How To: Run a scan

Quickstart

ScanCode results are provided as:

1. JSON file (default)
2. html (static html)

The basic usage is:

./scancode [OPTIONS] <input> <output_file>

Note: On Windows use scancode instead of ./scancode

The <input> file or directory is what will be scanned for origin clues. The results will be saved to the <output_file>. The output file format is set by using the -f or --format option. The default output format is JSON.

The following example scans will show you how to run a scan with each of the result formats. For the scans, we will use the samples directory provided with the ScanCode Toolkit.

JSON file output

Scan the samples directory and save the scan to a JSON file:

./scancode --format json samples samples.json

Static html output

Scan the samples directory for licenses and copyrights and save the scan results to an HTML file. When the scan is done, open samples.html in your web browser.

./scancode --format html samples samples.html