The general DESL syntax form(s) for a type-2 option argument list :

 
     option_name  +  (on the same or one or more lines immediately
                      following)  :
 
     1.  str-1   str-2   str-3  ...
 
     2.  str-1   thru    str-2  ...
 
     3.  lhs_str-1  =  rhs_str-2   lhs_str-3  =  rhs_str-4  ...
 
     4.  lhs_str-1  =  rhs_str-2  thru  rhs_str-3  ...
 
     5.  lhs_str-1  thru  lhs_str-2  =  rhs_str-3  ...
 
     6.  Any combination of the above forms
 

where, "str-1", etc is a string of up to 16 characters. A sequence of characters is a string if it cannot be legitimately interpreted as a real value. If a sequence of characters which would otherwise be interpreted as a number is desired to be a string, it must be enclosed in question marks (?value?).

And, any sequence of characters which contains an embedded blank must be enclosed in question marks to preserve the embedded blank(s) in the desired string.

In general it is not advised to specify strings with embedded blanks.

In some cases it will be allowed to specify strings of characters which can exceed the 16-character limit. In this case the string longer than 16 characters must be enclosed in question marks.

The thru conjunction acts to imply a sequence of strings. If the two strings bordering the thru both end in one or more numeric characters the left-side string is incremented or decremented by 1 until the string on the right side is matched. Incrementation or decrementation is automatically determined based on the values of the bordering strings' numeric suffixes. The generated sequence of strings is the resulting implied sequence.

In the cases of (3), (4) and (5) above, the name implied to be used internally in the function is on the left hand side (lhs) of the lhs = rhs type construct, while the name to be referenced in the files being processed is on the right hand side (rhs).

If the thru conjunction is used in association with a lhs = rhs type construct then only one side - left or right - can contain the thru. The total number of strings implied on the side with the thru is used to do the string generation on the other side also.

 



      1.  run1 thru run8

      implies :

          run1, run2, run3, ... , run8
 



      2.  run8 thru run3

      implies :

          run8, run7, run6, ... , run3
 



      3.  run1 thru run5 = xx6

      implies :

          LHS :  run1, run2, ... , run5
          RHS :  xx6,  xx7,  ... , xx10
 



      4.  var9 = name5 thru name2

      implies :

          LHS :  var9,  var8,  var7,  var6
          RHS :  name5, name4, name3, name2