2. Command line interface

The command line interface provides five functions to easily manipulate BcForms-encoded descriptions of complexes.

• Get help with the `BcForms` command line interface. The following commands return inline help information about the command line interface:

  bcforms
  bcforms -h
  bcforms --help
  

• Validate a `BcForms`-encoded description of a form of a complex. The following command can be used to verify if description of a complex is syntactically and semantically valid. The command line interface will print any errors to the standard error:

  bcforms validate <bcform>
  
  bcforms validate '2 * a + 3 * b'
  # Form is valid
  

• Calculate the formula of a complex. The following command can be used to calculate the formula of a complex:

  bcforms get-formula --help
  
  bcforms get-formula <bcform> <dictionary of formulae of subunits>
  
  # Calculate the formula of a complex
  bcforms get-formula '2 * a + 3 * b' '{a: CHO, b: C2H2O2}'
  # C8H8O8
  

• Calculate the charge of a complex. The following command can be used to calculate the charge of a complex:

  bcforms get-charge --help
  
  bcforms get-charge <bcform> <dictionary of charges of subunits>
  
  # Calculate the charge of a complex
  bcforms get-charge '2 * a + 3 * b' '{a: 1, b: 2}'
  # 8
  

• Calculate the molecular weight of a complex. The following command can be used to calculate the molecular weight of a complex:

  bcforms get-molwt --help
  bcforms get-molwt <bcform> <dictionary of molecular weights of subunits>
  
  # Calculate the molecular weight of a complex
  bcforms get-molwt '2 * a + 3 * b' '{a: 1, b: 2}'
  # 8