Redirecting Errors to a File

By default, the Help compiler displays all errors on your screen. However, you can redirect errors to a file so that you can examine the errors more carefully and fix problems in your Help file. You can examine the redirected file using any ASCII text editor. Use the standard MS-DOS redirection syntax to redirect error and status messages to a file; for example:

hc myhelp.hpj > errors.txt

This command places all the messages sent during the build process into the ERRORS.TXT file. You can also enter the following in the [OPTIONS] section of your Help project file:

ERRORLOG=error-file

The Help compiler places compilation errors in the file given by error-file. The error-file can be an absolute or relative path if the file is in a directory other than the Help project root directory. If you use the ERRORLOG option, it should be the first line in the [OPTIONS] section.

Using ERRORLOG has two advantages over redirecting error messages:

nUsing redirection, the Help compiler puts unnecessary characters (including the periods it displays to indicate the progress of the build) and status messages along with error messages in the output file. Using ERRORLOG, you get only the error messages.

nUsing redirection, the Help compiler doesn’t display error messages on the screen, so you can’t monitor the messages during the build. Using ERRORLOG, the Help compiler displays the error messages on your screen and writes them to the file.