1 \C{running} Running Halibut
3 \I{running Halibut}In the simplest case, running Halibut is very
4 simple. You provide a set of input files on its \i{command line},
5 and it produces a set of output files.
7 \c $ halibut intro.but getting-started.but reference.but index.but
8 \e bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
10 This will generate a large set of \i{output files}:
12 \b \i\c{output.txt} will be a \i{plain text} version of the input
15 \b \i\c{output.hlp} and \i\c{output.cnt} will be a \i{Windows Help}
16 version of the same thing. (Most of the text is in \c{output.hlp};
17 \c{output.cnt} contains additional contents data used by the Windows
18 help topic selector. If you lose the latter, the former should still
19 be usable, but it will look less modern.)
22 Note that Halibut does not require any external software such as a
23 \i{Help compiler}. It \e{directly} generates Windows Help files, and
24 therefore it doesn't need to be run on Windows to do so: it can
25 generate them even when run from an automated script on a Unix
29 \b \c{output.1} will be a Unix \i{\cw{man} page}.
31 \b The set of files \c{*.html} will contain an \i{HTML} version of
32 the document. If you have configured Halibut to generate more than
33 one HTML file (the default), then the file \c{Contents.html} will be
34 the topmost one that users should be directed to initially. If you
35 have configured Halibut to generate a single file, it will be called
38 \H{running-options} \ii{Command-line options}
40 Halibut supports command-line options in case you don't want to use
41 all of Halibut's \i{output formats}, or you want to configure the
42 names of your \i{output files}, or you want to supply additional
43 configuration on the command line. The supported options are listed
46 Firstly, there are options which indicate which of the output
47 formats you want Halibut to generate:
49 \dt \i\cw{--text}[\cw{=}\e{filename}]
51 \dd Specifies that you want to generate plain text output. You can
52 optionally specify a file name (e.g. \c{--text=myfile.txt}), in
53 which case Halibut will change the name of the output file as well.
55 \dt \i\cw{--html}[\cw{=}\e{filename}]
57 \dd Specifies that you want to generate HTML output. You can
58 optionally specify a file name (e.g. \c{--html=myfile.html}), in
59 which case Halibut will change the name of the output file as well.
60 Specifying a file name here will also cause the HTML to be output in
61 \e{only} one file, instead of the usual behaviour of producing
62 multiple files with links between them. If you want to produce
63 multiple files and configure their names, you will need to use the
64 more complete file name configuration directives given in
65 \k{output-html-file} (although you may want to do so on the command
66 line, using the \c{-C} option).
68 \dt \i\cw{--xhtml}[\cw{=}\e{filename}]
70 \dd Synonym for \c{--html}.
72 \dt \i\cw{--winhelp}[\cw{=}\e{filename}]
74 \dd Specifies that you want to generate plain text output. You can
75 optionally specify a file name (e.g. \c{--winhelp=myfile.hlp}), in
76 which case Halibut will change the name of the output file as well.
80 Your output file name should end with \c{.hlp}; if it doesn't,
81 Halibut will append it. Halibut will also generate a contents file
82 (ending in \c{.cnt}) alongside the file name you specify.
86 \dt \i\cw{--whlp}[\cw{=}\e{filename}]
88 \dd Synonym for \c{--winhelp}.
90 \dt \i\cw{--hlp}[\cw{=}\e{filename}]
92 \dd Synonym for \c{--winhelp}.
94 \dt \i\cw{--man}[\cw{=}\e{filename}]
96 \dd Specifies that you want to generate plain text output. You can
97 optionally specify a file name (e.g. \c{--man=myfile.5}), in which
98 case Halibut will change the name of the output file as well.
100 If you do not specify any of the above options, Halibut will simply
101 produce \e{all} of its output formats.
103 Also, there is an option which allows you to specify an arbitrary
104 \i\c{\\cfg} configuration directive (see \k{input-config}):
106 \dt \i\cw{-C}\e{config-directive}\cw{:}\e{value}[\cw{:}\e{value}...]
108 \dd The text following \c{-C} is expected to be a colon-separated
109 list of strings. (If you need a literal colon, you can escape it
110 with a backslash: \c{\\:}. If you need a literal \e{backslash}, you
111 can do the same: \c{\\\\}.) These strings are used as the parts of a
112 \c{\\cfg} directive. So, for example, the option
116 \c -Ctext-section-align:2:leftplus
118 will translate into the configuration directive
120 \c \cfg{text-section-align}{2}{leftplus}
124 The options which set the output file names actually work by
125 implicitly generating these configuration directives. When you
126 specify \c{--text=myfile.txt}, for example, Halibut treats it
127 identically to \c{--text -Ctext-filename:myfile.txt}. The Windows
128 Help and man page formats work similarly. HTML is slightly
129 different, since it also arranges for single-file output if you pass
130 a filename to \c{--html}; so \c{--html=myfile.html} is equivalent to
131 \c{--html -Cxhtml-single-filename:myfile.html -Cxhtml-leaf-level:0}.
132 (See \k{output} for explanations of all these configuration
135 In addition to these, there are also a few other options:
139 \dd Print a brief help message and exit immediately. (Don't confuse
140 this with \c{--winhelp}!)
144 \dd Print information about Halibut's version number and exit
149 \dd Display Halibut's licence (see also \k{licence}) and exit
154 \dd US English alternative spelling of \c{--licence}.
158 \dd Report column numbers as well as line numbers when reporting
159 errors in the Halibut input files.