Complex Command Lines

Order of Operations

All options supported by a2ltool can be combined in a single command line.

When combining options, it is useful to understand the overall order of operations:

1. Load the input A2L or create a new file (--create)
2. Convert the file version (--a2lversion)
3. Merge additional A2L files (--merge)
4. Merge includes (--merge-includes)
5. Remove items (--remove and --remove-range)
6. Insert items generated from source comments (--from-source)
7. Update addresses and other settings (--update)
8. Insert items based on debug data (e.g., --characteristic, --measurement, etc.)
9. Clean-up (--cleanup)
10. If-data clean-up (--ifdata-cleanup)
11. Sort all elements (--sort)
12. Check consistency (--check)
13. Write the output file (--output)

Response files

a2ltool supports many options, several of which may be used multiple times. This can cause command lines to become very long, making them unmanageable or even exceeding system-imposed command line length limits.

To address this, a2ltool supports response files—files that contain command line options. When a response file is included in the command line, a2ltool loads the file and reads additional options from it.

A response file must be prefixed with @ on the command line.

Example

Example response file (Response.rsp):

--elffile sw.elf
--update ADDRESSES
--update-mode PRESERVE
--cleanup

Example command using a response file:

a2lfile input.a2l @Response.rsp --output out.a2l