The ; (semicolon) statement terminator signals the end of a command; for example,
SELECT "SAMPLE" "BASIC";
In interactive ESSCMD, pressing the Enter key signals ESSCMD that the command is complete. The statement terminator is optional.
In an ESSCMD script file, you should use the terminator, even though it is optional, if a command has many parameters. This is especially important in order to signal the end of the parameter list if some of the parameters are optional.
If you omit some optional parameters and do not use a semicolon to end the list, ESSCMD looks for the remaining values in the next command in the file, leading to unpredictable results.
The SETAPPSTATE and SETDBSTATE commands are examples of commands which you should terminate with ; to prevent any confusion in processing.
Note: | All syntax examples in this documentation use quotation marks and semicolon terminators. |