A preprocessor is written as though it were always called without the compiler by a command line. In particular, every preprocessor must accept at least the following command line options:
-e file causes error messages to be written to the specified file. This option must be followed by the name of the error file
-help do not preprocess; show command-line help on standard output device
-Po file causes preprocessor output to be written to the specified file. This option must be followed by the name of the output file
-Sa indicates that the input file is ANSI format COBOL
-Sd instructs the preprocessor to include lines marked as debugging lines ("D") in the indicator area
-Si pattern instructs the preprocessor to include lines based on pattern
-St indicates that the input file is terminal format COBOL
-Sx pattern instructs the preprocessor to exclude lines based on pattern
-v do not preprocess; show preprocessor version information on standard output device
A preprocessor should accept these options in any order. A preprocessor must honor the "-e", "-Po", "-help" and "-v" options. Other options need not be honored but must be scanned if they appear on the command line.
Another command line option is highly recommended:
-n indicates to the preprocessor that no preprocessor directives should be included in output. A standard preprocessor output includes directives, which may make the output very difficult to read. (See section 2.12.3.2 for more on directives.) If you want to examine the output of a preprocessor, this option lets you suppress the directives and receive clean output.
The preprocessor should abort with an appropriate error message if a required option is missing.