Usage

Lins is a command-line tool—meaning that most of the time, the user will interface with it through a terminal session. Linting a text file involves invoking Lins with the path to one or several target files as input arguments.

$ lins my_file.txt

The input file has to be encoded in UTF-8 (of which ASCII is a subset) and not contain anything other than the target text. Files from other word processing applications often contain, apart from the text itself, additional data specific to that tool. These types of files are not supported.

Pattern Matching

Selecting target files based on a pattern is supported. However, the extent of this support is OS-dependent. The *.ext notation is always supported. POSIX systems use the glob call which enables wildcarding directories. For example,

$ lins **/*.txt

descends one level into every directory in the current working directory and grabs every file with the .txt extension.

Command Line Interface

usage:
  lins [OPTIONS] ARGUMENTS


arguments:
  file [file [file ...]]    Input file(s) to lint. To lint several files,
                            separate them by whitespace. If no files are
                            specified, piped input from stdin is assumed.

                            Pattern matching is supported but the extent of this
                            support is OS-dependent. The "*.ext" notation is
                            always supported. The glob call is used on POSIX
                            systems.


options:
  -h, --help                Print this help message and exit.
  -v, --version             Print the version information and exit.

  --col=COL                 Specify the column index of the first character
                            in the input data. Default value: 1. See also the
                            'line' option.

  --line=LINE               Specify the line of the first character in the input
                            data. Default value: 1. See also the 'col' option.

  --linter=LINTER           Set the linter selection mode. Valid values are:
                              - 'auto': Choose linter based on file extensions.
                              - 'plain': Choose the plain text linter.
                              - 'latex': Choose the LaTeX linter.
                            The default value is 'auto'.

  --list                    List available styles and current rule set.

  --minimal                 Enable minimal output mode. All output except the
                            violation information is suppressed.

  --no-cfg                  Don't look for a configuration file.

  --no-color                Don't color the output. Suppresses the ANSI escape
                            sequences on UNIX.

  --no-default              Don't use a default style (if defined in the
                            configuration file).

  --rule=RULE               Specify a rule set by name. The rule set will have
                            to be defined in the configuration file.

  --rule-dir=RULE_DIR       Specify a root directory to traverse in search of
                            rule files.

  --severity=SEVERITY       Set the severity threshold. Only violations reaching
                            this level are printed. For example, 'warning' would
                            print both errors and warnings but not suggestions.
                            Valid values are 'error', 'warning' and
                            'suggestion'.

  --severity-exit           Enable exit status depending on the highest severity
                            level of any rule violation.
                              - ELINTERROR: 3
                              - ELINTWARNING: 2
                              - ELINGSUGGESTION: 1
                              - ESUCCESS: 0
                            Without this option, only values 0, 3 and negative
                            values are possible. Warnings and suggestions will
                            exit with status 0.

  --style=STYLE             Specify which style to use for linting. Styles
                            are defined in the configuration file.

debug options:
  --parser-output=FILENAME  Write the output from the parser to the specified
                            file.