EXPLANATION OF THIS SECTION

This section of the manual explains all of the command line arguments that may be used with jProductionCritic, and provides usage examples.

OVERVIEW OF JPRODUCTIONCRITIC'S COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS

A file named "jProductionCritic.jar" is produced upon installation. jProductionCritic is used by running this file using command line arguments specifying what kind of processing is to be performed.

If the user wishes to use jProductionCritic via its GUI, then jProductionCritic should be run with no flags (see below). Alternatively, the user may simply double click on the jar, although this may result in memory problems during processing (see below).

If the user wishes to use jProductionCritic directly from the command line, then command line arguments consisting of flag/value pairs must be used, where the flag comes first and is preceded with a "-". Each flag must be followed by its associated value. The one exception to this is that a lone flag of "-help" will print a list of valid flags with explanations of what they are. Invalid command line arguments will also result in the printing out of a list of valid flags with explanations of what they are. The user may choose to omit certain flag/value pairs if desired, as specified below. The ordering of the flags is irrelevant.

jProductionCritic's operation is also governed by its configuration settings file.

COMMAND LINE FLAGS FOR SELECTING FILES TO HAVE JPRODUCTIONCRITIC CHECK FOR ERRORS

The following is a list of the flags that may be used to choose which audio files are to be checked for technical production errors by jProductionCritic:

• -check: The path of an audio file to test for technical production or recording errors.
• -batchcheck: The path of a directory. All audio files in this directory (but NOT its sub-directories) will be tested for technical production or recording errors.

One of the above flags must be present, but not both.

jProductionCritic can process the following kinds of audio files: mp3, wav, aiff, aifc, au and snd. Any files that cannot be parsed by jProductionCritic will cause an error message to be generated.

COMMAND LINE FLAGS FOR SELECTING OUTPUT REPORTS

The following is a list of the flags that may be used to choose which kinds of reports indicating technical production errors are to be generated by jProductionCritic:

• -reportcmdline: Prints the results of jProductionCritic analysis of audio files to standard out if this flag is followed by a value of "yes".
• -reporttxt: The path at which to save one or more text files containing the results of jProductionCritic analysis of audio files (one analysis file is generated for each audio file analyzed). If a single audio file is analyzed via the -check option, then this flag should specify the path of the output report file. If potentially multiple files are to be analyzed via the -batchcheck option, then this flag should specify the path of a directory in which the results files can be stored (with auto-generated file names). Any files that already exist with the same paths as the generated reports will automatically be overwritten.
• -reporthtml: The path at which to save one or more HTML files containing the results of jProductionCritic analysis of audio files (one analysis file is generated for each audio file analyzed). If a single audio file is analyzed via the -check option, then this flag should specify the path of the output report file. If potentially multiple files are to be analyzed via the -batchcheck option, then this flag should specify the path of a directory in which the results files can be stored (with auto-generated file names), as well as an index page. Any files that already exist with the same paths as the generated reports will automatically be overwritten.
• -reportaudacity: The path at which to save one or more Audacity label track files containing the results of jProductionCritic analysis of audio files (one Audacity label track file is generated for each audio file analyzed). If a single audio file is analyzed via the -check option, then this flag should specify the path of the output label track file. If potentially multiple files are to be analyzed via the -batchcheck option, then this flag should specify the path of a directory in which the output files can be stored (with auto-generated file names). Any files that already exist with the same paths as the generated reports will automatically be overwritten. Note that automatically generated Audacity label track file names are given the .txt extension, which could cause them to overwrite .txt report files set to be generated in the same directory.
• -reportacexml: The path at which to save a single ACE XML file containing the results of jProductionCritic analysis of one or more audio files. If a file already exists at this path, then it will automatically be overwritten. Note that, unlike the other report types, only one file is generated, regardless of whether the -check or -batchcheck extraction option is used. Also, the path specified here must always refer to a file path, not a directory, and no directory in the path will be created if it does not already exist.
• -reportwekaarff: The path at which to save one or more Weka ARFF files containing the results of jProductionCritic analysis of audio files (one ARFF file is generated for each audio file analyzed). If a single audio file is analyzed via the -check option, then this flag should specify the path of the output ARFF file. If potentially multiple files are to be analyzed via the -batchcheck option, then this flag should specify the path of a directory in which the output files can be stored (with auto-generated file names). Any files that already exist with the same paths as the generated reports will automatically be overwritten.

At least one of the above report options must be present and selected for processing to occur, but no more than one is necessary.

More information on these reports is available in the section of the manual on reports.

COMMAND LINE FLAG RELATING TO THE CONFIGURATION FILE

The details of jProductionCritic's error analysis processing are specified in its configuration settings file. The following optional flag allows the user to specify which configuration file to use:

• -configfile: The path of a configuration file containing error checking settings. jProductionCritic will revert to the default file path if this setting is not specified. A default configuration file is auto-generated if no configuration file can be found.

USAGE EXAMPLES

Examples are provided below showing sample ways in which jProductionCritic can be run from the command line. Note that, as is standard practice, flag values containing spaces are enclosed in quotation marks. Note also that the "-mx1000M" Java Virtual Machine option is also used in these examples to reserve 1000 MB of memory for the virtual machine to operate. Although this is not strictly necessary for jProductionCritic processing, it is a good idea in general to ensure that the VM does not run out of memory.

Example 1) Run the jProductionCritic GUI:

java -mx1000M -jar jProductionCritic.jar

Example 2) Check a single recording called "test.wav" in the current directory for errors and report the results to standard out using the default configuration settings:

java -mx1000M -jar jProductionCritic.jar -check ./test.wav -reportcmdline yes

Example 3) Check a single recording called "test.wav" in the current directory for errors and report the results to standard out using the configurations settings specified in a file called "myconfigs.jpc":

java -mx1000M -jar jProductionCritic.jar -check ./test.wav -reportcmdline yes -configfile myconfigs.jpc

Example 4) Check a single recording called "test.wav" in the current directory for errors. Generate an Audacity label track specifying any errors detected during analysis in the current directory, and also report the results to standard out:

java -mx1000M -jar jProductionCritic.jar -check ./test.wav -reportaudacity ./test_ALT.txt -reportcmdline yes

Example 5) Check all compatible audio files in the directory "Assignment 1" for errors. Generate a set of text file reports in the directory "Reports":

java -mx1000M -jar jProductionCritic.jar -batchcheck "./Assignment 1" -reporttxt ./Reports

-top of page-