The GDMS can be invoked in a number of ways. The first and most obvious, is to invoke the Graphical User Interface. To run it in this mode, open a console and type [user@localhost /home/user]$ gdms The application is loaded and the user is presented with a window. For further information on specific functionality, see the quick reference guide. The GDMS also possesses the ability to accept command line arguments. For example, a file name can be specified as an argument, avoiding having to open the file through the user interface once it has been invoked. Once again the GUI is invoked and can be used in the normal manner, the difference being that data sets provided as arguments are already loaded. Command line arguments which are accepted are: -b <filename>: the batch file name. This is only available on the batch file interface -d <filename>: opens a specified dataset -e <yes|no>: sets the visibility of error messages -x <yes|no>: sets the visibility of the North plot -y <yes|no>: sets the visibility of the East plot -z <yes|no>: sets the visibility of the Vertical plot As the title suggests, the GDMS allows batch processing. This enables a batch of tasks to be carried out, thus avoiding individual processing of data sets. The way this is done is by specifying a batch file name as an argument to the GDMS command. The batch file contains the commands that will be run by the GDMS.