del *.tmp"