24 Using the UIL Compiler
This chapter explains how to use the UIL compiler. The chapter describes all of the different compiler options and
looks at the different types of messages that the compiler can generate.
The job of the UIL compiler is to turn a UIL module (or UIL source file) into a user interface description (UID) file,
which contains a compact, Mrm−readable form of your UIL source module. The compiler checks the module for
coding errors and potential problems and reports what it finds. As with any compilation process, the source module
must be free of errors before the compiler can successfully generate a UID file.
The UIL compiler is invoked with the uil command, followed by the name of the file to be compiled. You may also
provide a number of options. A typical compilation command looks like this:
uil interface.uil
In this simple invocation, the compiler outputs a file named a.uid, assuming there are no errors in interface.uil. (This
default output name is similar to the a.out file generated by most C compilers.) For obvious reasons, the standard
suffix for a UIL source module is .uil and the suffix for UID files is .uid. In addition, we use the suffix .uih for UIL
include files. The OSF/Motif documentation uses .uil for both main modules and include files, but we feel that using
.uil and .uih is easier to work with, as well as being more C−like.
24.1 Compiler Options
The UIL compiler supports a number of options that affect the compilation process. These options are summarized ...