NAME

       gforth, gforth-fast, gforthmi - a fast and portable Forth system

SYNOPSIS

       gforth  [initialization  options]  [image-specific  options] gforth-fast [initialization options] [image-
       specific options]

       gforthmi filename [initialization options] [image-specific options]

DESCRIPTION

       GForth is a fast and portable implementation of the Forth programming  language.  For  details  read  the
       manual.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       GFORTHPATH contains the search path for source and image files.

       GFORTHD  gives the gforth executable used by gforthmi for creating the base images. It should be a double
       indirect threaded system.  Default: gforth-ditc.

       GFORTH gives the gforth executable used by gforthmi for computing the relocatable  image  from  the  base
       images. Default: gforth.

       GFORTHHIST  gives  the location of the history file used by gforth to allow command-line recall. Default:
       $HOME. (The history file is named .gforth-history).

EXAMPLES

       gforth

       starts the system and goes into interactive mode.

       gforth file1 file2 -e bye

       loads and interprets the files file1 and file2, then exits.

       gforth-fast

       is the same as gforth, except that it does not support accurate backtraces for signals, and is faster  by
       up to a factor of 2.  Use it for debugged, performance-critical programs such as benchmarks.

       gforthmi asm.fi -m 1M asm.fs

       creates an image asm.fi that has a default dictionary size of 1MB and has the file asm.fs loaded.

OPTIONS

       --help
       -h     Lists the available options, including some not described here (see also the manual).

       --image-file file
       -i file
              Loads the Forth image file instead of the default gforth.fi.

       --path path
       -p path
              Uses  path  for searching the image file and Forth source code files instead of the default in the
              environment  variable  GFORTHPATH  or  the  path  specified  at   installation   time   (typically
              /usr/local/lib/gforth:.. A path is given as a :-separated list.

       --dictionary-size size
       -m size
              Allocate  size  space for the Forth dictionary space instead of using the default specified in the
              image (typically 256K). The size specification consists of an integer and a unit (e.g., 4M).   The
              unit  can  be  one  of  b  (bytes),  e  (element  size,  in this case Cells), k (kilobytes), and M
              (Megabytes). If no unit is specified, e is used.

       --data-stack-size size
       -d size
              Allocate size space for the data stack instead  of  using  the  default  specified  in  the  image
              (typically 16K).

       --return-stack-size size
       -r size
              Allocate  size  space  for  the  return  stack instead of using the default specified in the image
              (typically 16K).

       --fp-stack-size size
       -f size
              Allocate size space for the floating point stack instead of using the  default  specified  in  the
              image (typically 16K). In this case the unit specifier e refers to floating point numbers.

       --locals-stack-size size
       -l size
              Allocate  size  space  for  the  locals  stack instead of using the default specified in the image
              (typically 16K).

       --evaluate forth
       -e forth
              Evaluates the forth code. This option takes only one argument; if you want to evaluate more  Forth
              words,  you  have  to  quote  them  or use several -es.  To exit after processing the command line
              (instead of entering interactive mode) append -e bye to  the  command  line.  This  is  an  image-
              specific option of the default image.

FILES

       .../gforth.fi  default Forth image
       *.fi           Forth loadable image
       *.fs           Forth source (sequential)
       *.fb           Forth source (block)
       *.fd           generated with makedoc.fs
       *.i            C include files
       *.ds           documentation source
       *TAGS          etags files

SEE ALSO

       The Gforth manual - available in hypertext (Info, HTML) and printable (TeX, PS, ASCII) forms.

       The ANSI document X3.215-1994 (i.e., the ANS Forth standard).

       More  information on Gforth (e.g., pointers to new versions, to the manual on the WWW and to papers about
       Gforth) is available through http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/projects/forth.html.

AUTHORS

       Gforth was written by Anton Ertl, Bernd Paysan, Jens Wilke and others.

                                                 April 14, 1999                                        GForth(1)