Monitor and Command Language

This chapter is organised as follows:

• In the first two sections we describe how to start MIDAS and how the host operating system and MIDAS coexist.
• Section 3 explains the different data structures used in MIDAS and how to access them in a MIDAS session.
• Section 4 describes the syntax of the MIDAS commands, as well as the editing and recalling of commands and also the on-line HELP facility in MIDAS.
• In section 5 you will find some details about how the MIDAS commands are executed.
• Then follows the largest and most detailed section (section 6), which gives in-depth information about the MIDAS command language, MCL.
  With MCL you can write high level MIDAS ``programs'' which are called MIDAS procedures.
  The topics include:
  • the MCL commands
  • passing parameters in MIDAS procedures
  • symbol substitution
  • loops and conditional branching
  • special functions
• Section 7 introduces the MIDAS contexts.
• Section 8 explains how to run application programs written in FORTRAN or C inside MIDAS. It also shows how to debug these programs as well as MIDAS procedures.
• All the commands related to MIDAS catalogs are listed in section 9, together with an example of how to use catalogs in MIDAS procedures.
• The MIDAS login procedure and MIDAS user levels are the topics of the last two sections.

The MIDAS directory tree structure is not covered in this chapter. For those interested, please refer to the MIDAS Environment document .