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3.1 Command line options

To read the options and arguments that you give, a2ps uses GNU getopt, hence:

• - the options (short with arguments or long) must be separated by spaces.
• - the order between options and files does not matter: ‘a2ps -4m main.c’ and ‘a2ps main.c -4m’ are identical.
• - the order between options does matter, especially between options that influence the same parameters. For instance ‘a2ps -1 -l132’ is not the same as ‘a2ps -l132 -1’ (the latter being equivalent to ‘a2ps -1’).
• - short options may be grouped together: ‘a2ps -4mg main.c -P printer’
• - when there are no ambiguities, long options can be abbreviated, e.g., ‘--pro’ will be understood as ‘--prologue’,
• - ‘--’ ends the options. Anything behind ‘--’ is considered to be a file: ‘a2ps -- -2’ prints the file -2¹.

Here after a boolean is considered as true (i.e. setting the option on), if boolean is ‘yes’, or ‘1’; as false if it equals ‘no’ or ‘0’; and raise an error otherwise. The corresponding short option takes no arguments, but corresponds to a positive answer.

When an argument is presented between square brackets, it means that it is optional. Optional arguments to short option must never be separated from the option.

• Tasks Options
• Global Options
• Sheet Options
• Page Options
• Headings Options
• Input Options
• Pretty Printing Options
• Output Options
• PostScript Options