CommandLine

Last revision: ver. 8.0.4 - 3 September 2015

All omegalib applications (yes, even the ones you create) support a few predefined command line arguments. If you application needs more, you can also add custom ones.

Predefined command line arguments

The predefined command line syntax of an omegalib application is:

omegaApp [file/config] [options] [additional arguments]

The following are the supported options

• -c configFile: is the configuration file to use with this application (default: same as the application name with a .cfg extention, or default.cfg if the previous is not found). The -c option can also be used to manually start slave instances (see section below).

• -?: prints the full command line reference (predefined AND custom options)

• -K: kill all application instances, when running on a cluster system

• -D path: changes the default omegalib data path. The default data path is read from the OMEGA_HOME environment variable. If OMEGA_HOME does not exist, the default data path will point to the source directory of omegalib in the system. Entering - as the path will force omegalib to use the source directory as the data directory, even if the OMEGA_HOME environment variable is present. see the filesystem page for more information.

• -L path: changes the path of the application log file (default: same as the application name with a .log extention). Instead of a file name you can enter the following values:

  • v: turns on verbose logging
  • d: turns on debug logging
  • off disables logging

• -I <tx>,<ty>,<tw>,<th>[,<id>]: (version 3.7+) sets up multi-instance mode. See the Multi-Instance Guide for more information.

• --mc <default|client|@host[:port]|server[@port]|disable>: (version 3.7+) sets the mission control mode. Read more in the section below.

• -d: (version 4.1+) disables the Control+C handler (useful when debugging with gdb)

• -r: generate a log file for each slave instance in a cluster configuration

• (v6.0) -w <x>,<y>,<w>,<h>: The initial canvas for this application. The canvas specifies the initial global pixel viewport of the application.

• (v6.0) -i: runs the program in interactive mode, even if the script console is not enabled in the system configuration.

• (v8.0) --interactive-off: runs the program in non interactive mode, overriding any configuration setting.

--N <name>: sets the application name (used as mission control identifier)

Manual Start of Slave Instances

On cluster systems, omegalib tries to start slave instances using the nodeLauncher command template in the configuration file. Slave instances can also be started manually: they will wait for a connection from the master node and run once all slaves are connected. To launch an omegalib application in slave mode, use the configuration command line option in this format:

	omegalibApp -c <configName>@<slaveName>:<slavePort>

Where configName is the name of the configuration the master will use for this system, slaveName is the slave node host name or ip address and slavePort is the port the slave will listen to for incoming master connections. This port must correspond to the port specified for the slave in the configuration file.

Mission Control Mode

The --mc switch speciies the mission control mode for the application. Mission control allows applications to receive remote commands and create connections to each other to support collaborative applications. See the Mission Control Wiki Page for more information about Mission Control. The --mc flag supports four modes:

• default: this is the default mode (not entering the --mc switch is the same as entering --mc default). In this mode the application checks the serverEnabled variable in the system configuration, and if set to true opens a mission control server on the port specified in the system configuration (port variable), or using default port 22500.

• server[@port]: same as default but forces the creation of a server even if serverEnabled is set to false in the configuration file. (v5.1+) Optionally specify a port to use for the server. If left nspecified, will use the value from the configuration file.

• client: this option sets up the application as a mission control client, and attempts connection to a server using the serverHost and port variables in the system configuration file. By default, it will try connecting to a local server on the default port.

• @host[:port]: sets up a mission control client and attempts connecting to a server at the specified host (and optional port if different from default).

• disable: disables mission control

Custom command line arguments

You can create additional command line arguments for your application, right before calling omain:

	int main(int argc, char** argv)
	{
		String argString;
		bool argFlag;

		Application<MyApplication> app("myapp");
		
		oargs().newNamedString('s', "string", "string", "a custom string", argString);
		oargs().newFlag('f', "flag", "a custom flag", argFlag);
		
		return omain(app, argc, argv);
	}

the oargs() function uses the ArgumentHelper class to perform argument parsing. More information about ArgumentHelper can be found http://graphics.stanford.edu/~drussel/Argument_helper/ here.).