using hp-ux bs command in macro

[bjamison]

We have a macro that calls the HP-UX bs command to do some calculations. We want to switch to the Windows version of ME10 but we still need to use that macro. Does anyone know of a windows replacement for the bs command?

Thanks in advance!

[John Scheffel]

I have never used bs and had no idea what it is, but here is what the man page says:
bs - a compiler/interpreter for modest-sized programs

bs is a remote descendant of BASIC and SNOBOL4 with some C language added. bs is designed for programming tasks where program development time is as important as the resulting speed of execution.

The closest thing I'm aware of in standard Windows is Visual Basic Scripts. It is not available in older versions of Windows, but is included in 2000 and XP. NT will have it if IE 5.0 or higher has been installed. Not sure about 98 or ME.

VB Scripts is an interpreted scripting language similar to BASIC or Visual Basic. You can find lots of books on it. The one I have is pretty good, it is "Windows Script Host" by Tim Hill.

Most Windows installations with newer web browsers installed also support Java scripting, which might be another option.

All that said, if you are using bs just to do calculations, you might be able to do it using the native macro language without calling any system commands. The macro language includes a pretty full set of math functions.