User Commands - where should they go?

Overview

By default Dyalog is looking for User Commands in a sub folder Salt\Spice within the Dyalog installation folder. Therefore the easiest way to get your own User Commands recognized by Dyalog is to put put them into that directory.

Easy may it be but it also has a couple of serious disadvantages: messing up Dyalog user commands with your own user commands is not a good idea because ...

Dyalog might introduce a new user command with a name already used by you.
When a new version of Dyalog arrives you are in trouble.

It's certainly a much better idea to keep Dyalog's user commands separate from your own ones.

Solution

To separate your own user commands from the Dyalog user commands is not too difficult.

For this you need a folder that hosts all your user commands. Of course that folder can have any name you like but in this document we refer to this folder as C:\MyUserCommands.

Create the folder C:\MyUserCommands.
Add that folder to the SALT search path:
1. Call "Configuration" from the "Options" menu.
2. Activate the "User Commands" tab.
3. Press the "Browse" button and browse to C:\MyUserCommands.
4. Press the "Add" button.
5. Press "OK"

Note that the forth step can be easily forgotten.

Now either restart Dyalog or execute the user command ]ureset.

Complex User Commands

If the code which is the "real thing" is small it can and probably will go into the script which is defining the User Command as such. If it is a big thing (like ADOC) or a complete application (like Fire) than it will reside in a workspace.

That workspace can be saved along with the user command itself. Within your user command you should not use a real path to copy what it needed from that workspace. Instead you can find out what the path is by checking ##.SourceFile: that gives you the fully qualified name of the user command.

This will give you the folder name that hosts the current user command:

{⎕IO←1 ⋄ ⍵↓⍨-⌊/'\/'⍳⍨⌽⍵} ##.SourceFile

Scripts

Sometimes a user command will not contain all the code itself but use one or more scripts to perform a certain task.

Note that you cannot save such files with the extension dyalog within the folder that hosts user commands because Dyalog assumes that everything that is saved in such a file is a user command.

The solution to the problem is to give the script(s) a different extension. For example code would be just fine. You can still load such a script with the SALT commands; you just have to specify the extension explicitly.

Author: -- KaiJaeger 2015-04-04 08:50:51

Last update: 2016-07-14.

-  ⇤ ← Revision 20 as of 2011-08-05 07:42:37 → 
  Size: 2794
  Editor: KaiJaeger
  Comment:
+   ← Revision 29 as of 2016-07-14 18:21:18 → ⇥
  Size: 2833
  Editor: KaiJaeger
  Comment: New version
-Deletions are marked like this.
+Additions are marked like this.
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-= User Command ADOC  =
+<<TableOfContents>>

= User Commands - where should they go?  =
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-[[ADOC]] is a utility useful to generate documentation (semi-) automatically from class scripts as well as namespace scripts.
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+Line 7:
-Obviously it makes sense to make ADOC's services available as a User Command.
+By default Dyalog is looking for User Commands in a sub folder `Salt\Spice` within the Dyalog installation folder. Therefore the easiest way to get your own User Commands recognized by Dyalog is to put put them into that directory.
-Line 7:
+Line 9:
-This page offers a small class script `ADOC` which is designed to do exactly that.
+Easy may it be but it also has a couple of serious disadvantages: messing up Dyalog user commands with your own user commands is not a good idea because ...
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+Line 11:
-== Assumptions ==
When User Commands got introduced in Dyalog with version 12.1, the User Commands where expected to reside in a sub folder `Salt\Spice` inside the Dyalog installation folder. This means that the script `ADOC.dyalog` attached to this page must go into this directory. Only then the User Commd "ADOC" is recognized. Note that this script only deal with two issues:
+ * Dyalog might introduce a new user command with a name already used by you. 
 * When a new version of Dyalog arrives you are in trouble.
 
