Icon 9 UNIX Manual Page

Ralph E. Griswold

 [Image]Department of Computer Science
        The University of Arizona
        Tucson, Arizona

        IPD244d
        November 29, 1996
        http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/docs/ipd244.html

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NAME
     icon -- interpret or compile Icon programs

SYNOPSIS
     icont [ option ... ] file ... [ -x arg ... ]
     iconc [ option ... ] file ... [ -x arg ... ]

DESCRIPTION
     icont and iconc each convert an Icon source program into executable
     form. icont translates quickly and provides interpretive execution.
     iconc takes longer to compile but produces programs that execute
     faster. icont and iconc for the most part can be used interchangeably.

     This manual page describes both icont and iconc. Where there there are
     differences in usage between icont and iconc, these are noted.

     File Names: Files whose names end in .icn are assumed to be Icon source
     files. The .icn suffix may be omitted; if it is not present, it is
     supplied. The character - can be used to indicate an Icon source file
     given in standard input. Several source files can be given on the same
     command line; if so, they are combined to produce a single program.

     The name of the executable file is the base name of the first input
     file, formed by deleting the suffix, if present. stdin is used for
     source programs given in standard input.

     Processing: As noted in the synopsis above, icont and iconc accept
     options followed by file names, optionally followed by -x and
     arguments. If -x is given, the program is executed automatically and
     any following arguments are passed to it.

     icont: The processing performed by icont consists of two phases:
     translation and linking. During translation, each Icon source file is
     translated into an intermediate language called ucode. Two ucode files
     are produced for each source file, with base names from the source file
     and suffixes .u1 and .u2. During linking, the one or more pairs of
     ucode files are combined to produce a single icode file. The ucode
     files are deleted after the icode file is created.

     Processing by icont can be terminated after translation by the -c
     option. In this case, the ucode files are not deleted. The names of .u1
     files from previous translations can be given on the icont command
     line. These files and the corresponding .u2 files are included in the
     linking phase after the translation of any source files. The suffix .u
     can be used in place of .u1; in this case the 1 is supplied
     automatically. Ucode files that are explicitly named are not deleted.

     iconc: The processing performed by iconc consists of two phases: code
     generation and compilation and linking. The code generation phase
     produces C code, consisting of a .c and a .h file, with the base name
     of the first source file. These files are then compiled and linked to
     produce an executable binary file. The C files normally are deleted
     after compilation and linking.

     Processing by iconc can be terminated after code generation by the -c
     option. In this case, the C files are not deleted.

OPTIONS
     The following options are recognized by icont and iconc:

     -c Stop after producing intermediate files and do not delete them.

     -efile Redirect standard error output to file.

     -f s Enable full string invocation.

     -o name Name the output file name.

     -s Suppress informative messages. Normally, both informative messages
     and error messages are sent to standard error output.

     -t Arrange for &trace to have an initial value of -1 when the program
     is executed and for iconc enable debugging features.

     -u Issue warning messages for undeclared identifiers in the program.

     -v i Set verbosity level of informative messages to i.

     -E Direct the results of preprocessing to standard output and inhibit
     further processing.

     The following additional options are recognized by iconc:

     -f string Enable features as indicated by the letters in string:

          a all, equivalent to delns

          d enable debugging features: display(), name(), variable(), error
          trace back, and the effect of -f n (see below)

          e enable error conversion

          l enable large-integer arithmetic

          n produce code that keeps track of line numbers and file names in
          the source code

          s enable full string invocation

     -n string Disable specific optimizations. These are indicated by the
     letters in string:

          a all, equivalent to cest

          c control flow optimizations other than switch statement
          optimiza-tions

          e expand operations in-line when reasonable (keywords are always
          put in-line)

          s optimize switch statements associated with operation invocations

          t type inference

     -p arg Pass arg on to the C compiler used by iconc.

     -r path Use the run-time system at path, which must end with a slash.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
     When an Icon program is executed, several environment variables are
     exam-ined to determine certain execution parameters. Values in
     parentheses are the default values.

     BLKSIZE (500000)
          The initial size of the allocated block region, in bytes.

     COEXPSIZE (2000)
          The size, in words, of each co-expression block.

     DBLIST
          The location of data bases for iconc to search before the standard
          one. The value of DBLIST should be a blank-separated string of the
          form p1 p2 ... pn where the pi name directories.

     ICONCORE
          If set, a core dump is produced for error termination.

     ICONX
          The location of iconx, the executor for icode files, is built into
          an icode file when it is produced. This location can be overridden
          by setting the environment variable ICONX. If ICONX is set, its
          value is used in place of the location built into the icode file.

     IPATH
          The location of ucode files specified in link declarations for
          icont. IPATH is a blank-separated list of directories. The current
          direcVersion 9.3 of the Icon Programming Languagetory is always
          searched first, regardless of the value of IPATH.

     LPATH
          The location of source files specified in preprocessor $include
          directives and in link declarations for iconc. LPATH is otherwise
          similar to IPATH.

     MSTKSIZE(10000)
          The size, in words, of the main interpreter stack for icont.

     NOERRBUF
          By default, &errout is buffered. If this variable is set, &errout
          is not buffered.

     QLSIZE (5000)
          The size, in bytes, of the region used for pointers to strings
          during garbage collection.

     STRSIZE (500000)
          The initial size of the string space, in bytes.

     TRACE
          The initial value of &trace. If this variable has a value, it
          overrides the translation-time -t option.

FILES

     icont    Icon translator
     iconc    Icon compiler
     iconx    Icon executor

SEE ALSO
     The Icon Programming Language, Ralph E. Griswold and Madge T. Griswold,
     Peer-to-Peer Communications, Inc., Third Edition, 1996.

     Version 9.3 of Icon, Ralph E. Griswold, Clinton L. Jeffery, and Gregg
     M. Townsend, IPD278, Department of Computer Science, The University of
     Arizona, 1996.

     Version 9 of the Icon Compiler, Ralph E. Griswold, IPD237, Department
     of Computer Science, The University of Arizona, 1995.

     icon_vt(1)

LIMITATIONS AND BUGS
     The icode files for the interpreter do not stand alone; the Icon
     run-time system (iconx) must be present.

     Stack overflow is checked using a heuristic that is not always
     effective.

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