In <sasswb.737135699@k2> sasswb@unx.sas.com (Scott Bass) writes:  >1.  For Windows NT, is there an alternative to the archane, fairly useless >DOS batch programming language?  For OS/2, IBM introduced the REXX language >as an alternative to .BAT.  Surely Windows NT should do the same thing, >right?  >2.  In lieu of the above, is there ***ANY*** way to escape the CR/LF in a >.BAT file and continue a single command across multiple lines?  I have an >application which exits to the system and submits a batch file.  The batch >file is created on the fly from site-specific code stored within the >application.  As currently designed, the line length for the stored code >and the output file (.BAT file) is 80 characters, which is not enough for >all the options that must be specified on a particular command.  It would >help tremendously if I didn't have to redesign my code to kludge around the >lack of a true batch/"shell" programming language.  < rest deleted >  As a followup to my post let me add that:  I'm not really a Windows or Windows NT user, so please excuse my ignorance. However, I'm a developer at SAS Institute, and one component of the application that I support is the ability to submit a (SAS) batch job from within an interactive SAS session.  The user site can enter their site-specific "batch profile" into a dataset within our product, specifying the pathname to the SAS executable, specifying site specific SAS options, etc.  At run time certain variables are resolved, and the resolved file is written to an external ascii file.  Then I exit to the operating system and run the job asynchronously, returning to the interactive session as soon as the job is submitted.  The batch job then runs concurrently with the interactive session.  As currently designed, the internal dataset has a record length of 80 characters.  But, to run the batch job, the command to reinvoke SAS in batch mode requires more than 80 characters.  Up til NT this has not been a problem, since every job control/shell language up til NT (eg. MVS/CMS/VMS/UNIX/OS2) had a way to escape the CR/LF and enter a single command across multiple lines (OS/2 via their REXX language, which is *STANDARD* with OS/2).  The gist of all this is, since this application is for end-users, not within my company, I have to try to develop this process using native NT. Since my first posting I've learned that there are several third party companies that provide alternative script languages for Windows/Windows NT. And I'm sure a company that licenses our product would use that alternative script language if they had it, but I can't develop under the assumption that they have anything other than what comes with NT.  I saw another post on this list (the subject was something like "Is vi available for Windows?") in which someone said that vi, make, awk, and ***ksh*** was available with Microsoft TOOLKIT.  What is that product?  Is it a separate product or part of Windows?  ksh would do what I need if I could count on it at all NT sites.  One last question:  I've heard that NT has remote processing capabilities, i.e. I could shove this batch job off to a server machine and have it run there.  If these are native NT commands rather than network specific commands, this would also help me improve this process.  If you can comment on these commands, I would appreciate it.  Thanks again for the help,  -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Scott Bass                           |  SAS Institute Inc. Integrated Systems, A216, x6975      |  SAS Campus Drive, Cary, NC  27513-2414 sasswb@k2.unx.sas.com                |  (919) 677-8001 x6975