LilyPond Notation Reference: 3.2.5 File structure

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3.2.5 File structure

A ‘.ly’ file may contain any number of toplevel expressions, where a toplevel expression is one of the following:

An output definition, such as \paper, \midi, and \layout. Such a definition at the toplevel changes the default book-wide settings. If more than one such definition of the same type is entered at the top level the definitions are combined, but in conflicting situations the later definitions take precedence. For details of how this affects the \layout block see The \layout block.
A direct scheme expression, such as #(set-default-paper-size "a7" 'landscape) or #(ly:set-option 'point-and-click #f).
A \header block. This sets the global (i.e., the top of file) header block. This is the block containing the default settings of titling fields like composer, title, etc., for all books within the file (see Titles explained).
A \score block. This score will be collected with other toplevel scores, and combined as a single \book. This behavior can be changed by setting the variable toplevel-score-handler at toplevel. (The default handler is defined in the file ‘../scm/lily-library.scm’ and set in the file ‘../ly/declarations-init.ly’.)
A \book block logically combines multiple movements (i.e., multiple \score blocks) in one document. If there are a number of \scores, one output file will be created for each \book block, in which all corresponding movements are concatenated. The only reason to explicitly specify \book blocks in a ‘.ly’ file is if you wish to create multiple output files from a single input file. One exception is within lilypond-book documents, where you explicitly have to add a \book block if you want more than a single \score or \markup in the same example. This behavior can be changed by setting the variable toplevel-book-handler at toplevel. The default handler is defined in the init file ‘../scm/lily.scm’.
A \bookpart block. A book may be divided into several parts, using \bookpart blocks, in order to ease the page breaking, or to use different \paper settings in different parts.
A compound music expression, such as
```
{ c'4 d' e'2 }
```
This will add the piece in a \score and format it in a single book together with all other toplevel \scores and music expressions. In other words, a file containing only the above music expression will be translated into
```
\book {
  \score {
    \new Staff {
      \new Voice {
        { c'4 d' e'2 }
      }
    }
    \layout { }
  }
  \paper { }
  \header { }
}
```
This behavior can be changed by setting the variable toplevel-music-handler at toplevel. The default handler is defined in the init file ‘../scm/lily.scm’.
A markup text, a verse for example
```
\markup {
   2.  The first line verse two.
}
```
Markup texts are rendered above, between or below the scores or music expressions, wherever they appear.
A variable, such as
```
foo = { c4 d e d }
```
This can be used later on in the file by entering \foo. The name of a variable should not contain (ASCII) numbers, multiple underscores, multiple dashes or space characters. All other characters Unicode provides are allowed, for example Latin, Greek, Chinese or Cyrillic. Non-adjacent single underscores and dashes are allowed, too. In other words, variable names like HornIII or αβγXII work.

Any combination of characters is allowed if the variable name is enclosed in double quotation marks. In this case backslashes and double quotation marks need to be escaped with backslashes (not that you actually should use them). Examples: "foo bar", "a-b-c", "Horn 3".

The following example shows three things that may be entered at toplevel

\layout {
  % Don't justify the output
  ragged-right = ##t
}

\header {
   title = "Do-re-mi"
}

{ c'4 d' e2 }

At any point in a file, any of the following lexical instructions can be entered:

\version
\include
\sourcefilename
\sourcefileline
A single-line comment, introduced by a leading % sign.
A multi-line comment delimited by %{ … %}.

Whitespace between items in the input stream is generally ignored, and may be freely omitted or extended to enhance readability. However, whitespace should always be used in the following circumstances to avoid errors:

Around every opening and closing curly bracket.
After every command or variable, i.e., every item that begins with a \ sign.
After every item that is to be interpreted as a Scheme expression, i.e., every item that begins with a # sign.
To separate all elements of a Scheme expression.
In lyricmode before and after \set and \override commands.

3.2.5 File structure

See also

LilyPond — Notation Reference v2.24.4 (stable-branch).