Command Line: introduction
Command Line: basic usage
Command Line: advanced usage
Command Line: argument files
Command Line: reference
From version 2.11.3.0 Jalview has a new set of command line arguments which allow more powerful and flexible combinations of arguments, though can also be used for simple use cases too.
These new arguments are all accessed with a --doubledash
form of
command line argument (with the one exception where simply opening one or more
files can be performed without any arguments other than the filenames).
The old command line arguments can still be used (see
the old page on command line arguments) so
existing scripts utilising them should not break.
These are now deprecated and will be removed in a future version of Jalview.
However, you cannot mix old and new style arguments, so if you use any
-singledash
arguments (with the exception of -help
or -h
), they will all be interpreted as
old style arguments with the new --doubledash
arguments being ignored. If you have a script
that uses the old arguments without any dashes, and uses the bare-word
open
then these will also be interpreted as old style arguments.
Warning! If you use command line arguments without any dashes and
don't use the bare-word argument open
then all
your arguments will be interpreted as alignment files to be opened by the
new command line argument process!
To launch Jalview from the command line, see running Jalview from the command line.
The new command line argument parser can group certain labelled arguments together, or give them a default label based on their position in the list of arguments (in which case you won't ever need to know what the label is). All arguments are read before any alignment actions are performed. For basic usage without additional syntax, please see the Command Line: basic usage explanatory page.
jalview --argname[linkedId]=[subvalues]value --switch --noswitch --argname[linkedId] [subvalues]filename1 filename2 ...
Different arguments can take one or more values, others take no value and act like a switch (some can be set on and off and others are only on, depending on the use).
--arg value
--arg=value
--arg file1.fa otherfile.stk
--arg filename*.fa
(expanded by shell)
--arg=filename*.fa
(expanded by Jalview)
no
.
--switch
--noswitch
--image
output can be modified with a --scale=number
factor, or a --structure
can refer to a sequence with a --seqid=ID
). This additional information can be added in a number of different ways.
--image output.png --scale 2.5
--open=[nowrap,colour=gecos-blossom]uniref50.fa
no
to negate the value, as with the argument name.
--image[MYID]=output.png --other --args --scale[MYID]=2.5
--image=output.png --other --args --all --scale=2.5
--image=output.png --other --args --scale[*]=2.5
This may sound complicated, but nearly everything can be done just with plain command line arguments, though in this case the ordering of the arguments is more important.