RmimDesDoc-CommandLine

Introduction

In 2008, the need to be able to "drive" selected RMIM Designer "batch" functions from the command line arose in order to allow the ANT-automation of these publishing processes. Limited documentation of this interface was embedded in the Visual Basic (VBA) code in the RMIM Designer stencils and has been distributed as part of the releases in a text file. This documentation is presented here with sparse embellishment and corrections.

Note on VBA command line module - CmdLineProcessor

This module contains the entire Command Line Functionality of the Visio RMIM Designer. If appropriate, it is invoked by the "Startup" sub of ThisDocument (which is invoked whenever a new drawing is opened). It replaces the key initialization functions of that subroutine, and REPLICATES rather than using the batch functions defined in the code of the BatchTask form.

This replication risks divergence, but the BatchTask code is very complex because it handles about a dozen functions, whereas this code needed only the simplest three of these. It does use the same HTML overlay and PNG generation functions that BatchTask uses.

Command line Syntax and Structure

Elements

RMIM Visio Command Line is expressed as a set of space-delimited elements (with quotes surrounding text elements that include a space.)

Sections

These elements are grouped into sections, each of which starts with a "-" and a keyword, as "-<keyWord>". Within a section, the values are single in many cases and repeat in others. The order of the "sections" is not important, except that "-TASK" section must appear somewhere or the line will be rejected, and if it is used, the "-DEBUG" section must be first.

The section key words and certain of the values must be drawn from the set of enumerations listed here. These constrained elements are indicated with angle brackets

Section <keywords> List

The following lists the section keywords. Notes:

1. a number of elements are listed in angle brackets, such as <taskName>. These elements too are fully enumerated in sections that follow this one.
2. Whenever a task is followed by a quote-delimited string, the contents of the string describe the element that should replace this string in the command line
3. The words single or repeat in parentheses indicate whether or not the element repeats in the section.
4. Descriptive notes are listed below each element.

Section <keyWords>:

• -TASK <taskName> (single)
• -SUB <option> <option> ... (repeat)
• -DBPATH "Full path to Design Repository." (single)

  [If blank, will use last repository saved (last used) by Visio RMIM Designer]

• -SPATH "SourcePath prefix for source files" (single)

  points to the "root" of the directory(s) from which the "-SRC" files are drawn. If the "-SRC" files have no sub-directory info, then this is the directory from which the source files were drawn.

• -TPATH "Target path" (single)

  Interpretation depends on value of "-TPRELATIVE". (NOTE: several of the "-TASKs" create an internal algorithm for determining the output path.)

• -TPRELATIVE "Boolean (default = false)"

  If true, and if "-TPATH" is valued then ALL generated files are placed "under" "-TPATH" in sub-directory(s) that are determined by the sub-directories (if any) in the -SRC file strings.

  If false, and if "-TPATH" is valued, then "-TPATH" is the absolute target directory for all output.

• -IGNOREDTS "Boolean (default = false)"

  The output files for these processes do not have the same base name as the source files, and frequently, a single source produces multiple outputs. Therefore, the simple ANT date-time stamp (DTS) is not sufficient to test for result currency. Thus each TASK includes a check on the result and will only regenerate if the source (and/or the algorithm) is newer than the previous result.

  If -IGNOREDTS is true, the internal DTS check will be ignored and all results will be (re)generated.

• -SRC "Filename1 (perhaps with partial path at beginning)" "Filename2" "Filename3" ... (repeat)