I originally posted this tip a few years ago on InterSystems Developer Community.
When working at the IRIS (or Ensemble or Caché) command prompt I sometimes want to run an operating system command on the server host. By prefixing my command line with ! or $ I can do this with ease. The following examples are from 2020.1 on Windows, but I think the feature is available on all versions and platforms:
USER>!dir
Volume in drive C is Windows
Volume Serial Number is XXXX-XXXX
Directory of c:\intersystems\iris201\mgr\user
11/12/2020 17:31 <DIR> .
11/12/2020 17:31 <DIR> ..
23/03/2021 14:00 1,048,576 IRIS.DAT
14/03/2021 10:00 37 iris.lck
11/12/2020 17:30 <DIR> stream
2 File(s) 1,048,613 bytes
3 Dir(s) 134,542,090,240 bytes free
USER>$dir
Volume in drive C is Windows
Volume Serial Number is XXXX-XXXX
Directory of c:\intersystems\iris201\mgr\user
11/12/2020 17:31 <DIR> .
11/12/2020 17:31 <DIR> ..
23/03/2021 14:00 1,048,576 IRIS.DAT
14/03/2021 10:00 37 iris.lck
11/12/2020 17:30 <DIR> stream
2 File(s) 1,048,613 bytes
3 Dir(s) 134,542,159,872 bytes free
USER>
If I need to issue more than one command I can almost get myself an interactive shell:
USER>!
c:\intersystems\iris201\mgr\user\> dir
Volume in drive C is Windows
Volume Serial Number is XXXX-XXXX
Directory of c:\intersystems\iris201\mgr\user
11/12/2020 17:31 <DIR> .
11/12/2020 17:31 <DIR> ..
23/03/2021 14:00 1,048,576 IRIS.DAT
14/03/2021 10:00 37 iris.lck
11/12/2020 17:30 <DIR> stream
2 File(s) 1,048,613 bytes
3 Dir(s) 134,542,151,680 bytes free
c:\intersystems\iris201\mgr\user\> date
The current date is: 23/03/2021
Enter the new date: (dd-mm-yy)
c:\intersystems\iris201\mgr\user\> exit
USER>
I wrote "almost" because in the example above the date command prompted me to enter a new date but didn't wait for my keystrokes. It behaved as though I had immediately pressed Enter.
Still, I find it a useful feature.
To use it you will need the %System_Callout:USE privilege.
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