The
(n) program is a tool for constructing files.
It is given a set of files to create,
and instructions detailing how to construct them.
In any non-trivial program
there will be prerequisites to performing
the actions necessary to creating any file,
such as extraction from a source-control system.
The
(n) program provides a mechanism to define these.
When a program is being developed or maintained,
the programmer will typically change one file of several
which comprise the program.
The
(n) program examines the last-modified times of the files to see when
the prerequisites of a file have changed,
implying that the file
needs to be recreated as it is logically out of date.
The
(n) program also provides a facility for implicit recipes,
allowing users to specify how to form a file with a given suffix from
a file with a different suffix.
For example,
to create
from
Options and filenames may be arbitrarily mixed on the command line;
no processing is done until all options and filenames
on the command line have been scanned.
The
(n) program will attempt to create the named files from the recipes
given to it.
The recipes are contained in a file called
Howto.cook in the currect directory.
This file may,
in turn,
include other files containing additional recipes.
If no
filename s are given on the command line
the targets of the first recipe defined are cooked.
OPTIONS
The valid options for
(n) are listed below.
Any other options
(words on the command line beginning with `-')
will cause a diagnostic message to be issued.
-Action
Execute the commands given in the recipes.
This is the default.
-No_Action
Do not execute the commands given in the recipes.
-Bookfilename
Tells (n) to used the named cookbook,
rather than the default ``Howto.cook'' file.
-CAScade
This option may be used to enable the use of cascaded ingredients.
This is the default.
-No_CAScade
This option may be used to disable the use of cascaded ingredients.
-Continue
If cooking a target should fail,
continue with other recipes for which the
failed target is not an ingredient,
directly or indirectly.
-No_Continue
If cooking a target should fail,
(n) will exit.
This is the default.
-Errok
When a command is executed,
the exit code will be ignored.
-No_Errok
When a command is executed,
if the exit code is positive
it will be deemed to fail,
and thus the recipe containing it to have failed.
This is the default.
-FingerPrint
When
cook examines a file to determine if it has changed,
it uses the last-modified time information available in the file system.
There are times when this is altered,
but the file contents do not actually change.
The fingerprinting facility examines the file contents
when it appears to have changed,
and compares the old fingerprint against the present file contents.
(See
cookfp(1) for a description of the fingerprinting algorithm.)
If the fingerprint did not change,
the last-modified time in the file system is ignored.
Note that this has implications if you
are in the habit of using the
touch(1) command -
cook will do nothing until you actually change the file.
-No_FingerPrint
Do not use fingerprints
to supplement the last-modified time file information.
This is the default.
-FingerPrint_Update
This option may be used to scan the directory tree below the current
directory and update the file fingerprints. This helps when you use
another tool (such as RCS or ClearCase) which alters the file but
preserves the file's modification time.
-Force
Always perform the actions of recipes,
irrespective of the last-modified times of any of the ingredients.
This option is useful if something beyond the scope of the cookbook
has been modified;
for example, a bug fix in a compiler.
-No_Force
Perform the actions of the recipes
if any of the ingredients are logically out of date.
This is the default.
-Help
Provide information about how to execute
(n) on
stdout , and perform no other function.
-Include filename
Search the named directory before the standard places for
included cookbooks.
Each directory so named will be scanned in the order given.
The standard places are
$HOME/.cook then
(d) .
-Include_Cooked
This option may be used to require the cooking of files named on
#include-cooked and
#include-cooked-nowarn include lines in cookbooks.
The files named will be included, if present.
If the files named need to be updated or created,
this will be done, and then the cookbook re-read.
This is the default.
-No_Include_Cooked
This option may be used to inhibit the implicit cooking of files named on
#include-cooked and
#include-cooked-nowarn include lines in cookbooks.
The files will be included,
if present,
but they will not be updated or created,
even if required.
-Include_Cooked_Warning
This option enables the warnings about derived dependencies in derived
cookbooks. This is usually the default.
-No_Include_Cooked_Warning
This option disables the warnings about derived dependencies in derived
cookbooks.
-List
Causes
(n) to automatically redirect the
stdout and
stderr of the session.
Output will continue to come to the terminal,
unless
(n) is executing in the background.
The name of the file will be the name of the cookbook with any suffix
removed and " .list" appended;
this will usually be
Howto.list . This is the default.
-List filename
Causes
(n) to automatically redirect the
stdout and
stderr of the session into the named file.
Output will continue to come to the terminal,
unless
(n) is executing in the background.
-No_List
No automatic redirection of the output of the session will be made.
-No_List filename
No automatic redirection of the output of the session will be made,
however subsequent
-List options will default to listing to the named file.
-Meter
After each command is executed,
print a summary of the command's CPU usage.
-No_Meter
Do not print a CPU usage summary after each command.
This is the default.
-Pairs
This option may be used to generate a list of pair-wise file
dependencies, similar to
lorder(1) output.
This may be used to draw file dependency diagrams.
It can also be useful when debugging cookbooks.
-PARallel [ number ]
This option may be used to specify the number of parallel executions
threads. The number defaults to 4 if no specific number of threads is
specified. See also the parallel_jobs variable.
Use of this option on single-processor machines needs to be done with
great care, as it can bring other processing to a complete halt.
