Not sure if this info is available to all; so feel appropriate to post.
A Situation may arise whereby the Avast! UI is not working, say, or there’s a need to use options not available from the GUI. It is just as easy to use the program from the commandline.
Open a Terminal, and type: “avast --help”
AVAST
avast - command-line virus scanner
avast [OPTIONS] areaname
DESCRIPTION
The program provides on-demand antivirus protection by scanning files for virus infections in a given location. If no directory is specified, the current one is used. All inserted paths are scanned recursively. The scanner allows virus detection and further actions to be taken on infected files. It features archive/packed file scanning, infected file deletion or repair. Scanner output can be written to a report file. It also supports a special stdin/stdout mode which makes it work as a filter (pipe).
To call up all these commands: -h, --help
display help and exits
OPTIONS
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
-_, --console
work in stdin/stdout (filter) mode
-a, --testall
test all files, regardless of extension or content (default)
-b, --blockdevices
scan block devices
-c, --testfull
scan entire files (may be slow)
-d, --directory
scan only directory content, don’t scan subdirectories
-i, --ignoretype
ignore virus targeting
-n, --nostats
do not report statistics in the scanner output
-p, --continue=NUMBER
allows setting of an action to be automatically performed: delete file - 1, repair file - 3, user input - 4
-r, --report=[*]FILE
write output to a report file, ‘*’ for OK results
-t, --archivetype[=ARCHIVE_LIST]
scan inside archives. ARCHIVE_LIST may be Z(zip)',
G(gzip)‘, B(bzip2)
, T(tar)',
I(mime)’, J(arj)',
R(rar)‘, X(exec)',
O(zoo)’, Q(arc)',
H(lha)‘, F(tnef)',
V(cpio)’, K(chm)',
P(rpm)‘, Y(iso)',
D(dbx)’, 6(sis)',
U(ole)‘, C(cab)',
E(ace)’, 1(install)',
W(winexec)‘, A(all)' or
N(none)’
-v, --viruslist[=PATTERN]
show list of virus/worm names matching PATTERN string, and quit
-h, --help
display help and exits
–usage
display program usage, and quit
-V, --version
output current version information and exit
By default, avast! scans all files matching the given mask. Also, scanning inside zip, gzip, bzip2, tar, exec and winexec archives is set by default.
EXIT CODES
The program returns one of the following codes:
0
normal exit, nothing was found
1
at last one infected file was found
2
at last one infected file was found and was repaired
3
at last one infected file was found and cannot be repaired
4
at last one infected file was found and was deleted
5
at last one infected file was found and cannot be deleted
22
can’t run virus scanner, avast! engine failed
23
at last one object wasn’t scanned, an error has been detected
24
at last one object wasn’t scanned, file(s) has been encrypted
25
stopped, scan wasn’t completed
31
syntax error in input parameters
33
nothing to scan, input data error
41
help output
42
version output
43
virus list output
BUGS
If you find any bugs in avast!, please report them to support@avast.com.
AUTHOR
ALWIL Software - http://www.avast.com/