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HELP
<CR>
or HELP HELP
gives a list of the help menu, or HELP keyword
gives help with that keyword.
The help menu consists
of any files in the directory specified by the entry help
in the environment file, so for example HELP data
types
the file data
in that directory. For all cases except HELP help
, the
file is filtered through a version of the Unix utility `more' which pages
the file. When `more' offers you a `...'
prompt, type ?
to see your
options.
The same filter is used by e.g. LIST MACRO
.
If the command is HELP word
, after HELP
tries to print the file
word
, it looks to see if word
is a macro, and if so prints
its definition. If word
is a variable, its value is then
printed, and if word
is also a vector HELP
prints the dimension, followed by the help
string associated with the vector
vector_name
(see section on vectors).
The APROPOS
command is also useful when you need help.
APROPOS string
scans all the help files (if your operating
system allows SM to do such things) and macro headers looking for the
string. The string may actually be a pattern (see the description
of APROPOS
for details). If VERBOSE
(@xref{VERBOSE}) is zero only
the lines from the help files matching the pattern are printed; if
it is larger you are given a couple of lines of context on each side.
It is worth remembering that the index to this manual has an entry
under weird
, wherein are listed all sorts of strange happenings,
with explanations and suggestions for workarounds.
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