pegjs/docs/guides/command-line.md

Command Line

The CLI pegjs can be used from terminals to generate a parser from the given grammar, without accessing the PEG.js API.

It's usage signature is: pegjs [options] [<input_file>] [--]

Configuration file

If you provide a configuration file (via -c or --config) then you can use all the options used by the PEG.js API, as well as:

• input — The grammar used as the input file
• output — Output's generated parser to the provided destination

1. Will throw if neither are strings, or the input has already been provided
2. the output option for the compiler is not usable from the config

Input File

Only one grammar is accepted as the given input file, otherwise the CLI aborts with an error.

Options and their values

Usually CLI options are passed like so

pegjs grammar.pegjs -o parser.js -c pegjs.config.js

With the PEG.js CLI, you can also use the assignment operator, so the above can be used like so:

pegjs grammar.pegjs -o=parser.js -c=pegjs.config.js

Command Line Options

When using the CLI pegjs, you can pass the following options:

• -a, --allowed-start-rules — comma-separated list of rules the parser will be allowed to start parsing from (default: the first rule in the grammar)
• --cache — makes the parser cache results, avoiding exponential parsing time in pathological cases but making the parser slower
• -c, --config — file with additional options (in JSON or JavaScript) to pass to peg.generate
• -d, --dependency — makes the parser require a specified dependency (can be specified multiple times)
• -e, --export-var — name of a global variable into which the parser object is assigned to when no module loader is detected
• --extra-options — additional options (in JSON format) to pass to peg.generate
• --extra-options-file — same as --config (was the only cli option for config files before PEG.js v0.11)
• -f, --format — format of the generated parser: amd, bare, commonjs, es, globals, umd (default: commonjs)
• --no-cache — opposite of --cache (default behavior)
• --no-trace — opposite of --trace (default behavior)
• -O, --optimize — selects between optimizing the generated parser for parsing speed (speed) or code size (size) (default: speed)
• -o, --output — Output file
• -p, --plugin — makes PEG.js use a specified plugin (can be specified multiple times)
• --trace — makes the parser trace its progress

The following options only print to the console before exiting:

• -h, --help — Print help and exit
• -v, --version — Print version information and exit

Repeatable and non-repeatable options

Repeatable options on the cli are handled by pushing the values into a list (which is used as the value for the option):

• pegjs -a start,Rule -a Rule,Template will set options.allowedStartRules to [ "start", "Rule", "Template" ]

Unless it's a repeatable option, any option on the right side will take priority over either the same option mentioned before or it's counter part:

• pegjs -f es -f bare will set options.format to bare
• pegjs --no-trace --trace will set options.trace to true

Extra options

Need to pass a custom set of arguments to your plugin? The PEG.js CLI will pass all arguments after -- to options["--"], which is passed to all plugins.

NOTE: You will need to use your own argument parser, as the PEG.js CLI does not process these arguments.