Command Line Switches - revisited

[alexti]

I can't say about Mac OSX, but on Windows standard descriptors work the same way as on Linux/UNIX if the application is built as "console" application. If application is built as "Windows" application, standard output isn't going anywhere. The programmer need to reopen descriptors into some file. That's what Dom3 must be doing.

[Arralen]

Windows
On my W2kSP4 box, running dom3.exe -h at the command prompt does provide me with a stdout.txt containing the info about the command line options ... :

[Ygorl]

Psientist, you don't want to use the "open" command. Just type /Applications/Games/Dominions 3/Dominions3.app/Contents/MacOS/Dominions3 -h
and you'll get your list.
Note that if you want to run the game this way, say if you like using a nonstandard resolution, you have to run it from a slightly different location (search the forum for other posts by me and others to see how) - but if you just want to run the command-line version (to get help, verify turns, host a turn, etc.) this works fine.
I don't know if open has support for command-line switches to the program you're opening (open is really designed for opening files, not running applications) but even if it doesn you'd probably have to put it in quotes. Anyway, you don't want or need it in this case. Hope this gets you what you need.

[Psientist]

Ygori:

Thanks for the assist. I figured it out, finally. Although I had tried a few times to run the Dominions3 app inside the bundle by *navigating* to that directory (e.g., "cd /Applications/Dominions 3/Dominions3.app/Contents/MacOS/") before running it, it never worked.

But just establishing the current working directory outside of the application bundle, and then running the core app with the entire path specified, did the trick.


So, to repeat for every OSX user's benefit:
1. open terminal.
2. run the following command, adjusting the path to specify the location of your Dominions 3 game folder:

/Applications/Games/'Dominions 3'/Dominions3.app/Contents/MacOS/Dominions3 -h

Thanks, Ygori. I'll probably make a script file to execute that without having to go to terminal first, or for setting command-line switches I wish to load every time.

[Gandalf Parker]

I was thinking that from what I read when I tried to google an answer, but I couldnt test it so I kept my mouth shut (for once). The "open" said it opened a gui console. That would seem to be oppossing the result desired for -h and -T. I found examples using open and some that didnt use open but nothing clearly saying why use one and not the other.

Does using the "open" make ALL switches ignored? Do switches such as nofade or nomusic work?

[Psientist]

all switches seem to be treated as another filename argument, perhaps to the "open" command.

[Gandalf Parker]

I saw an example online of using the open and then putting the filename in single quotes so that
open Dominions3.app -h
would have been
open 'Dominions3.app -h '
or something like that. I couldnt tell what quotes were used whether it as " ' ` or whatever.

Im just curious because this is one of the subjects Im debating wiki/blog/faq or something on Dom3Minions. Some how-to on screenshots, sprites, command switches, backups, saves, restores, alarms, hosting, map making, etc etc