shell(1F)                                                  shell(1F)


       NAME
             shell - run a command using shell

       SYNOPSIS
             shell command [command] . . .

       DESCRIPTION
             The shell function concatenates its arguments, separating each
             by a space, and passes this string to the UNIX system shell
             ($SHELL if set, otherwise /usr/bin/sh).

       EXAMPLES
             Since the Form and Menu Language does not directly support
             background processing, the shell function can be used instead.

                   `shell "build prog > /dev/null &"`

             If you want the user to continue to be able to interact with
             the application while the background job is running, the
             output of an executable run by shell in the background must be
             redirected: to a file if you want to save the output, or to
             /dev/null if you don't want to save it (or if there is no
             output), otherwise your application may appear to be hung
             until the background job finishes processing.

             shell can also be used to execute a command that has the same
             name as an FMLI built-in function.

       NOTICES
             The arguments to shell will be concatenated using spaces,
             which may or may not do what is expected.  The variables set
             in local environments will not be expanded by the shell
             because ``local'' means ``local to the current process.''

       REFERENCES
             sh(1)












                           Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc.               Page 1