xops3 Command Line Arguments
I recently received a request from a customer for information on all the command line options for the MacroView xops3 executable. This post is a quick summary of the command line options:
| -checkMemory | Runs xops3 in a memory buffer checking mode. This mechanism was included in the original MacroView Version 3 development from ~1992 as a means of chasing down memory faults in C++ applications. It is rarely used these days as tools such as Purify provide a more effective memory debugging approach. When used, every dynamically allocated memory segment is logged in a memory manager and header/footer segments surround the memory allocation. A memory manager then checks for allocation/deallocation pairs and memory overruns. It reports on any memory corruptions found and detects memory leaks. Note that program execution speed is of course much slower when run in this mode. |
| -file <dgtfile> | By default xops3 displays the base.dgt file in the configuration directory. This command line option allows a different startup graphic dgt file to be used. |
| -updateRate <seconds> | Sets the default scan rate for graphic updates in the xops3 session. This can be over-ridden by individual graphic metafiles in the dgt header. |
| -reportTimes | Reports on graphic dgt file load and display times. It is useful for measuring draw time performance. |
| -edit | Puts xops3 in EzEng configuration and editing mode. |
| -highlight | Displays dynamic graphic objects with a rectangular highlight box to allow an engineer to see the bounds of the object at run time. |
| -processEvents <n> | The metascript variable management system in xops3 will automatically inform all graphic objects that reference it that the variable has changed. The graphic objects can then immediately update their graphic state. The process events count defines how many of these events are process in a cycle. Note that a graphic object display update can potentially cause the variable to be set again. The event processing limit stops this potential recursion from continuing indefinitely. A zero value turns off the variable change event processing which means that graphic display updates occur at the dgt page's update rate. The default is that all events in the variable set event queue are processed. |
| -olderr | The xops3 error processing system handles each internally generated error message and either stores the error in an internal (table variable based) list or sends the error as a system alarm to the system message queue. Previous versions of xops3 sent all internal errors to the system message queue and didn't keep an internal list. The -olderr command line option reverts operation to this older message processing implementation. |
| -noConfig | Runs the xops3 session with no configuration directory i.e. the entities, sources and type attribute databases are not read. |
| -lastGoodValue | By default, xops3 expects a shared memory driver to update an entity.attribute value on a regular basis and will display -999 values if it is not updated regularly. The determination of "regular" is data source specific and is based on the requested update rate configured in that data source. The -lastGoodValue command line option turns this check off so that the last good value is displayed even if the communications driver is failing to meet the configured update rate for that entity.attribute. This functionality is not supported in the Windows version of the executable. |
| -consoleSet | A defunct command line option for an xops3 feature called "Console Sets" that is no longer supported. |
| -letScript <filename> | Instructs xops3 to run a metascript from the supplied file every time a LET command is executed on a PLC or sorted image data source entity.attribute. The metascript is run with 3 arguments in the following order: entity name, attribute name and a value string. This allows xops3 to perform LET action side effects across a whole graphic configuration instead of having to embed calls throughout a graphic configuration. |
| -iocount | Reports the IO count for the current configuration. This is the number of entity.attribute instances derived from the configuration. It is also the value used for IO count licensing checks. |
| -dlm | A defunct command line option for an xops3 feature for logging database changes that is no longer supported. |
| -metascriptProgramTime <seconds> | Sets the maximum amount of time a metascript can take to run within the xops3 GUI environment before it is automatically terminated. The default is 10 seconds which is also the minimum setting. A value of -1 turns of the maximum execution time checks. |
| -startMaximized | Starts xops3 in a maximized window state rather than the default window size. |
| Xt command line arguments | xops3 on Unix/Linux also supports standard Xt command line arguments such as -geometry. |