Using the Slice Compilers

Ice provides a separate Slice compiler for each language mapping, as shown below:

The Slice compilers.

The compilers share a similar command-line syntax:

<compiler-name> [options] file...

Regardless of which compiler you use, a number of command-line options are common to the compilers for any language mapping. (See the appropriate language mapping chapter for options that are specific to a particular language mapping.) The common command-line options are:

• -h, --help
  Displays a help message.

• -v, --version
  Displays the compiler version.

• -DNAME
  Defines the preprocessor symbol NAME.

• -DNAME=DEF
  Defines the preprocessor symbol NAME with the value DEF.
  Each compiler always predefines the __<compiler name in upper case>__ macro when compiling Slice file. For example, slice2cpp predefines __SLICE2CPP__.

• -UNAME
  Undefines the preprocessor symbol NAME.

• -IDIR
  Add the directory DIR to the search path for #include directives.

• -E
  Print the preprocessor output on stdout.

• --output-dir DIR
  Place the generated files into directory DIR, which must already exist.

• -d, --debug
  Print debug information showing the operation of the Slice parser.

• --depend
  Print dependency information to standard output by default, or to the file specified by the --depend-file option. No code is generated when this option is specified. The output includes the complete list of Slice files that the input Slice files depend on through direct or indirect inclusion; this output may include other files depending on the target programming language.  The Ice for C++ build system uses the script config/makedepend.py to process and include this output in Makefiles.

• --depend-xml
  Print dependency information in XML format to standard output by default, or to the file specified by the --depend-file option. No code is generated when this option is specified. The output consists of the complete list of Slice files that the input Slice files depend on through direct or indirect inclusion, and is identical will all Slice compilers.

• --depend-file FILE
  Directs dependency information to the specified file. The output format depends on whether --depend or --depend-xml is also specified.

• --validate
  Checks the provided command-line options for correctness, and does not generate any code.

The Slice compilers permit you to compile more than a single source file, so you can compile several Slice definitions at once, for example:

slice2cpp -I. file1.ice file2.ice file3.ice

See Also

• Slice Compilation