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
SEE ALSO¶
The Icon Programming Language, Ralph E. Griswold and Madge T. Griswold,
Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Second Edition, 1990.
Version 9.1 of Icon, Ralph E. Griswold, Clinton L. Jeffery, and Gregg M.
Townsend, IPD267, Department of Computer Science, The University of Arizona,
1995.
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.