The purpose of the prep command is to perform set-up steps prior to using a particular software package or in preparation for working on the assignments of a class. Examples:
prep mysql (set up to use MySQL) prep cs176f (prepare to work on assignments of a CSE 176 course)
Instructors: for information about setting up prep and prepfiles for a course, please see OCE class support model.
The prep command is implemented as a csh alias. It invokes /software/common/lib/prepfind to search for a prepfile matching the (PREPLABEL) name specified. Prepfind looks in /public/prepfiles and if it doesn't find the prepfile there (e.g. /public/prepfiles/mentor), it looks for an appropriate class umbrella directory containing a prepfile (e.g. /u/disk05/cs176f/public/prepfile).
If you use bash as your default shell, an alias is set up to run /public/importCSHEnvironment on the prepfind command.