Q44413: How to Spawn C 5.10 Compiler Passes without CL.EXE

Article: Q44413
Product(s): See article
Version(s): 5.10
Operating System(s): MS-DOS
Keyword(s): ENDUSER | SR# G890503-17633 c1.exe c2.exe c3.exe | mspl13_c
Last Modified: 22-NOV-1989

Question:

How can I run the individual compiler passes, C1, C2, and C3, instead
of CL.EXE? There isn't enough memory available from my editor to spawn
to CL.EXE, but I suspect there may be enough if I call the individual
compiler passes.

Response:

There are a number of problems here. First, the CL.EXE program passes
many flags and command-line options to the various passes. You must
get these all exactly right. The /d, /Bd, or /Bz CL command-line
options, or the PEEK.C program below, can help show what is passed
to the various passes. The PEEK program is easiest to use. To use it,
we "trick" the CL driver into calling our program instead of the
various compiler passes. For instance, to find out what is passed on
each of the three passes, you would use the following commands:

   cl /B1 peek.exe /B2 peek.exe /B3 peek.exe [options] [file]

When you do this, the CL driver spawns your program PEEK.EXE rather
than the various compiler passes. The switches are too complicated to
guess at, so either use this program or one of the /B or /d options.
Note that no compilation will be done because you called PEEK.EXE
rather than the three compiler passes.

The second major problem is that because these command strings can
easily exceed the DOS 128-character limit on the length of a command
line, the CL driver uses the environment string area rather than the
command line to pass options to the passes. To duplicate this, you
must do one of the following two things:

1. Write a batch file that sets the environment properly and calls
   the various passes. This file fails if any of the strings are
   longer than the DOS command-line limit of 128 characters. Since
   this is likely to be the case, you'll probably need to use the
   second method.

2. Write a small C program that spawns (using one of the spawnle,
   spawnlpe, spawnve, or spawnvpe functions with the P_WAIT option)
   the three passes, setting up the environment first. This is a
   simple procedure and provides you with 30K or so in savings. This
   program is not provided here -- you must write it yourself.

PEEK.C Program
--------------

#include <stdio.h>

void main(int argc, char **argv, char **envp)
{
    int i;

    printf("Command line arguments:\n\n");
    for (i = 0; i < argc; i++)  {
        printf("argv[%d]**********\n%s\n\n", i, argv[i]);
    }
    printf("**********End of command line arguments\n\n\n");

    printf("Environment strings:\n\n");
    for (i = 0; envp[i]; i++)  {
        printf("envp[%d]**********\n%s\n\n", i, envp[i]);
    }
    puts("**********End of environment strings\n");
}

THE INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THE MICROSOFT KNOWLEDGE BASE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. MICROSOFT DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT CORPORATION OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS OR SPECIAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF MICROSOFT CORPORATION OR ITS SUPPLIERS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES SO THE FOREGOING LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY.

Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1986-2002.