It's certainly a much better idea to keep Dyalog's user commands separate from your own ones.
-Line 12:
+Line 16:
- * Figure out what command the user want to invoke, "Browse" or "List".
 * Find the real work horse and call it, see below.
+== Solution ==
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-That script which represents the ADOC User Command assumes that there is a sibling folder of your APL installation folder available named `UserCommands`. Please make sure that the real [[ADOC]] script is copied into this folder `UserCommands`. This enables the User Command script to address the real ADOC script  `{MyDyalogInstallationFolder}..\UserCommands\ADOC`.
+To separate your own user commands from the Dyalog user commands is not too difficult.
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+Line 20:
-For example, in case your version of Dyalog APL 32bit is installed in `C:\Program Files (x86)\Dyalog\Dyalog APL 12.1 Unicode` which is the default on Windows 7 64 bit, then the folder `UserCommands` is supposed to be located at `C:\Program Files (x86)\Dyalog\UserCommands`.
+For this you need a folder that hosts all your user commands. Of course that folder can have any name you like but in this document we refer to this folder as `C:\MyUserCommands`.
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+Line 22:
-== Samples ==
Given that the two different ADOC scripts went into the right folders, this would be a sample session:
+. Create the folder `C:\MyUserCommands`.
 1. Add that folder to the SALT search path:
    1. Call "Configuration" from the "Options" menu.
    2. Activate the "User Commands" tab.
    3. Press the "Browse" button and browse to `C:\MyUserCommands`.
    4. Press the "Add" button.
    5. Press "OK"
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+Line 30:
+Note that the forth step can be easily forgotten.

Now either restart Dyalog or execute the user command `]ureset`.

== Complex User Commands ==

If the code which is the "real thing" is small it can and probably will go into the script which is defining the User Command as such. If it is a big thing (like [[ADOC]]) or a complete application (like [[Fire]]) than it will reside in a workspace.

That workspace can be saved along with the user command itself. Within your user command you should not use a real path to copy what it needed from that workspace. Instead you can find out what the path is by checking `##.SourceFile`: that gives you the fully qualified name of the user command.

This will give you the folder name that hosts the current user command:
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+Line 42:
-      ]?ADOC
"??" for general help, "?CMD" for more specific info on command CMD

 Group  Name         Description
 =====  ====         ===========
 ADOC   ADOC.Browse  Creates full documentation and displayes it in the default browser.
        ADOC.HELP    Displays help regarding ADOC.
        ADOC.List    Prints syntax of all public stuff to the session.

      ]?ADOC.Browse
Command "ADOC.Browse". Syntax: 1 arguments; accepts switches -b=
Script location: ........\....\....\ADOC

Gathers information from a class script, compiles
an HTML page with these pieces of information
and displays it in your default browser.

      ]?ADOC.List
Command "ADOC.List".
Script location: ........\...\...\ADOC

Prints a list with all sorts of information to the session
about all public stuff given in the script specified in the right argument

]ADOC.Help
Watch your browser

Shows extensive information about ADOC. It's basically doing `ADOC.Browse ADOC`.
+{⎕IO←1 ⋄ ⍵↓⍨-⌊/'\/'⍳⍨⌽⍵} ##.SourceFile
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-== Download ==
+== Scripts ==
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-[[attachment:ADOC_UC.zip | Download]] the script.
+Sometimes a user command will not contain all the code itself but use one or more scripts to perform a certain task.
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+Line 49:
-== Version ==
The script is version 1.2.0 from 2011-08-04
+Note that you cannot save such files with the extension `dyalog` within the folder that hosts user commands because Dyalog assumes that everything that is saved in such a file is a user command.
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+Line 51:
-Author: KaiJaeger
+The solution to the problem is to give the script(s) a different extension. For example `code` would be just fine. You can still load such a script with the SALT commands; you just have to specify the extension explicitly.


Author: -- KaiJaeger <<DateTime(2015-04-04T08:50:51Z)>>

Last update: 2016-07-14.
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-CategoryDyalogUserCommands