Command-line syntax

When using one of RainCode's analyzers (cobrc, plirc, cpprc, adarc), the arguments of the command-line are of one of three forms:

• If it starts with a colon ``:'', it is considered as a configuration variable with its value, separated by an ``='' sign, as in :MaxMem=20000000.
• If it starts with an arobas ``@'', it is considered as a response file, that is, a file that contains a number of arguments that are interpreted just as if they were specified verbatim on the command-line. In such a response file, empty lines, lines that are only made of white spaces, lines that begin with a cardinal sign ``#'' or with a semicolon ``;'' are ignored. All other lines, are considered as arguments, even if they include white spaces. A response file can include a reference to another response file, as long as the chain never gets recursive, that is, when a response file includes itself directly or indirectly.
• All other arguments are considered as filenames that denote source files that must be analyzed by RainCode.

Whenever a source file is read, all scripts that have been loaded so far are executed on that source file. For instance, a command such as:

cobrc :Script=Qual.rcs CUST.COB SUPP.COB :Script=Metric.rcs ART.COB

will execute the script Qual.rcs on the files CUST.COB, SUPP.COB and ART.COB, while the script Metrics.rcs will be executed on ART.COB only. Since producing a parse tree for a given source can be a rather lengthy process, specially when the source file is rather large, this facility allows several scripts to be executed on the input without having to parse it again and again.

By using the :Sources configuration variable, one can load more than a single source file in memory at the same time, assuming of course that there is enough memory available. This facility allows two or more source files to be compared, or to patch one source file with elements extracted from the other.