Checking a configuration file

A Perl script is available to check the validity of configuration files. You can use it to check for errors in any configuration files that you have created or modified. It is included with the examples provided with this document as file:

/star/examples/ssn75/checkcfg

You can either run it from the examples directory or copy it to a convenient local directory. On non-Starlink systems you may need to edit the first line to correspond to wherever Perl is located on your system.

To use the script simply specify the name of the configuration file, optionally preceded by the appropriate directory specification, on the command line:

/star/examples/ssn75/checkcfg  configuration-file-name

For example, to check a copy of the example configuration file supplied with this document (assuming that there is a copy in your current directory):

/star/examples/ssn75/checkcfg  simpleconfig.cfg

If the configuration file is valid the checkcfg will display the message:

Configuration file parsed successfully.

Conversely, if there are problems with the configuration file then explanatory error messages are displayed. Usually the number of the invalid line in the configuration file is included in the message. Note that checkcfg is mostly checking for syntax errors; it does not, for example, check that any URLs specified are valid.