System Administration Guide: Basic Administration

Specifying Numbers to format Commands

Several places in the format utility require an number as input. You must either specify the data or select a number from a list of choices. In either case, the help facility causes format to print the upper and lower limits of the number expected. Simply enter the number desired. The number is assumed to be in decimal format unless a base is explicitly specified as part of the number (for example, 0x for hexadecimal).

The following are examples of integer input:


Enter number of passes [2]: 34 
Enter number of passes [34] Oxf