cook - a file construction tool

[ option... ][ filename... ]

-Help

-VERSion

The 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 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 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to see when the prerequisites of a file have changed, implying that the file needs to be recreated as it is logically out of date.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 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 filename.o from filename.c

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 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 filenames are given on the command line the targets of the first recipe defined are cooked.

The valid options for 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.

-Book filename

Tells 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, 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 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 .

-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 to automatically redirect the stdout and stderr of the session. Output will continue to come to the terminal, unless is executing in the background. The name of the file will be the name of the cookbook with any suffix removed and "CW.list" appended; this will usually be Howto.list. This is the default.

-List filename

Causes to automatically redirect the stdout and stderr of the session into the named file. Output will continue to come to the terminal, unless 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 makes when attempting to cook a target. The -Reason option will cause will emit copious amounts of information about the inferences it is making when cooking targets. This option may be used when you think is acting strangely, or are just curious.

-No_Reason

This option may be used to cause 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 center; 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.

name=value

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 are long, this means ignoring the extra leading '-'. The "--option=value" convention is also understood.

The command will exit with a status of 1 on any error. The command will only exit with a status of 0 if there are no errors.

The following files are used by cook:

Howto.cook

This file contains instructions to cook for how to construct files.

This directory contains "system" cookbooks for various tools and activities.

.cook.fp

This text file is used to remember fingerprints between invokations.

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 ``CW/tmp_mnt:/a:/.automount'' if not set.

version

Copyright Peter Miller; All rights reserved.

The program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use the ' -VERSion License' command. This is free software and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; for details use the ' -VERSion License' command.

tab(;); l r l. Peter Miller;E-Mail:;millerp@canb.auug.org.au /\/\*;WWW:;http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/