Arthur Frank writes: > I'm writing a command file that would accept input from a file and from the > keyboard. This will do what you need: parm entry=main if "!entry" = 'processfiles' then setvar files finfo(HPSTDIN,'EOF') comment write to possibly redirected $STDLIST echo !files files were found while setvar(files,files-1) >= 0 do comment read from file input file comment write to screen echo Process !file (Y/N)? >*out comment read from keyboard input answer <*in if ups(answer) = "Y" then echo processed! >*out else echo ignored! >*out endif endwhile else file in;dev=!HPLDEVIN;acc=in file out;dev=!HPLDEVLIST;acc=out listfile ,6 >$newpass xeq !hpfile entry=processfiles <$oldpass endif The key is doing the terminal :file equates to HPLDEVIN and HPLDEVLIST before you redirect $STDIN and/or $STDLIST. Then any I/O using the :file equates will apply to the real terminal and not to any redirected file. In POSIX shell scripts you can accomplish the same thing by doing your I/O with /dev/tty if you know that stdin and/or stdout is going to be redirected. -- Mark Bixby E-mail: [log in to unmask] Coast Community College Dist. Web: http://www.cccd.edu/~markb/ District Information Services 1370 Adams Ave, Costa Mesa, CA, USA 92626-5429 Technical Support Voice: +1 714 438-4647 "You can tune a file system, but you can't tune a fish." - tunefs(1M)