### Message Compiler - Syntax (Windows)

You can specify all of the input the message compiler needs on the command line. Input arguments may be specified in any order.

The syntax of the message compiler (mc.exe) command line is:

>     mc [options] filename[.mc]

where:

Options | Description
--- | ---
-v | Generates verbose output to stderr
-w | Generates a warning message whenever an insert escape sequence is seen that is a superset of the type supported by OS/2 MKMSGF (i.e. anything other than %0 and %n). This is useful when converting old OS/2 message files to this format.
-s | Adds an extra line to the beginning of each message that is the symbolic name associated with the message ID.
-h DirSpec | Specifies the target directory of the generated .h file. The file name is the name of the .mc file with a .h extension.
-r DirSpec | Specifies the target directory of the generated .rc file. The file name is the name of the .mc file with a .rc extension.
filename.mc | Specifies one or more input message files that will be compiled into one or more binary resource files, one for each language that the message files contain message text for. The .mc extension is optional.

The message compiler reads the .mc file and generates a .h file containing all the symbolic name definitions. For each LanguageId that was used to specify message text, it outputs a binary file containing a message table resource. It also outputs a single resource script (.rc) file that contains the appropriate RC syntax to include each binary file output as a resource with the appropriate name and type

Message Compiler - An Overview
MKMSGF - Make Message File Utility
MKCATDEF - Preprocess Message Source File Utility
Resource Compiler - An Overview