Command-Line Options

Cactus uses the standard GNU style of long-named command-line options; many of these options also have traditional Unix single-letter short forms. The options follow the usual GNU rules:

• A long-named option --foo which takes an argument bar may be written as either --foo bar or as --foo=bar.
• A long-named option may be abbreviated, so long as the abbreviation is unambiguous.
• The preferred way of spelling a long-named option is --foo, but -foo also accepted, though this is deprecated.
• A short option, -X, which takes an argument bar, may be written as either -Xbar or as -X=bar.
• An option which can be interpreted as either a short option, or as an abbreviated -foo-style long option, is interpreted as the former. In particular, -re is interpreted as an abbreviation for -redirect, rather than as -r=e.

The Cactus command-line options are specified in Table A3.1, and are as follows:

Table A3.1: This table shows all the Cactus command-line options.

Short Version	Long Version
-O[v]	-describe-all-parameters
-o<param>	-describe-parameter=<param>
-S	-print-schedule
-T	-list-thorns
-t<arrangement/thorn>	-test-thorn-compiled=<arrangement/thorn>
-h,-?	-help
-v	-version
-L<level>	-logging-level=<level>
-W<level>	-warning-level=<level>
-E<level>	-error-level=<level>
-r[o|e|oe|eo]	-redirect=[o|e|oe|eo]
	-logdir=<directory>
-b[no|line|full]	-buffering=[no|line|full]
	-parameter-level=<strict|normal|relaxed>
-i	-ignore-next

-O or -describe-all-parameters

Prints a full list of all parameters from all thorns which were compiled, along with descriptions and allowed values. This can take an optional extra parameter v (i.e. -Ov to give verbose information about all parameters).

-o<param> or -describe-parameter=<param>

Prints the description and allowed values for a given parameter--takes one argument.

-S or -print-schedule

Print only the schedule tree.

-T or -list-thorns

Prints a list of all the thorns which were compiled in.

-t<arrangement or thorn> or -test-thorn-compiled=<arrangement or thorn>

Checks if a given thorn was compiled in--takes one argument.

-h, -? or -help

Prints a help message.

-v or -version

Prints version information of the code.

-L<level> or -logging-level=<level>

Sets the logging level of the code. All warning messages are given a level--the lower the level, the greater the severity. This parameter -L controls the level of messages to be seen, with all warnings of level 7#7 <level> printed to standard output. The default is a logging level of 0, meaning that only level 0 messages should be printed to standard output.

-W<level> or -warning-level=<level>

Similar to -W, but for standard error instead of standard output. All warnings of level 7#7 <level> are printed to standard error. The default is a warning level of 1, meaning that level 0 and level 1 messages should be printed to standard error.

-E<level> or -error-level=<level>

Similar to -W, but for fatal errors: Cactus treats all warnings with level 7#7 <level> as fatal errors, and aborts the Cactus run immediately (after printing the warning message^part31). The default value is zero, only level 0 warnings will abort the Cactus run.

-r[o|e|oe|eo] or -redirect=[o|e|oe|eo]

Redirects the standard output (`o') and/or standard error (`e') of each processor to a file. By default, the standard outputs from processors, other than processor 0, are discarded.

-logdir=<directory>

Sets the output directory for logfiles created by the -r option. If the directory doesn't exist yet, it will be created by Cactus.

-b[no|line|full] or -buffering=[no|line|full]

Set the stdout buffering mode. Buffered I/O is a standard feature of C programmes. This delays writing the actual output; instead, the output is collected into an internal buffer, and is then written in large chunks. This improves performance considerably. Line buffering means that output is written whenever a newline character is encountered; full buffering means that output is written, say, once 1000 characters have accumulated. The default setting is line buffering for I/O that goes to a terminal, and full buffering for I/O that goes to a file. For debugging purposes, it is sometimes useful to reduce the amount of buffering. Error messages, i.e. the stderr stream, is always unbuffered (and hence usually slower than stdout).

-parameter-level=<strict|normal|relaxed>

Sets the level of parameter checking to be used, one of strict (the default), normal, or relaxed. See Section A3.2 for details.

-i or -ignore-next

Causes the next argument on the command line to be ignored.