halcompile(1)

💖 halcompile(1) — The Enhanced Machine Controller 💖

okay bestie, welcome to halcompile, the absolute main character of the LinuxCNC toolchain. she builds, compiles and installs HAL components and she does it all. this is a page from the LinuxCNC docs, and we're gonna go through every single crumb of it together, no skips, no cap. 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

here's the whole vibe of how you call her:

     halcompile [--compile|--preprocess|--document|--view-doc]
     compfile...
sudo halcompile [--install|--install-doc] compfile...
     halcompile --compile --userspace cfile...
sudo halcompile --install --userspace cfile...
sudo halcompile --install --userspace pyfile...

lowkey notice how some of these are giving sudo energy and some are not. that's not a typo, that's a vibe check. 💅

when personalities are used in a comp file, HAL instances get exported sequentially — typically through the mutually exclusive count= or names= parameters. and if the number of exports goes over the maximum number of personalities? the subsequent personalities just get assigned modulo the maximum number of personalities allowed. math ate, honestly. 🧮✨

by default, the max number of personalities is 64. wanna change that limit? use the --personalities= option with halcompile. for example, to set the maximum of personality items to 4:

[sudo] halcompile --personalities=4 --install ...

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

halcompile is doing so many things at once and honestly? obsessed. here's the full list, every single one:

• Compile .comp and .c files into .so or .ko HAL realtime components (the --compile flag) 🔥
• Compile .comp and .c files into HAL non-realtime components (the --compile --userspace flag) ✨
• Preprocess .comp files into .c files (the --preprocess flag) 🦋
• Extract documentation from .comp files into .9 manpage files (the --document flag) 📄
• Display documentation from .comp files onscreen (the --view-doc flag) 👀
• Compile and install .comp and .c files into the proper directory for HAL realtime components (the --install flag) — this one may require sudo to write to system directories 🫶
• Install .c and .py files into the proper directory for HAL non-realtime components (the --install --userspace flag) — also may require sudo to write to system directories 💀
• Extract documentation from .comp files into .9 manpage files in the proper system directory (the --install flag) — and yeah, may require sudo to write to system directories 🙈
• Preprocess .comp files into .c files (the --preprocess flag) 🌈

ngl the --preprocess flag showed up twice in that list. not me editing the source, i'm just reporting what she said. both of them are staying. periodt. 💅

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• **Halcompile HAL Component Generator</b> in the LinuxCNC documentation — for a full description of the .comp syntax, along with examples 📚
• pydoc, HAL and Creating Non-realtime Python Components in the LinuxCNC documentation — for documentation on the Python interface to HAL components 🐍

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you ate it. 🎀✨ this was halcompile(1) from the LinuxCNC Documentation, dated 2007-10-17 — yes she's an elder icon and she's still serving. go build something iconic, ily, bye! 💖🦋🌸