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web2c: Common options

 
 3.2 Common options
 ==================
 
 All of these programs accept the standard GNU '--help' and '--version'
 options, and several programs accept '--verbose'.  Rather than writing
 identical descriptions for every program, they are described here.
 
 '--help'
      Print a usage message listing basic usage and all available options
      to standard output, then exit successfully.
 
 '--verbose'
      Print progress reports to standard output.
 
 '--version'
      Print the version number to standard output, then exit
      successfully.
 
    TeX, Metafont, and MetaPost have a number of additional options in
 common:
 
 '-cnf-line=STR'
      Parse STR as if it were a line in the 'texmf.cnf' configuration
      file, overriding all other settings.  ⇒(kpathsea)Path
      searching options.
 
 '-file-line-error'
 '-no-file-line-error'
      Change (or do not change) the way error messages are printed.  The
      alternate style looks like error messages from many compilers and
      is easier to parse for some editors that invoke TeX.  This option
      used to be called '-file-line-error-style'.
 
 '-fmt=DUMPNAME'
 '-base=DUMPNAME'
 '-mem=DUMPNAME'
      Use DUMPNAME instead of the program name or a '%&' line to
      determine the name of the memory dump file read ('fmt' for TeX,
      'base' for Metafont, 'mem' for MetaPost).  ⇒Memory dumps.
      Also sets the program name to DUMPNAME if no '-progname' option was
      given.
 
 '-halt-on-error'
      Stop processing and exit when an error occurs, as opposed to the
      normal process of trying to recover and continue.
 
 '-ini'
      Enable the "initial" form of the program (⇒Initial and
      virgin).  This is implicitly set if the program name is 'initex'
      resp. 'inimf'.
 
 '-interaction=STRING'
      Set the interaction mode from the command line.  The STRING must be
      one of 'batchmode', 'nonstopmode', 'scrollmode', or
      'errorstopmode'.
 
 '-jobname=STRING'
      Set the job name to STRING, instead of deriving it from the name of
      the input file.
 
 '-kpathsea-debug=NUMBER'
      Set path searching debugging flags according to the bits of NUMBER
      (⇒(kpathsea)Debugging).  You can also specify this in
      'KPATHSEA_DEBUG' environment variable (for all Web2c programs).
      (The command line value overrides.)  The most useful value is '-1',
      to get all available output.
 
 '-output-directory=DIRNAME'
      Specify the directory DIRNAME to which output files are written.
      Also look for input files in DIRNAME first, before looking along
      the normal search path.  ⇒Output file location.
 
 '-parse-first-line'
 '-no-parse-first-line'
      Check or disable checking whether the first line of the main input
      file starts with '%&', and parse it if it does.  This line can be
      used specify the format and/or a TCX file.
 
 '-progname=STRING'
      Set program (and memory dump) name to STRING.  This may affect the
      search paths and other values used (⇒(kpathsea)Config
      files).  Using this option is equivalent to making a link named
      STRING to the binary and then invoking the binary under that name.
      ⇒Memory dumps.
 
 '-recorder'
      Enable the filename recorder.  This makes the program save a list
      of the opened files into a file with (by default) extension '.fls'.
      For Aleph, this option is always on, and the file has extension
      '.ofl'.
 
      Ordinarily, the '.fls' file is written to the same location as the
      '.log' file, for example, respecting '-output-directory' if it is
      given (⇒Output file location).  However, if TeX processing
      is done on the command line (or in response to the '**' prompt),
      the '.fls' might be written to the current directory, or include an
      integer (the current pid), as in 'texput1234.fls'.  You can use
      '-jobname' to explicitly set the basename.
 
 '-translate-file=TCXFILE'
      Use TCXFILE to define which characters are printable and
      translations between the internal and external character sets.
      Moreover, TCXFILE can be explicitly declared in the first line of
      the main input file '%& -translate-file=TCXFILE'.  This is the
      recommended method for portability reasons.  ⇒TCX files.
 
 '-8bit'
      This option specifies that by default all characters should be
      considered printable.  If '-translate-file' was given as well, then
      the TCX file may mark characters as non-printable.  This is a no-op
      in engines natively supporting Unicode.
 

Info Catalog web2c: Option conventions web2c: Commonalities web2c: Path searching