Driver Program: Command-line Parameters

This page documents the command-line parameters of the driver program. Notice that some option may not be available due to the particular compilation configuration.

The driver program, called sff, has the following general command-line options:

sff -f algorithm [-p] [-i] [-i ranges] [-o stats-format] [-O filename] [–] [filename ...]

The driver program reads from the given file names, one after the other, or from the standard input if no input file name is given. Below is the detailed documentation of each command-line option.

• -f algorithm : selects a forwarding algorithm/table. The following algorithm identifiers are available:

  • d : uses the FwdTable algorithm (default).
  • b : uses the BTable algorithm.
  • t : uses the BTrieTable algorithm.
  • s : uses the SortedBTable algorithm.
  • X : uses the BXTable algorithm.
  • c : uses the BCTable algorithm.
  • v : uses the BVTable algorithm.
  • B : uses the BDDBTable algorithm.
  • Z : uses the ZDDBTable algorithm.
  • T : uses the TagsTable algorithm.
  • Tt : uses the TTable algorithm.

• -q : quiet. Suppresses matching output.
• -c : prints only the total number (count) of interfaces matched by each message.
• -p : prints statistics after processing each input file.
• -i ranges : only enable the given interfaces (e.g., 1-3,7).
• -O filename : writes results and statistics on the given output file.

• -o <stats-format> uses the given output format for statistics. The stats-format parameter is a printf-style format string. The following format directives are defined:

  • i : interface count.
  • n : message count.
  • c : constraint count.
  • f : filter count.
  • a : attribute count.
  • w : tag count.
  • W : tagset count.
  • m : number of messages matching at least one interface.
  • M : total number of matches.
  • s : size of the forwarding table in bytes.
  • S : total memory allocated by the forwarding table in bytes.
  • Tx : timers in milliseconds, where x can be:
    • t : sff library functions
    • p : parsing
    • i : ifconfig
    • c : consolidate
    • m : matching
    • e : message encoding
    • s : string index
    • f : forwarding

  The default format for statistics is this:

  "i=%i f=%f c=%c n=%n a=%a w=%w W=%W m=%m M=%M s=%s\n"

  plus the following, in case the library is configured (at compile-time) with high-precision timers:

  "timers (milliseconds):\n"
  "\tsff =\t\t%Tt\n"
  "\tparser =\t%Tp\n"
  "\tifconfig =\t%Ti\n"
  "\tconsolidate =\t%Tc\n"
  "\tencoding =\t%Te\n"
  "\tmatch =\t\t%Tm\n"
  "\tstring match =\t%Ts\n"
  "\tforward =\t%Tf\n"