Script Structure

A script consists of 3 different types of lines:

	Comment Lines

Each line starting with the exclamation mark character "!", is a comment. These lines are not considered as processing steps and skipped during script execution.

Example:

!Comment line

If the exclamation mark character is used within a line, however, this line is not considered a comment.
Multi-line comments may be created by highlighting the particular lines and pushing the button in the tool bar of the UserInterface.
We recommend making ample use of comments so that you or other users may easily reproduce at a later point what the script lines do.

	AE Script Lines

Lines starting with the colon character ":" contain AE Script elements. They may be split up in script functions -which supply return codes- and script statements -which do not supply return codes.

Example of a script statement: :PRINT "Automation Engine"

Example of a script function: :SET &RESULT# =ADD(2,2)

The underscore character "_" may be used for extra long lines to indicate that the text continues in the next line. The last character of a line should therefore be an underscore. The proximate line should start with a colon.

	Data Lines

If a line neither starts with a "!" nor with a ":", it is considered a DATA line. DATA lines can only be used with "Job" objects. They contain the JCL (Job Control Language) of the target system. If a DATA line starts with a ":", it must explicitly be declared as such with the script element :DATA.

Example:

copy test.txt c:\temp

Jobs for Enterprise Business Solutions (SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle Applications) show some special features. AE provides an extra JCL for those.
Script variables included in DATA lines are replaced by their values. Script variables start with the special character "&". If "&" is used in a DATA line and should remain there as it is, it needs to be doubled. If "&" is used without being followed by a valid variable name, the DATA line also remains unchanged.