3.4 Updating with convert-ly

The LilyPond input syntax is routinely changed to simplify it or improve it in different ways. As a side effect of this, the LilyPond interpreter often is no longer compatible with older input files. To remedy this, the program convert-ly can be used to deal with most of the syntax changes between LilyPond versions.

It uses \version statements in the input files to detect the old version number. In most cases, to upgrade your input file it is sufficient to run

     convert-ly -e myfile.ly

MacOS X users may execute this command under the menu entry `Compile > Update syntax'.

If there are no changes to myfile.ly and file called myfile.ly.NEW is created, then myfile.ly is already updated.

3.4.1 Command line options

convert-ly always converts up to the last syntax change handled by it. This means that the \version number left in the file is usually lower than the version of convert-ly itself.

To upgrade LilyPond fragments in texinfo files, use

     convert-ly --from=... --to=... --no-version *.itely

To see the changes in the LilyPond syntax between two versions, use

     convert-ly --from=... --to=... -s

To upgrade many files at once, combine convert-ly with standard unix commands. This example will upgrade all .ly files in the current directory

     for f in *.ly; do convert-ly -e $f; done;

In general, the program is invoked as follows:

     convert-ly [option]... file...

The following options can be given:

-e,--edit

Do an inline edit of the input file. Overrides --output.

-f,--from=from-patchlevel

Set the version to convert from. If this is not set, convert-ly will guess this, on the basis of \version strings in the file.

-n,--no-version

Normally, convert-ly adds a \version indicator to the output. Specifying this option suppresses this.

-s, --show-rules

Show all known conversions and exit.

--to=to-patchlevel

Set the goal version of the conversion. It defaults to the latest available version.

-h, --help

Print usage help.

• Problems with convert-ly