kdb gen <templateName> <parentKey> <outputName> [parameters...]

<templateName>: one of the templates listed below
<parentKey>: the parent key to use, templates may have certain restrictions on e.g. the allowed namespaces You may also use the special value - (see below).
<outputName>: the base name of the output files. If a template produces multiple files, it will append different suffixes (e.g. file extensions) to this base name.
[parameters...]: a list of parameters, the supported parameters depend on the template

This command invokes Elektra's code-generator.

It supports different templates. All templates require a parentKey parameter, because this determines the input for the code-generator, as well as an outputName parameter to specify the output file(s).

If the given parentKey is -, instead of actually invoking the code generator, kdb gen will just print the filenames of the files that would be written with a valid parentKey.

For more information see the list of templates below and the man-pages for each of them.

This command will return the following values as an exit status:

0: No errors.
1-10: standard exit codes, see kdb(1)

-H, --help: Show the man page.
-V, --version: Print version info.
-C, --color <when>: Print never/auto(default)/always colored output.
-F, --input-file <plugin>=<file>: Load the file <file> with plugin <plugin> instead of accessing the KDB.
-p, --profile <profile>: Use a different kdb profile.
-v, --verbose: Explain what is happening. Gives a complete trace of all tried keys. Very useful to debug fallback and overrides.
-d, --debug: Give debug information. Prints additional debug information in case of errors/warnings.

Currently we only have one template:

highlevel: Generates the files needed for using the high-level API with code-generation. More information can be found in kdb-gen-highlevel(1)

Examples can be found on the man-pages of each template.

kdb(1) for general information about the kdb tool.
elektra-key-names(7) for an explanation of key names.