Re: command line option to specify output filename?

[Hans Forbrich]

Niki Pantelias wrote:
> 
>   Hi Hans,
> 
>   Thanks for replying!  I am using version 2.0.0, and when I do 'lilypond
> --help' I see (among other things :) the option
> 
>   -o, --output=FILE              write output to FILE

Some things that might help you:

1) You can put your .ly files into directories and include these files
as you need them.  I recently did a cantata score for SATB + piano that
contained 12 'pieces' (effectivly equivalent to a staging with 12
act/scenes).  I organized it 


main_directory
    |
---------------------------------------
  | act1      |  act2   ......  | act12  (section directories)
  |
-----------------------------------------------  (for each)
|             |      |          |      | ... part files
act1.ly   piano.ly  soprano.ly  ...   bass.ly


In the  act1.ly I use 

\include "piano.ly"
\include "soprano.ly" 

etc. where I'd put the notes.  

Note that I do not put the notes into the score.  Instead I put the
notes into a 'macro' by using 

SopranoVA = \notes { a b4 } 
SopranoWA = \lyrics { the lyrics }

and then in my act1.ly I combine the macros in the score section.

2) Next to my 'act' directories I have an 'out' directory

3) I then invoke lilypond using

lilypond -P -o out/act1 act1/act1.ly

and that will look in the "act1" directory to get the 'act1.ly' control
file which \includes all the act1 voice files.  The final output
(act1.pdf, act1.ps and act1.dvi) are put into the "out" directory.  The
output files  are called act1.pdf because that is the 'file name' part
of 'out/act1'.  Had I used -o out/act1out then the files would be
act1out.pdf (etc) in the out directory

4) The intermediate tex and other files are put into directory
'lilypond.dir' which is created and wiped automatically unless you use
the -k option.

5) If you use \include "file.ly" and don't want the "file.ly" in the
current or called directory, you can use the --include=DIR option to
tell Lilypond to look in that directory as well as the original.  For
example, using my directory layout, you could have a 'titles' directory
containing the general \header section.  You could then add that
directory by using

lilypond -P -o out/a1 -I titles act1/act1.ly     (or)
lilypond -P -o out/a1 --include=titles act1/act1.ly

HTH
/Hans