$ - spawn or exit to shell

Execute an operating system command.

xsel >  $ <command_line>

where command_line contains a UNIX command. No parsing of < command_line> is done by the XPI parser, therefore all the $'s, skipped fields, double quotes etc have the meaning they would in an operating system command. Also <command_line> must be 80 characters or less.

If the dollar sign is entered with no <command_line> the program opens a new shell, and a series of commands can be entered - type exit to get back into XSELECT. Spawning can be disabled by setting the environment variable DISABLE_SPAWN.

Examples:

xsel > $

Spawns a shell.

xsel >  $ls

Lists the contents of the current directory.

xsel >  $cp triala0.pha x1822a0.pha;   ls *.pha;   exit

starts up a shell, copies a file and returns to XSELECT. The $ can even be given in reply to a prompt:

xsel >  set datadir
> Enter the event file directory > [] $
%ls
...
%exit
> Enter the event file directory > []