Argument reference

The tables below list every available argument grouped by category.

Input and output

Batch mode

Qlik Cloud

Authentication

Layout and styling

For a detailed explanation of fixed canvas and dynamic grid modes, see Conversion layout settings.

Conversion report

The console report and Excel report are both enabled by default in CLI mode and in the user interface.

Console and logging

QV2QS supports four console output modes.

• Pretty — Rich-formatted output with colors, animated spinners, progress bars, and themed panels. Pretty mode is the default for interactive terminal use. Requires a color-capable terminal (Windows 10+, PowerShell 5+, or Unix-like shells).
• Plain — Timestamped text output with no ANSI escape codes. Every line is prefixed with an elapsed-time stamp and a phase tag in the format [MM:SS] [phase] message. Headers and tables use ASCII characters. Suitable for CI/CD pipelines, log files, and terminals that do not support ANSI formatting.
• Silent — Suppresses all standard output. Only errors are displayed. Suitable for automated batch processing and scripted workflows where no console output is needed.
• UI — Line-oriented output without timestamps or ANSI codes. The user interface sets this mode automatically when launching a conversion subprocess. The format is optimized for the embedded log viewer. Running --console ui from a terminal produces readable but unformatted output; use --plain or --console pretty instead for direct terminal use.

The --dark and --light flags select a color theme. The dark theme (default) uses a deep navy Qlik-inspired palette. The light theme uses a light gray palette. The --surface flag enables a subtle background fill behind each output line. Surface fill is enabled by default in pretty mode. Use --noSurface to disable the background fill.

In single-project mode, log files are written to %LOCALAPPDATA%\QV2QS\logs\ by default. In batch mode, log files are written to the logs/ subfolder in the output directory. Override the location with --logDir. Set --logLevel DEBUG to capture detailed diagnostic output for troubleshooting conversion issues. Use --cleanLogs to delete log files older than 30 days before each run. For a full description of log file locations, rotation, and format, see Logging and diagnostics.

Load script

By default, QV2QS applies eight built-in rules that normalize Windows backslash paths to forward slashes for Qlik Cloud compatibility. The following table lists each built-in rule.

Each rule uses a two-stage matching process. The pattern field is a regex that selects a region of the load script. The search field is then applied only within each matched region. This approach prevents unintended replacements outside the targeted context.

The --scriptReplacements argument accepts a JSON file that becomes the single source of truth for all replacement rules. When a file is provided, built-in defaults do not auto-load. To include built-in rules alongside custom rules, export the full rule set from the wizard and edit the exported file. Rules execute in execution_order order.

Three CLI behaviors are available:

• No flag — the eight built-in rules execute.
• --scriptReplacements <file> — only rules in the file execute. Built-in defaults do not auto-load.
• --noScriptReplacements — no rules execute.

The --scriptReplacements file is a JSON array of rule objects:

[
  {
    "description": "Replace server path with lib connection",
    "pattern": "FROM\\s+'[^']*'",
    "search": "\\\\\\\\server\\\\share\\\\",
    "replace": "lib://DataFiles/",
    "is_regex": true,
    "case_sensitive": false,
    "enabled": true,
    "execution_order": 1
  }
]

Each rule has the following fields:

Other

Date field sort guard

By default, Qlik Sense sorts selected values to the top of a listbox. For date-like fields such as Quarter, Month, or Year, this reordering breaks the expected chronological sequence. QV2QS applies a heuristic to detect date-like field names and suppress state-based sorting on those fields, keeping values in their natural order regardless of selection state.

The heuristic tokenizes each field name by splitting on non-alphanumeric characters and camelCase boundaries (for example, OrderDate becomes order and date). All tokens are lowercased. A field matches if any token equals one of the following: date, dates, month, months, year, years, quarter, quarters, qtr, qtrs, week, weeks, day, days, fiscal, fy, period, calendar. A field also matches if any token ends with date, month, or year (for example, OrderDate, FiscalMonth). The tokens update, candidate, and validate are excluded to avoid false positives. Matching is case-insensitive and uses English tokens only. Non-English field names (for example, Monat or Fecha) are not detected.

Fields that match the heuristic have state-based sorting removed and automatic sorting disabled.

Use --disableDateStateStickySort to turn off this heuristic. When disabled, all listbox fields use default Qlik Sense sorting behavior, including state-based reordering.

Set analysis quoting fixes

QlikView and Qlik Sense interpret quoting in set analysis modifiers differently. QV2QS applies two independent fixes during conversion. The single-quoted search fix is enabled by default. The unquoted set values fix is experimental and disabled by default.

Fix single-quoted search values (--fixSingleQuotedSearch)

Single-quoted values containing search syntax are converted to double quotes. Detected search patterns include wildcards (*, ?, ^), comparison operators (>, >=, <, <=), fuzzy search (~), expression search (=), search modifiers (+, -), and compound search ((…|…), (…&…)):

• {<Year={'2*'}>} becomes {<Year={"2*"}>}
• {<Amount={'>100'}>} becomes {<Amount={">100"}>}
• {<Customer={'~company'}>} becomes {<Customer={"~company"}>}

Single-quoted plain text literals (for example, 'USA') and single-quoted values on numeric fields are not affected. Use --noFixSingleQuotedSearch to disable this fix.

Fix unquoted set values (--fixUnquotedSetValues) — experimental

Unquoted bare string values are wrapped in single quotes:

• {<Country={USA}>} becomes {<Country={'USA'}>}

Numeric values (2024), dollar-sign variables ($(vYear)), and double-quoted strings are left unchanged. This fix is disabled by default. Pass --fixUnquotedSetValues to enable it. Use --noFixUnquotedSetValues to explicitly disable it.

Both fixes apply to dimension and measure expressions only. Unsupported function findings are not modified. When a fix is disabled, the flagged patterns remain for manual review in the Expression_Findings worksheet.

Learn more

• Common workflows
• Logging and diagnostics
• Layout modes