Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!lll-winken!ubvax!ardent!peck!rap
From: rap@peck.ardent.com (Rob Peck)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: AREXX vs REXX
Message-ID: <7841@ardent.UUCP>
Date: 15 Aug 89 17:10:59 GMT
Sender: news@ardent.UUCP
Reply-To: rap@peck.ardent.com (Rob Peck)
Distribution: comp.lang.rexx
Organization: Ardent Computer Corp., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 37

When preparing to give a tutorial on AREXX, I had the chance to study the
IBM tutorial document on REXX, (my thanks to Lionel Hummel of PDC fame
for telling me about it), the Colinshaw book (which at 42.95 was more
than I paid for AREXX in the first place) and Bill Hawes AREXX reference
manual.   What folks will be interested in is that yes, all of the basics
of REXX are in AREXX.  However there are some extensions that are certainly
Amiga specific.  The one that comes to mind most vividly is the ability
of AREXX to open/read/write files line by line or character by character.
I don't recall seeing this in the IBM version.  I suppose SOMEONE could go
through the documentation (Colinshaw vs Hawes) and explicitly list the
extensions so that folks familiar with REXX would see, as scripts are
posted, where extensions are being used.  However if there is relatively
little traffic here, it may not matter.  How about we just identify
which of the two worlds it comes from (Amiga/IBM) and let the reader
decide if it would be worth perusing the script for ideas.

For those who might be interested, I'll be giving an AREXX tutorial at
Ami Expo, Santa Clara, CA, on October 22, 1989.  Primary emphasis will be
on new user's intro, however the last time around, I had two (of 14)
registrants with a great deal of experience and I was pleasantly surprized
at having been able to answer their questions as well.  I had posted a
message that I am collecting scripts for public consumption and would be
pleased to acknowledge their source.  I make the same offer here -- if
you have something you feel might be useful to a lot of folks, I'd be
pleased to look it over and include it on disk (modified if necessary
for its environment -- REXX->AREXX if appropriate).  For example,
I've created a file HELP.REXX that prints the comment lines from any
AREXX script up to a point where the comments are interrupted by either
a blank line or a line with no comment on it.  The file works, but has
a slight problem with nested comments (which are allowed by AREXX).
When it is fixed, I'll post it.  It is AREXX specific because it reads
files, as compared to the equivalent program (segment) in the REXX
tutorial that prints the help lines in a particular file (built in help)
by using the 'sourceline()' function.


Rob Peck