Tests a single Zim command, or an application program, for syntactic and semantic accuracy.

Syntax

PARSE commandstring | docname

Parameters

Comments

The PARSE command enables you to check an individual command or an entire program without executing either the command or the program. Executing a PARSE command does not affect any data values held either in memory or in the database. The PARSE command reports any syntactic or semantic irregularities that the PARSE command uncovers.

The sets created by FIND commands in parsed programs are defined. Only the directories accessed at the time that the PARSE command is executed are used. The ACCESS and RELEASE commands are parsed but not executed.

A program is parsed on a line-by-line basis. A program called from the program being parsed is not parsed, but the software does check to see if the program exists. All parts of commands with conditions are parsed, regardless of the validity of the conditions or the presence of any BREAK, CONTINUE, or TRANSFORM command.

Example

To check a command before running it, use

parse “list all Employees where LastName = Smith”

If you have an application program MyProg that calls the program SubUserCom, enter

parse MyProg

Only the command statements in MyProg are parsed. The software checks that SubUserCom exists, but does not parse it.

See Also

COMPILE

DEPENDENCY

GENERATE