2.1 Invoking FunnelWeb

When a user invokes FunnelWeb at the operating system command level, the user must provide a command line instructing FunnelWeb what to do. Typically an operating system command line consists of a verb  indicating that a particular program should be run, followed by a list of options. For example:

rename file1 file2

In this case, the verb is rename and the command line options are file1 file2.

Operating systems differ greatly in the depth with which they process their command lines, ranging from systems that simply pass the entire command line string to the invoked program (e.g. MSDOS) through to systems that perform complete command line parsing (e.g. OpenVMS). Syntax conventions vary considerably.

So as to achieve maximum portability and consistency of invocation across different platforms, FunnelWeb reads its command line as a raw string and performs all its own parsing. This is portable because, at the very least, all operating systems allow invoked programs access to the raw command line.

The command verb used to invoke FunnelWeb should be "fw".

FunnelWeb_verb =  "fw"

If this verb is not available, some alternatives are "funweb", "fun", and "funnelweb". The verbs web or fweb should be avoided as they are the names of other literate programming tools.