I am new to scripting. While looking at an ex-employee's R code there's a line where they call to the command line. The line/purpose is not something I know how to search for online. Any help is appreciated.
The line of code in question:
/folder1/folder2/folder3 -s file_1_name -n file_1_name -e file_2_name > file_1_name.log 2>&1
Things to note:
The syntax is bash (or derived from bash, 2>&1), though when I use the command line to check what shell is used it says tcsh (example redirect >&, no numbers).\
File names (above) are just the name, not the extension. Example: a file named "ex.sch" then file_1_name would be "ex". The only extension in the line of code is for the log file that is made.
The files are .sch files. According to this site these are for schematics, though I highly doubt that that's what they are.
The line/purpose is not something I know how to search for online. [...]
The line of code in question:
/folder1/folder2/folder3 -s file_1_name -n file_1_name -e file_2_name > file_1_name.log 2>&1
Interpreted as a Bash command line, that is executing the program or script /folder1/folder2/folder3, passing it the six command-line arguments -s file_1_name -n file_1_name -e file_2_name. It is furthermore directing the program's standard output and standard error to a file named file_1_name.log in the working directory, creating that file if it does not already exist and replacing its contents if it does. If the command works then folder3 must in fact be a regular file or a symbolic link to one, not a directory / folder.
We cannot tell you more. The significance of the command-line arguments and the behavior of the program in general are not conveyed by the name you provided. In particular, the fact that some of the arguments correspond to file names you recognize with their suffixes removed is probably meaningful, but we cannot tell you the meaning.
Additionally, you observe that
when I use the command line to check what shell is used it says tcsh
Undoubtedly you have checked what your own default shell is. That is not indicative of what shell R will use to run the command.