I just noticed that there is an entry in config.h of Swish-e.1.3.2 for
passing arguments to swish

Looks like it could be useful . . . 

what kind of arguments could I use?

#ifdef FUNCTION_PROTOTYPES_INCLUDE_ARGS
#define _AP(args) args
#else
#define _AP(args) ()
#endif

#define SUPPORT_DOC_PROPERTIES	1