How You Can Use Commands from a File
There is one additional metaflag that you can use on any OpenROAD command line. It lets you put some of the command line parameters into a file, and then reference that file from the command line. This is particularly helpful on systems that impose limits on the length of the command line.
-/include=filename
Specifies the text file containing the actual command line flags so that you can reference that file from the command line.
The filename specification must include the full directory path, if it is not in the current working directory.
Conceptually, -/include=filename is replaced by the contents of the referenced text file. This replacement occurs before the search for other metaflags.
Rules for specifying parameters in the text file follow:
• You cannot put the main command parameter (for example, the “runimage” of “w4gldev runimage”) into the file.
• You cannot put the -T or -A flags into the file.
• Each parameter must be specified in the format of an SQL string literal: enclosed in single quotes (') with embedded single quotes doubled (''). (Hexadecimal literals are not supported.)
• If a parameter contains no apostrophes ('), spaces, or tabs, the enclosing apostrophes can be omitted.
• A parameter cannot contain a newline character.
• Multiple parameters can be specified in a single record, separated by spaces, tabs, or both.
• Leading and trailing spaces and tabs are removed.
• No attempt is made to do any shell-like variable substitution.