Sorry, hit return too soon.   I remember an old AAUGN newsletter describing it.   If I recall it was original done for kermit.  The same idea is in tcsh also.  Which came first, I don't remember.  Cut/pasted from AAUGN Vol8 # 2

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CCMD: A Version of COMND in C

Andrew Lowry

Howard Kaye

Columbia University

CCMD is a general parsing mechanism for developing User Interfaces to programs. It is based on the functionality of TOP5.20's COMND Jsys. CCMD allows a program to parse for various field types (file names, user names, dates and times, keywords, numbers, arbitrary text, tokens, etc.). It is meant to supply a homogeneous user interface across a variety of machines and operating systems for C programs. It currently runs under System V UNIX, 4.2/4.3 BSD, Ultrix 1.2/2.0, and MSDOS. The library defines various default actions (user settable), and allows field completion, help, file indirection, comments, etc. on a per field basis. Future plans include command line editing, command history, and ports to other operating systems (such as VMS).

CCMD is available for anonymous FTP from

[CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU]WS:<SOURCE.CCMD>*.*

For further information, send mail to:

seismo!columbia!cunixc!info-ccmd-request