$COMPILE

General Forms:

2. $COMPILE Filename TO Filename

The $COMPILE statement copies and compiles programs from one location to another. It has a similar function to the MOVE statement except that program files are re-compiled. It provides an easy way to compile ASCII source into KCML compiled code and vice versa. This statement is particularly useful for writing programs that need to generate compiled KCML code.

The first form of $COMPILE is used to compile an entire directory, or a specified file within a directory to another directory. The source and destination directories are selected with the SELECT # statement.

The second form is used to compile an individual file to another file. The destination file must not exist otherwise an error will result.

Examples:

REM Compile the file First to the file /tmp/Second
$COMPILE "First" TO "/tmp/Second"

REM Compile all files from the directory /tmp/PROGS into the directory PROGS
SELECT #20 "/tmp/PROGS"
SELECT #21 "PROGS"
$COMPILE #20 TO #21

REM Compile the file FILE1 from the directory /tmp/PROGS into the directory PROGS
SELECT #20 "/tmp/PROGS"
SELECT #21 "PROGS"
$COMPILE #20, "FILE1" TO #21

Specifying the optional 'R' parameter allows programs to have REM statements removed during the compilation. Some REM statements may remain as stubs if they are referred to in the program to avoid problems with missing lines.

Specifying the optional '!' parameter allows programs to be compiled and scrambled into the destination directory. The SELECT PASSWORD statement must be executed before $COMPILE to specify the password used to scramble the program.

Errors are sent to the TRACE device, which defaults to the screen but may be redirected to a file with SELECT TRACE, e.g. SELECT TRACE "/tmp/logfile". This means that $COMPILE will never throw a run time error itself and an ERROR clause will never be invoked. From KCML 6.00 onwards it is also possible to check for syntax errors during the compile by inspecting the value of ERR to see if it is nonzero after the compile. You ought to zero ERR by inspecting it before the compile.

a=ERR
$COMPILE infile$ TO outfile$
PRINT (ERR <> 0 ? "FAILED" : "OK")

Byte 40 of $OPTIONS RUN can be set to change the characteristics of $COMPILE. This byte can be set from a combination of the following bits:

For example, the following would force $COMPILE to de-compile all programs into ASCII format and translate any spaces in the filenames to underscore characters.

See also: