Working with Advanced Installer from the Command Line

The Advanced Installer command line allows you to build or edit projects without using the graphical interface.

Building from command line

In order to build a MSI from command line, you can use the following syntax:

[path]\AdvancedInstaller.com /build [project_file_path] [-buildslist <builds_list>] [-force]

Parameters:

• [path] - Path to the Advanced Installer executable.
• [project_file_path] - Path of the project file.
• [-buildslist <builds_list>] - List of builds that should performed. If no build is specified then all the builds are performed.
• [-force] - This command has been deprecated. In order to perform a clean rebuild use the /rebuild command.

Performing a clean Rebuild

In order to build the project regardless whether the project was modified and without using any cached files, you can use the following syntax:

[path]\AdvancedInstaller.com /rebuild [project_file_path] [-buildslist <builds_list>]

ANT integration

In order to include Advanced Installer in an ANT build you can add the following target to your build.xml file:

<target name="advinst">

  <exec executable="[path]\AdvancedInstaller.com">
    <arg line="/build [project].aip"/>
  </exec>

</target>

Executing a file of commands

You can specify a text file containing a series of edit commands that will be executed in sequence.

In order to execute a file of commands you can use the following syntax:

AdvancedInstaller.com /execute <path_to_project_file> <command_file_path> [-nofail]

Parameters:

• <path_to_project_file> - The path of the project that is to be edited.
• <command_file_path> - The path of the commands file.
• [-nofail] - If this parameter is used, all the errors are displayed, but the execution of the commands file is not interrupted.

When creating a file of commands there are some rules that must be taken into consideration:

• The first line of the file must be ;aic
• One of the following encodings must be used:
• ANSI
• Unicode

Apart from the usual edit commands, inside the commands file you can use four more command options:

• Save - Saves the project.
• Build - Builds the project.
• Rebuild - Performs a clean rebuild of the project.
• ResetSig - Resets the digital signature. The effect of this command is equivalent to unchecking the option "Sign the package" in the Digital Signature page. This is useful for instance in release candidate builds when signing the package and/or installation files is not required.

Example:

;aic
SetVersion 1.2
AddFile APPDIR\MyFolder C:\Folder\File.txt
SetProperty TESTPROP="TestValue"
save
rebuild

The project will not be modified by the edit commands specified in an AIC file. The Save command must be used explicitly in order to persist the project state after a sequence of edit commands (if this is desired).

Displaying the command line help

In order to display the usage for the command line options available you could use the following syntax:

AdvancedInstaller.com /help [<command>] | /? [<command>]