Routine Name:	silent

Description:	Sets and returns flag which supresses certain information
		displays to console.

Usage:		silence-status = silent [silent-flag]

		silent-flag	1 to suppress informative displays; 0 to
				allow informative displays; 2 suppresses
				startup messages.

Example:	genesis >  echo { silent }
		0
		genesis >  silent 1
		echo { silent }
		1

Notes:		Note that in the example above, the prompt is supressed after
		the silent flag is set to 1.  Various routines use the
		status of the silent flag to decide whether to print out
		certain informative messages.
		For
		example, the routines related to element stack (pushe, pope,
		stack) normally display the working element they deal with;
		if silent is > 0, these routines will not echo that
		information.  Within any SLI control structure, the flag
		behaves as if it were one greater.  For example, if the
		"step" command is used within a script function, the usual
		message reporting the number of steps and cpu time is
		supressed unless the flag is set to -1.

See also:	debug

