NAME

       oaklisp - An implementation of the Oaklisp language

SYNOPSIS

       oaklisp [ emulator-options ... [ -- oaklisp-options ... ]]

DESCRIPTION

       Oaklisp  is  an object-oriented dialect of Scheme.  This implementation
       is quite portable, compiling to a virtual machine which is emulated  by
       a  C  program.   Nevertheless,  reasonable  speed is achieved through a
       variety of sophisticated techniques.

OPTIONS

       Options are all long, and it makes no difference if you start them with
       one  or  two  dashes (`-').  All options can be abbreviated to a unique
       prefix.  There are two sorts of options: for the bytecode emulator, and
       for the Oaklisp world.  You must use a -- to separate them.

   EMULATOR OPTIONS
       -help  Show summary of emulator options

       -world file
              file is world to load

       -dump file
              dump world to file upon exit

       -d file
              synonym for --dump

       -dump-base b
              0=ascii, 2=binary; default=2

       -predump-gc b
              0=no, 1=yes; default=1

       -size-heap n
              n is in kilo-refs, default 128

       -size-val-stk n
              value stack buffer, n is in refs

       -size-cxt-stk n
              context stack buffer, n is in refs

       -size-seg-max n
              maximum flushed segment len, n is in refs

       -trace-gc v
              0=quiet, 3=very detailed; default=0

       -verbose-gc v
              synonym for --trace-gc

       -trace-traps

       -trace-files
              trace filesystem operations

   UNOPTIMIZED EMULATOR OPTIONS
       -trace-segs
              trace stack segment writes/reads

       -trace-valcon
              print entire value stack at each instr

       -trace-cxtcon
              print entire context stack at each instr

       -trace-stks
              print the size of the stacks at each instr

       -trace-instructions
              trace each bytecode executed

       -trace-methods
              trace each method lookup

       -trace-mcache
              trace method cache

   OAKLISP OPTIONS
       -help  Show summary of Oaklisp options

       -eval expr
              Evaluate  Oaklisp  expression,  which  is  one arg so be sure to
              quote for shell.

       -load file
              Load a file.

       -compile file
              Compile file.oak yielding file.oa

       -locale x
              Switch to locale x, eg system-locale (default), compiler-locale,
              scheme-locale (for RnRS compatibility).

       -exit  Exit upon processing this option.

EXAMPLES

       This  will  compile  the  file myfile.oak in the scheme locale and then
       leave the user in a read-eval-print loop in the scheme locale.

       oaklisp -- -locale scheme-locale -compile myfile

ENVIRONMENT

       The environment variable OAKWORLD will override  the  default  compiled
       into the executable, but itself can be overridden on the command line.

FILES

       /usr/lib/oaklisp/oakworld.bin  holds  the  world image.  It is portable
       between  machines  of  the  same  endianity.   The  location  can  vary
       depending upon installation-time decisions.

BUGS

       Floating  point  numbers are not implemented.  Rationals can be used to
       make up for this lack  because  rationals  can  be  told  to  print  in
       floating  point  format  and floating point format input can be made to
       read  as  rational  numbers.   (There  are  a  couple  floating   point
       implementations, but they are not merged into the distributed release.)

       In contrast to the error handling system, which is Industrial Strength,
       the debugger is virtually nonexistent.

       There is no foreign  function  interface  for  loading  and  calling  C
       routines   from   a  running  Oaklisp.   (Again,  there  are  a  couple
       implementations of foreign function interfaces  which  are  not  merged
       in.)

       The memory format does not support uninterpreted "blobs".

       Porting  the  system to 64-bit machines has not been done, and would be
       quite difficult.

       POSIX threads in the emulator never got quite finished.

       Bug reports and enhancements should be sent to barak@cs.may.ie.

REFERENCES

       The  programs  are  documented  more  fully   in   the   language   and
       implementation  manuals  included  with  the  distribution.   In binary
       packages these  are  probably  in  /usr/share/doc/oaklisp/lang.pdf  and
       lim.pdf.

       The      Oaklisp      home      page      is     transitioning     from
       http://www.bcl.hamilton.ie/~barak/oaklisp/                           to
       http://oaklisp.alioth.debian.org/.

       The  Implementation  of  Oaklisp  is  a  chapter  in Topics in Advanced
       Language Implementation edited by Peter Lee,  pp  189-215,  MIT  Press,
       1991.

       Oaklisp:  an  Object-Oriented  Dialect of Scheme appears in the journal
       Lisp  and  Symbolic  Computation  1(1):39-51,   published   by   Klewer
       Associates, May 1988.

       Oaklisp:  an  Object-Oriented Scheme with First Class Types appeared in
       proceedings of the ACM conference OOPSLA-86, pp30-37,  published  as  a
       special issue of SIGPLAN Notices.

       Garbage  collection  with  pointers  to single cells, an article on the
       Oaklisp garbage collector,  appeared  in  Communications  of  the  ACM,
       39(12):202-206 (online edition), December 1996.

       The  Revised^n Report on Scheme is a useful piece of documentation, and
       is widely available online.

DISTRIBUTION

       The Oaklisp copyright belongs to its authors.  It is distributed  under
       the  GNU  General  Public  License,  a copy of which is included in the
       source distribution in the file COPYING.  For further information or to
       make  alternate  arrangements  please  contact  the  authors,  who  are
       surprisingly reasonable people.

AUTHOR

       Oaklisp was originally designed, implemented, and documented  by  Barak
       A. Pearlmutter and Kevin J. Lang.

                                                                    OAKLISP(1)