---
name: "wyg"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "wyg"
version: "1.1.3.0.debian.1-5"
release: "Debian 7 (Wheezy)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/wyg"
---

# wyg(1)

generate config-file parsers and automate use of getopt\_long

## NAME

wyg - generate config-file parsers and automate use of getopt\_long

## SYNOPSIS

**wyg** \[*options*\] \[*file*\]

## DESCRIPTION

Where's Your Grammar (or **wyg**) is a config-file-parser generator that automates the use of [lex(1)](/lex/1.md), [yacc(1)](/yacc/1.md), and GNU [getopt\_long(3)](/getopt_long/3.md) so that you can worry about more important parts of your code.

**wyg** reads a configuration file describing the configuration variables available to your program and generates a number of output files. The simplest way of running **wyg** is simply to type:

     wyg

This will read the file *wyg.conf* and generate the output files. If you want to use a different configuration file for input to wyg, you can specify that on the **wyg** command line:

     wyg foo.conf

**wyg** provides a few options that help automate the generation of the **wyg** library. To automatically build libwyg.a, type:

     wyg --make

This will compile libwyg.a using the rules in Makefile.wyg. If you also want to generate a simple test program to make sure everything is working as expected, you can use the --maketest option:

     wyg --maketest

This will build a simple program called wygtest that, when run, will display the value of all your configuration variables. The source code to wygtest can be found in */usr/doc/wyg/examples/wygtest.c*.

This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the original program does not have a manual page. Instead, it has documentation in HTML format; see below.

## INPUT FILE

You tell **wyg** what configuration variables your code will use via the **wyg** configuration file (usually called wyg.conf). This is a text file that can include blank lines, comments (lines beginning with consist of five fields, seperated by whitespace:

   *Name Letter Type Default Help-Text*

- *Name*

  The name of the configuration variable. This can consist of letters, numbers, and "\_". It must start with a letter or with "\_".

- *Letter*

  The short version of the variable for use on the command line.  If this variable has no short equivalent, set this field to "-".

- *Type*

  The data type of this variable. This can be int, string, float or bool.

- *Default*

  The default value of this variable. This field may not contain any whitespace; thus, strings values are currently limited to single-word defaults. This will probably change soon.

- *Help-Text*

  Help text for display to the user. This is a free-form field that can contain anything you want (except for embedded newlines).

## OPTIONS

The programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (\`-'). A summary of options are included below. For a complete description, see the HTML file.

- **-h, --help**

  Show summary of options.

- **-v, --version**

  Show version of program.

## SEE ALSO

**wyg** is documented fully by */usr/doc/wyg/manual.html*, which is a copy of the home page *http://www.larsshack.org/sw/wyg/*.

## AUTHOR

This manual page was written by James R. Van Zandt \<jrv@vanzandt.mv.com\>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).