You can define symbols to represent commonly used class/instance pairs of NCL commands. Symbol definitions are provided to cut down on the amount of repetitive typing you must perform. Use the define and read control verbs to create and verify symbol definitions. For example: define ncl symbol NAME = "VALUE" undefine ncl symbol [ NAME | * ] show ncl symbol [ NAME | * ] list ncl symbol [ NAME | * ] ncl> define ncl sym rc1 = "routing circuit circuit-1" ncl> show rc1 Node 0 Routing Circuit circuit-1 AT 1994-07-14-15:10:10.976-04:00I0.226 Identifiers Name = circuit-1 The first parameter to the define command is the symbol and all remaining text is the equivalence string (the translation of the symbol). The symbol can be from 1 to 500 characters in length and contain any ISO latin-1 characters (?). At definition time, the equivalence string is not parsed. NCL will parse the full NCL command and any symbols that form part of the command. To delete symbols, use the undefine verb. For example: ncl> undefine Ether,Remote_Node ! To delete specific symbols . . . ncl> undefine * ! To delete all remaining symbols . . . You can use "." to mean "the entity used in the last command."