Switches used in the command line

Last modified: March 28, 2025

This topic gives detailed description of command line switches and examples of their usage.

You can select the required options while setting the comparison in the Data Population wizard and generate a file with command line arguments by clicking Save settings to a file.

Command line usage

datagenerator.com [/argfile:path] [/operation_switch] [/switch1[:value | [parameter1:value parameter2:value ..]] /switch2 ..]

The first argument for datagenerator is usually an operation switch that corresponds to the operation that you want to perform with the application.

Available command-line switches

Switch	Usage
`/argfile`	`/argfile:<path>` Path to command-line arguments file. Options specified in the command line have higher priority than the options which were given in the file.
`/activate`	Activate a product using activation key.
`/deactivate`	Deactivate a product.
`/execute`	Execute a script.
`/generatedata`	Generate data with a given project file.
`/script`	Generate scripts of a database.
`/quiet` (`/q`)	Hide console window in console mode. It should be used after the main operation switch.

Switches details

/execute

Execute script.

Parameter	Description
`/connection`	`/connection:<connection_string>`Specify the connection string.
`/database`	Specify a database to script or override the database specified in a template or in a connection string.
`/encoding`	`/encoding:<codepage\|encoding name>`Specify the encoding which should be applied to open and execute the script.
`/inputfile`	Specify an SQL or ZIP file with a script to execute.
`/password`	`/password:<pw>`Specify the server password or override the password specified in the connection string.
`/zippassword`	`/zippassword:<zip password>`Enter a password for protected archive with script.

/generatedata

Generate data with a given project file.

Parameter	Description
`/connection`	`/connection:<connection_string>`Specify the connection string.
`/errormode`	`/errormode:<ignore/abort>`Specify the application behavior when an error is encountered.
`/password`	Specify the server password or override the password specified in the connection string.
`/projectfile`	`/projectfile:<path>`Specify data generation template to use.

/script

Generate scripts of a database.

Parameter	Description
`/connection`	`/connection:<connection_string>`Specify the connection string.
`/database`	Specify a database to script or override the database specified in a template or in a connection string.
`/outputfile`	Specify a file name for storing the database script or override the file name specified in template.
`/password`	`/password:<pw>`Specify the server password or override the password specified in the connection string.
`/projectfile`	`/projectfile:<path>`Specify script template to use. Some template options can be overridden by switches. For more information about how to generate a projectfile, see How to generate SQL Server database scripts.