PPWIZARD Manual
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PPWIZARD Command Line

Windows NT/2000 users should be able to start PPWIZARD like this:

    PPWIZARD  [+]InputMask [Options[:parms]]
    

OS/2 users can also use the syntax shown above but will need to have renamed "PPWIZARD.REX" to "PPWIZARD.CMD" for it to work.

Windows 95/98/ME and Unix users will probably need to use:

    REGINA PPWIZARD  [+]InputMask [Options[:parms]]
    

As a simple example to build "tryme.htm" from the source file "tryme.it" one possible format of the command is:

    REGINA PPWIZARD  tryme.it
    

Note that regina looks in the directories mentioned in the "REGINA_MACROS" environment variable for rexx scripts if they are not in the current directory (it does not use the "PATH" environment variable). Unless "ppwizard.rex" is located in a path mentioned in "REGINA_MACROS" then a command such as "regina ppwizard tryme.it" will fail unless ppwizard is in the current directory. Of course it will also fail if "regina" is not in one of the directories mentioned in the "PATH" environment or in the current directory.

Command Line: InputMask

You may specify more than one input mask and they may appear anywhere on the line (however none are processed until after all switches have been).

Each mask (anything that does not look like a switch/option) can be the name of a single file or may contain the normal wildcard characters for your operating system ("?" & "*" for OS/2 and Windows). See the documentation for your operating system for more details. Note that with a GETFILELIST hook you can enhance the way that the mask is handled.

If a mask (which may include a path) is preceeded by the "+" character then this indicates that you wish to process all files matching the mask in the indicated (or current) directory and all of it's subdirectories.

To specify the location where ppwizard will place the generated output files (current directory by default!) you need to use the /output switch. You may wish to also use a similar specification for the /DependsOn switch if you use it (if not, why not????).

Each source file may include other files such as common header files with your standard definitions.

If all input files end in the extension ".X" then the default processing mode is /rexx, the default situation is /html.

Command Line: Switches / Options

All Options begin with '/' unless running under UNIX where '-' is used instead. Options in the optional environment variable "PPWIZARD_OPTIONS" are processed before any specified on the command line.

Normally files or options are separated by spaces, if the file or option needs to contain spaces then you can surround it by double quotes. If you use double quotes the quoted value must not contain double quotes (encode with "{x22}" - see below).

Commonly used options:

  1. /CrLf
  2. /Debug
  3. /DependsOn
  4. /Output
  5. /Pack
  6. /Rexx
  7. /Template

Validation options:

  1. /SpellAddWord
  2. /SpellCheck
  3. /SpellShowAll
  4. /WarningsRc

Less commonly used options:

  1. /#Include
  2. /$Trace
  3. /**/
  4. /Beep
  5. /CGI
  6. /Color
  7. /CopyRight
  8. /DebugTime
  9. /Define
  10. /DependsOnComplete
  11. /Exclude
  12. /FileNames
  13. /FilterInput
  14. /FilterOutput
  15. /GetEnv
  16. /Hook
  17. /Html
  18. /HtmlGenerator
  19. /Inc2Cache
  20. /Info
  21. /List
  22. /Option
  23. /Other
  24. /RedirMethod
  25. /RegSyntax
  26. /Sleep

How To Handle Tricky Characters

If you know the ASCII code of a character (in hex) you can encode it, for example "{x20}" represents a space. If a code looks invalid then it is ignored.

The following are codes for some of the more difficult command line characters you are likely to need:

LONG COMMAND LINES / CONFIGURATION FILES

PPWIZARD supports storing configuration information in the following ways:

  1. Environment Variables
    Using the /GetEnv switch you can easily retrieve previously stored command line options (possibly set up in "config.sys" or windows registry).

  2. In List File
    Using the /List switch you can easily retrieve command line options from a configuration file. A major advantage of a "list" file is that you do not have to handle characters such as '>' as you would have to if it came from the command line.

RETURN CODES

EXAMPLE

This example has the following attributes:

  1. Make file functionality without the hassle.

  2. All source files have an extension of ".IT" (headers use ".IH").

  3. All output to have the extension ".html" and go into the "OUT" directory.
    +-[ MAKEIT.CMD ]------------------------------------------------+
    | @echo off                                                     |
    | md OUT        >nul 2>&1                                       |
    | md OUT\DEPEND >nul 2>&1                                       |
    | ppwizard %1.IT /Output:OUT\*.html /DependsOn:OUT\DEPEND\*.DEP |
    | if errorlevel 1 echo ERROR: Command failed!                   |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    

Example - Redirection

Ppwizard (or any other program) can at times generate quite a lot of output. When /Debug is used you will definitely wish to "redirect" the output into a file, the following is an example which would work in virtually all operating systems (including linux bash shell - change switch characters to '-'!):

    ppwizard index.it /Output:OUT\*.htm /Debug   > OUT\output.TXT 2>&1
    

If the redirection example does not work you will need to read the documentation for the operating system you are using to determine the correct method.


[Top][Contents][Search][Prev]: Converting From ORB To PPWIZARD[Next]: /Beep

PPWIZARD Manual
My whole website and this manual itself was developed using PPWIZARD (free preprocessor written by Dennis Bareis)
Wednesday October 04 2000 at 5:05pm