.TH ECL 1 03/10/03
.UC 4
.SH NAME
ecl \- Embeddable Common LISP
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBecl\fP
[\fB\-dir\fP \fIdir\fP]
[\fB\-load\fP \fIfile\fP]
[\fB\-eval\fP \fIexpr\fP]
.if n .ti +4
.if t .ti +.5i
[\fB\-compile\fP \fIfile\fP
.if n .ti +8
.if t .ti +.5i
[\fB\-o\fP \fIofile\fP]
[\fB\-c\fP [\fIcfile\fP]]
[\fB\-h\fP [\fIhfile\fP]]
[\fB\-data\fP [\fIdatafile\fP]]
[\fB\-s\fP] [\fB\-q\fP]]

.SH DESCRIPTION
.sp
ECL stands for Embeddable Common-Lisp.
The ECL project is an effort to modernize 
Giuseppe Attardi's ECL environment to
produce an implementation of the Common-Lisp
language which complies to the ANSI X3J13
definition of the language.
.PP
The current ECL implementation features:
.IP \(bu
A bytecodes compiler and interpreter.
.IP \(bu
A translator to C.
.IP \(bu
An interface to foreign functions.
.IP \(bu
A dynamic loader.
.IP \(bu
The possibility to build standalone executables.
.IP \(bu
The Common-Lisp Object System (CLOS).
.IP \(bu
Conditions and restarts for handling errors.
.IP \(bu
Sockets as ordinary streams.
.IP \(bu
The Gnu Multiprecision library for fast bignum operations.
.IP \(bu
A simple conservative mark & sweep garbage collector.
.IP \(bu
The Boehm-Weiser garbage collector.

.PP
\fBecl\fP without any argument gives you the
interactive lisp.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP 1i
.BI \-shell " file"
Executes the given file and exits, without providing a read-eval-print loop.
If you want to use lisp as a scripting language, you can write
.BR "#!${exec_prefix}/bin/ecl -shell"
on the first line of the file to be executed, and then ECL will be
automatically invoked.
.TP
.B \-norc
Do not try to load the file
.I ~/.eclrc
at startup.
.TP
.B \-dir
Use
.I dir
as system directory.
.TP
.BI \-load " file"
Loads
.I file
before entering the read-eval-print loop.
.TP
.BI \-eval " expr"
Evaluates
.I expr
before entering the read-eval-print loop.
.TP
.BI \-compile " file"
Translates
.I file
to C and invokes the local C compiler to produce a 
shared library with .fas as extension per default.
.TP
.BI \-o " ofile"
When compiling
.I file
name the resulting shared library
\fIofile\fP.
.TP
.BI \-c " cfile"
When compiling name the intermediary C file
.I cfile
and do not delete it afterwards.
.TP
.BI \-h " hfile"
When compiling name the intermediary C header
.I hfile
and do not delete it afterwards.
.TP
.BI \-data " [datafile]"
Dumps compiler data into \fIdatafile\fP or, if not
supplied, into a file named after the source file, but
with .data as extension.
.TP
.B \-s
Produce a linkable object file. It cannot be loaded 
with load, but it can be used to build libraries 
or standalone executable programs. 
.TP
.B \-q
Produce less notes when compiling.

.PP
The options
.B \-load,
.B \-shell,
and
.B \-eval
may appear any number of times, and they are combined and processed from left
to right.
.SH AUTHORS
The original version was developed by Giuseppe Attardi starting from the Kyoto
Common Lisp implementation by Taiichi Yuasa and Masami Hagiya.  The current
maintainer of ECL is Juan Jose Garcia Ripoll, who can be reached at the ECL
mailing list.
.SH FILES
.TP
.BR "~/.ecl, ~/.eclrc"
Default initialization files loaded at startup unless the option
.BR \-norc
is provided.
(if they exist).
.SH SEE ALSO
.IP ""
ANSI Common Lisp standard X3.226-1994
.IP ""
The Common Lisp HyperSpec
.SH "BUGS"
Probably some. Report them!