Including continuation characters in a macro
You can use continuation characters in a macro file when you want to run a command that is longer than your screen or window width.
About this task
Without continuation characters, you can enter up to 256 characters. With continuation characters, you can enter up to 1500 characters. In the MACRO command, values of substitution variables are included in the count of characters.
To use a continuation character, enter a dash or a backslash at the end of the line that you want to continue. With continuation characters, you can continue the following lines of a macro.
Examples
- Continue a command, for example:
register admin pease mypasswd - contact="david, ext1234" - Continue a list of values by entering a dash or a backslash, with no preceding blank spaces,
after the last comma of the list that you enter on the first line. Then, enter the remaining items
in the list on the next line with no preceding blank spaces. In the following example a list of
storage pool names continues across lines:
stgpools=stg1,stg2,stg3,- stg4,stg5,stg6 - Continue a string of values that are enclosed in quotation marks by entering the first part of
the string in quotation marks, followed by a dash or a backslash at the end of the line. Then, enter
the remainder of the string on the next line. Enclose the remainder of the string in the same type
of quotation marks. The following example shows a string that continues across lines:
contact="david pease, bldg. 100, room 2b, san jose,"- "ext. 1234, alternate contact-norm pass,ext 2345"The two strings are concatenated with no intervening blanks. You must use only this method to continue a quoted string of values across more than one line.