Several users doing so simultaneously on a multi-processor machine will
have a similar effect. It is also to rapidly run out of virtual memory
and temporary disk space if the parallel tasks are complex.
-No_PARallel
This option may be used to specify that a single execution thread is to
be used. This is the default.
-Precious
When commands in the body of a recipe fail,
do not delete the targets of the recipe.
-No_Precious
When commands in the body of a recipe fail,
delete the targets of the recipe.
This is the default.
-Reason
Two options are provided for
tracing the inferences
(n) makes when attempting to cook a target.
The
-Reason option will cause
(n) will emit copious amounts of information
about the inferences it is making when cooking targets.
This option may be used when you think
(n) is acting strangely,
or are just curious.
-No_Reason
This option may be used to cause
(n) will not emit information
about the inferences it is making when cooking targets.
This is the default.
-SCript
This option may be used to request a shell script be printed on the
standard output.
This shell script may be used to construct the files;
it captures many of the semantics of the cookbook.
This can be useful when a project needs to be distributed,
and the recipients do not have
cook(1) installed.
It can also be very useful when debugging cookbooks.
-Silent
Do not echo commands before they are executed.
-No_Silent
Echo commands before they are executed.
This is the default.
-STar
Emit progress indicators once a second.
These progress indicators include
l l.
+
Reading the cookbook
-
Executing a collect function
*
Building the dependency graph
#
Walking the dependency graph
@
Writing fingerprint files.
-No_STar
Do not emit progress indicators.
This is the default.
-Strip_Dot
Remove leading "./" from filenames before
attempting to cook them;
applies to all filenames and all recipes.
This is the default.
-No_Strip_Dot
Leave leading "./" on filenames while cooking.
-Tell_Position
This option may be used to cause the position of commands (filename
and line number) to be printed along with the command just before it is
executed (provided the -No_Silent option is in force).
-No_Tell_Position
This option may be used to suppress printing the position of commands
(filename and line number) along with the command just before it is
executed. This is the default.
-Touch
Update the last-modified times of the
target files,
rather than execute the actions bound to recipes.
This can be useful if you have made a modification to a file that
you know will make a
system of files logically out of date,
but has no significance;
for example,
adding a comment to a widely used include file.
-No_Touch
Execute the actions bound to recipes,
rather than update the last-modified times of the target files.
This is the default.
-TErminal
When listing,
also send the output stream to the terminal.
This is the default.
-No_TErminal
When listing,
do not send the output to the terminal.
-Time_Adjust
This option causes
cook to check the last-modified time of the targets of recipes,
and updates them if necessary,
to make sure they are consistent with (younger than) the last-modified
times of the ingredients.
This results in more system calls,
and can slow things down on some systems.
This correspondes to the time-adjust recipe flag.
-No_Time_Adjust
Do not update the file last-modified times after performing
the body of a recipe.
This is the default.
This correspondes to the no-time-adjust recipe flag.
-Web
This option may be used to request a HTML web page be printed on
the standard output. This web page may be used to document the file
dependencies; it captures many of the semantics of the cookbook.
It can also be very useful when debugging cookbooks.
Assign the
value to the named variable.
The value may contain spaces
if you can convince the shell to pass them through.
All options may be abbreviated;
the abbreviation is documented as the upper case letters,
all lower case letters and underscores (_) are optional.
You must use consecutive sequences of optional letters.
All options are case insensitive,
you may type them in upper case or lower case or a combination of both,
case is not important.
For example:
the arguments "-help", "-HEL" and "-h" are
all interpreted to mean the -Help option.
The argument "-hlp" will not be understood,
because consecutive optional characters were not supplied.
Options and other command line arguments may be
mixed arbitrarily on the command line.
The GNU long option names are understood.
Since all option names for
(n) are long,
this means ignoring the extra leading '-'.
The "--option=value" convention is also understood.
EXIT STATUS
The
(n) command will exit with a status of 1 on any error.
The
(n) command will only exit with a status of 0 if there are no errors.
FILES
The following files are used by cook:
Howto.cook
This file contains instructions to
cook for how to construct files.
(d)
This directory contains "system" cookbooks
for various tools and activities.
.cook.fp
This text file is used to remember fingerprints between invokations.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables are used by cook:
COOK
May be set to contain command-line options,
changing the default behaviour of
cook . May be overridden by the command line.
PAGER
Use to paginate the output of the
-Help and
-VERSion options.
Defaults to
more(1) if not set.
COOK_AUTOMOUNT_POINTS
A colon-separated list of directories which the automounter may use
to mount file systems. Use with extreme care, as this distorts Cook's
idea of the shape of the filesystem.
This feature assumes that paths below the automounter's mount directory
are echoes of paths without it.
E.g. When <[>CW]/home is the trigger, and
<[>CW]/tmp_mnt/home is where the on-demand NFS mount is performed, with
<[>CW]/home appearing to processes to be a symlink.
This is the behavior of the Sun automounter. The AMD automounter is
capable of being configured in this way, though it is not typical of the
examples in the manual. Nor is it typical of the out-of-the-box Linux
AMD configuration in many distributions.
Defauls to `` /tmp_mnt:/a:/.automount'' if not set.
The
(n) program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY;
for details use the '(n) -VERSion License' command.
This is free software
and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions;
for details use the '(n) -VERSion License' command.
