Ubuntu Manpage: icon - interpret or compile Icon programs

Provided by: iconc_9.4.3-4.2ubuntu1_amd64

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.

-e file
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 optimizations

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.

-C prg
Have iconc use the C compiler given by prg

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

When an Icon program is executed, several environment variables are examined 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 directory 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

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.

                                     1 November 1995 IPD244b                              ICON(1)