The squealer.conf contains all the essential configuration you need to set for your Squealer install. Most of the options have a reasonable default, though some of these need to be set to sensible values before you can begin using the Squealer. So, don't put it off any longer, dive in.

First off, the conf file is eval'ed by the Squealer at run-time so theoretically any valid Perl can be stuffed in there. We don't recommend it, since really useful features should be rolled into squealer.pl itself (and perhaps the standard Squealer release also). This helps enrich the Squealer functionality to do the things you find helpful.

The Squealer is project-oriented in it's grouping of files. Each project is defined as a squealer.conf file. Multiple project each have their own conf file, all referenced by your project main (or default) project. Note that the main project you use is influenced only by the starting directory you run the squealer from: whichever directory the Squealer begins in assumes the main project conf file exists here (if not it croaks).

Essential Steps

1. Set physical locations of Squealer and the root directory of your main project source tree. This is done using the %path hash. It is typical to use environment variables in Perl to avoid enforcing a project-wide physical path for your project. In Perl, this is done using $ENV{ENV_NAME}.
   • $paths{HOME} is location for Squealer, e.g. c:\work\squealer if you put it in the default install directory
   • $paths{ROOT} is normally defined to the root directory for your project source. By default, all the project dictionaries get created here (though this can be modified using %stdfile.
   • Add your own custom paths that you will use later. These can then be refenced elsewhere in the conf file to avoid re-definition.
2. Give a name to this project. Set $defaultproject to a nice name with no spaces. This name will match the %projects key.
3. Define your projects. The essential item here is to define the conf file for the default project, i.e. the one named by $defaultproject and referencing the conf file in the %project hash. It should point to the conf file for this project.
4. Specify the directories to scan for file inclusion and exclusion. The arrays @includesearchdir and @excludesearchdir provide lists of directories that the file dictionary creator recurses through to built up it's index. All files that are valid Squealer indexed filetypes (specified by the $allowedsuffixessuffixes list) in these directories are added to the index. In addition, specific files can be added using the @includefiles array. It is recommended to use Squealer defined paths here, i.e. use the %paths hash.
5. Ensure your %EDITOR% environment variable is set to the full physical path to your chosen text editor. If this cannot be resolved, The Squealer will attempt to use Textpad (at the standard location specified by $software{TEXTPAD}.

Advanced

todo