Command Line Parameters
The HELIO Runtime comes in the form of a Command Line Interface (CLI). HELIO is an executable file that can be started in different ways depending on your needs. You can start HELIO with its default settings by simply double-clicking the executable file. This will automatically open a terminal window where HELIO is executed.
If you want to pass specific options or parameters to customize HELIO's behavior, you'll need to run it manually through the command line.
Why a CLI?
While graphical configuration tools are good for controlling complex behavior, CLIs offer some pretty powerful and scriptable ways to control software behavior.
This makes them especially useful for automated deployments or specific runtime configurations.
Basic Usage
To use HELIO with command line parameters:
- Open a Terminal window (Linux/macOS) or Command Prompt (Windows)
- Navigate to the directory containing the HELIO executable
- Type the command with any desired parameters
$ ./HELIO [OPTIONS]
Available Command-Line Parameters
Print Usage
The following command provides an overview of all command-line parameters:
$ ./HELIO --help
Data Location
New This Feature Was Added In HELIO 26.1.1
Replaces the deprecated --config option.
--appdata <APPDATA>
By default HELIO stores all of its configuration and data within the HELIO Data Directory. This options lets you specify an explicit path where HELIO should store its a configuration file and therefore keep its HELIO Data Directory.
Example
In the following example HELIO will use ./HMI/data/ as its data directory:
$ ./HELIO --appdata ./HMI/data/
This option is mutually exclusive with --appdata-unversioned.
Unversioned Data Location
New This Feature Was Added In HELIO 26.1.1
--appdata-unversioned <APPDATA_UNVERSIONED>
This disables the automatic versioning by subdirectories and uses the given directory as-is. By default, HELIO uses subdirectories inside the appdata directory for each release in order to facilitate rollbacks.
Automated Data Directory Backups Will Be Disabled
This option is often used to put HELIO's data under version control, but using it will disable HELIO's built-in mechanism to version its data directory after a HELIO update.
So just make sure that before upgrading to a newer version of HELIO, you create a backup or use version control by default.
Example
In the following example HELIO will use ./HMI/data/ as its data directory,
without creating intermediate directories for each HELIO version:
$ ./HELIO --appdata-unversioned ./HMI/data/
This option is mutually exclusive with --appdata.
Log Verbosity
-v…
By default HELIO logs only errors and warnings. The log verbosity
could be increased by -v/-vv/-vvv to include info/debug/trace
logs respectively.
| Parameter | Log Levels |
|---|---|
| none (default) | error/warn |
-v | error/warn/info |
-vv | error/warn/info/debug |
-vvv | error/warn/info/debug/trace |
Caution: Enabling debug and trace logs will generate many log messages, resulting in huge log files.
Example
The following command will increase the log level to info.
$ ./HELIO -v
Log Directory
--logdir <LOGDIR>
By default HELIO will write all of its logs to the console. Use this option to specify a directory that HELIO will use to store its log files. HELIO will create rolling log files in this directory which means new log files are automatically created at regular intervals (such as daily) or when the current file reaches a certain size limit. Files are preserved with timestamps for historical reference.
Example
The following example will make sure HELIO will store its log files in the
/var directory, which is a common place to store such files on Unix systems.
$ ./HELIO --logdir /var/log/helio