1981 Volume 24 Issue 7 Pages 651-679
European Community (EC) adopted the primary three-year action plan on scientific and technological information in 1975. The plan included development of data bases by subject areas through cooperation among EC countries, building of information networks, development of information expression technique, training and standardization. The building of information network was taken over by the secondary action plan from 1977 to 1980 resulting in initiation of EURONET as degital transmission network and DIANE as information service network in Feburary of 1980. The common command language described in this report is the standarized command language for retrieval used in DIANE service, which was proposed in the primary action plan and submitted in December of 1977. Based on the language specification written in the report interfaces between various softwares of systems providing DIANE service and these standard commands were prepared successively and are being operated. Syntax of each command is expressed by Backus notation, and major functions of various available retrieval systmes can be almost expressed. “OWN” command is ready when a user wants to use original commands or commands which can not be expressed by the standard commands are required.
