The syntax for running Proteus depends on the version being considered:

• Proteus Dos, Unix™, Win32
• Proteus ISAPI
• Proteus Service

Proteus Dos, Unix™, Win32

The command line is the following:

proteus [parameters] [program] [input|.|..] [output|.|..] ...

If the interpreter is run without arguments, it will print to the console a short summary explaining usage.

This is the meaning of each command line parameter:

• program is the name of a Proteus script (the syntax will be detailed in the following pages). By default, all Proteus scripts should have .prt as extension; the interpreter  looks for the script according to the following rules (in each case, if the file is not found and the user forgot to specify the extension, Proteus tries to open the script by adding the default extension):
  1. search current directory;
  2. search each directory in the environment variable PROTEUS_SCRIPTS; the directories in this variable must be separated by ';' (Dos/Windows™) or ':' (Unix™), exactly as in PATH;
  3. search the directory where the interpreter resides;
  4. if the parameter -j was specified, search each directory in the environment variable PATH; see number 2) for additional information.
• input is the name of the text file on which the script will be run; if the user specify '.' or '..', the program is run only once, with an empty value for L and the variables EOF/BOF set to 1 (see Variable names for additional information); if input is omitted, the default value is '..';
• output is the name of the file which will be created, according to program execution. If output is '.', the name of the output file will be the same as the input file, with the default extension; if output is '..', no output file will be created (all write operations will be ignored); if output is omitted, the default value is '.' if input was specified, '..' if input was not specified;
• each additional parameter has no special meaning, but can be accessed inside the script by using the function ARGV (see  Library functions: system functions);
• parameters can be one or more of the following strings, separated by spaces:

-v

-h

-c

-f

-a

-q

-o

-z

-i

-p

-g

-j

-k

-x

-dn

-tn

-en

-ws

-ls

-bs

-rs

-ns

-us

-ss

-ms

-ys

Predefined values are:

• date: English format;
• time: 24-hour format;
• epoch: 1970;
• line terminator (both for console and for output): in Dos/Windows™ versions is CR+LF, in Unix™ version is LF;
• output file: ask the user if he wants to overwrite the existing file or abort operation; in Dos/Windows™ versions, the user can specify a new name for destination;
• predefined extension for output is "out", default rights are 600;
• MONTHS and DAYS contain the names of the months and of the days.

Note:

• the strings s referenced above must not be specified inside double quotes, cannot include spaces and must not be separated from the parameter letter;
• the parameters consisting of a single letter can be chained together; for example, to overwrite output and read data from standard input you can use the parameter '-fi';
• the default parameters can be specified in the environment variable PROTEUS_PARAMS, separating them with spaces; to bypass predefined parameters of the on/off kind (-c, -f, -a, -q, -o, -z, -i, -p, -g, -j, -x, -k), it is possible to specify them on the command line followed by '-'; e.g. if PROTEUS_PARAMS include the parameter '-c', by invoking Proteus with the parameter '-c-' the program will be run (and not only verified for syntax errors); this is possible because Proteus reads and evaluates all the parameters inside PROTEUS_PARAMS before evaluating the command line;
• to run the program in traditional way (body executed one time, no implicit read, methods PRINT/PRINTLN ignored), use the parameter -z;
• if there is a line of the type "#!..proteus.." or ";!..proteus.." inside the script, the parameters in the line following the string "proteus" will be evaluated as if they were specified on the command line, and will have priority with respect to those included in the environment variable PROTEUS_PARAMS; see the chapter on remarks for additional details.

Proteus ISAPI

There is no command line for this version.

Proteus Service

The command line is the following:

proteus [parameters] [program]

When run without arguments, Proteus prints out to console a short usage summary.

This is the meaning of the command line parameters:

• program is the name of a Proteus script (the syntax will be detailed in the following pages). The specified value bypasses the value in registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SZP\Proteus\Script
  (see chapter about installation)
• parameters can be one (and only one) of the following string:

-install	install Proteus Service
-remove	remove an installed service
-debug	run the service as a console application; program file, if not specified, will be read from registry key. Remember to accurately test and debug a script to be run as a service, especially if it is going to be run when system starts ("Automatic" service; see Windows™ Help for details: Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services, Proteus Service properties).