It is possible to define "local" LISTSERV commands on non-z/VM systems. A "local" command is a locally developed extension to the LISTSERV command set, which can be installed without making any modification to LISTSERV itself. To install a local command, you must perform the following steps:

    1. Create an exit program to implement the command, as described below. Let's assume the program is called ABC. Command and list exits share the same basic attributes and programming interface, and in particular they are located in the same directory and follow the same naming and calling conventions.
    2. Choose a name for your local command. Names starting with a letter are reserved for L-Soft use; other names are reserved for customer use. You could call your command /ABC for instance.
    3. Modify (or create) the file 'localcmd.file' in the main LISTSERV subdirectory (the same directory where the lists, exits and other LISTSERV files are located). You must register the command in this file to define its existence to LISTSERV and indicate which exit should be called to execute the command. The format is:

/ABC 3 ABC DEF


/ABC is the full name of the command, 3 is the minimum abbreviation (allowing /AB or /ABC), ABC is the name of the exit program to execute, and DEF is an optional parameter to be passed to the exit (this allows multiple similar commands to be served by the same exit). NOTE CAREFULLY that the entries MUST be in UPPER CASE. If they are entered in lower case, LISTSERV will not recognize them.

    1. Optionally, modify (or create) the file 'localcmd.helpfile' in the same directory to provide a brief (1-2 lines) description of your new command. This is a free form file whose contents are appended to the standard HELP message. If the command is important, you may want to mention it there.

You must restart LISTSERV for the changes to take effect.

The ABC program is called as an exit with two parameters. The first one takes the following form:

origin command arguments


where 'origin' is the address of the command originator, 'command' is the name of the command ('/ABC' in the present example), and 'arguments' are the command arguments, if any, provided by the user. The second parameter is the optional DEF parameter from 'localcmd.file'.

Typically, your program will parse the arguments, decide on a course of action, and issue a number of messages to the user. The exit code is immaterial; there is no particular course of action to select for command processing.