5.1 Invoking mixasm

In its simplest form, mixasm is invoked with a single argument, which is the name of the MIXAL file to be compiled, e.g.

mixasm hello

will compile either hello or hello.mixal, producing a binary file named hello.mix if no errors are found.

In addition, mixasm can be invoked with the following command line options (note, that, following GNU’s conventions, we provide a long option name for each available single letter switch):

mixasm [-vhulO] [-o OUTPUT_FILE] [--version] [--help] [--usage]
       [--ndebug] [--output=OUTPUT_FILE] [--list[=LIST_FILE]] file

The meaning of these options is as follows:

User Option: -v

User Option: --version

Prints version and copyleft information and exits.

User Option: -h

User Option: --help

User Option: -u

User Option: --usage

Prints a summary of available options and exits.

User Option: -O

User Option: --ndebug

Do not include debugging information in the compiled file, saving space but disallowing breakpoint setting at source level and symbol table inspection under mixvm.

User Option: -o output_file

User Option: --output=output_file

By default, the given source file file.mixal is compiled into file.mix. You can provide a different name for the output file using this option.

User Option: -l

User Option: --list[=list_file]

This option causes mixasm to produce, in addition to the .mix file, an ASCII file containing a summary of the compilation results. The file is named after the MIXAL source file, changing its extension to .mls if no argument is provided; otherwise, the listing file is named according to the argument.