pl(1) - f7

1pl(1L)                                                                  pl(1L)
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NAME

6       pl - SWI-Prolog 5.6.35
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SYNOPSIS

9       pl [-help|-v|-arch|-dump-runtime-variables]
10       pl [options]
11       pl [options] [-o output] -c file ...
12       pl [options] [-o output] -b initfile ...
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DESCRIPTION

15       SWI-Prolog  is an ISO compatible Prolog compiler. It has a good collec‐
16       tion of built-in predicates, a large set of which it shares with  Edin‐
17       burgh  C-Prolog, Quintus Prolog and SICStus Prolog.  Among its features
18       are a  very  fast  compiler,  a  Quintus-like  module  system,  library
19       autoloading,  garbage  collection,  atom  garbage  collection, fast bi-
20       directional C interface, true C++ interface,  execution  profiling  and
21       many more.
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23       Add-on  packages  provide  graphics  (XPCE),  TCP/IP, process controll,
24       SGML/XML/HTML/RDF support and many more. In addition, XPCE  provides  a
25       development  environment,  consisting of hypertext help-system, source-
26       level debugger, integrated editor and many navigation tools.
27
28       This manual page only lists the commandline options.   Full  documenta‐
29       tion  is  available  on-line as well as in HTML and PDF format from the
30       WWW home page.
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LICENSE INFORMATION

34       SWI-Prolog is distributed under the LGPL (Lesser  Gnu  Public  License)
35       for maximal compatibility with the Free Software movement, while allow‐
36       ing for use with proprietary software components.  See  the  SWI-Prolog
37       home page at http://www.swi-prolog.org for details.
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OPTIONS

41       -help  Gives a summary of the most important options.
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43       -v     Displays version and architecture information.
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45       -arch  Prints the architecture identifier.
46
47       -dump-runtime-variables[=format]
48              Dump  information  that  is  generally  useful  for installation
49              scripts in a form defined by format.   Defines  formats  are  sh
50              (default,  bourne  shell) and cmd (Windows CMD).  This option is
51              used by plld (1) to fetch necessary  information  about  Prolog.
52              It  is  normally  invoked  as eval `pl -dump-runtime-variables`,
53              which assigns the following shell variables:
54
55              CC     The C- compiler used to compile SWI-Prolog.
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57              PLBASE The home directory of SWI-Prolog.  This is the same value
58                     as returned by the current_prolog_flag home.
59
60              PLARCH The  architecture  identifier used.  Together with PLBASE
61                     this defines the location  of  various  components.   For
62                     example,  the  library  for  embedding is in $PLBASE/run‐
63                     time/$PLARCH/libpl.a
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65              PLLIBS The required libraries for linking libpl.a
66
67              PLCFLAGS
68                     Flags that need to be passed to the C-compiler to  gener‐
69                     ate compatible code.
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71              PLLDFLAGS
72                     Flags  that need to be passed to the C-linker for linking
73                     embedded executables.
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75              PLSOEXT
76                     Extension used by the hosting operating system for shared
77                     objects. On most Unix systems this is "so"; on MS-Windows
78                     it is "dll".  AIX uses "o", HPUX "sl".
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80              PLVERSION
81                     Numeric representation of the SWI-Prolog version.
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83              PLSHARED
84                     Has the value  yes  if  Prolog  supports  linking  shared
85                     libraries  using load_foreign_library/[1,2] and no other‐
86                     wise.
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88              PLTHREADS
89                     Has the value yes  if  Prolog  was  compiled  for  multi-
90                     threading and no otherwise.
91
92       -Asize[kmg]
93              Sets  the argument stack size to size.  The default is 1 Mbytes.
94              The argument-size determines the maximum term-nesting  of  terms
95              that  can  be compiled and executed.  Both the compiler and vir‐
96              tual machine use `last-argument optimisation', so -for  example-
97              intptr_t  lists  do not require the argument stack. See also the
98              -L option.
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100       -Gsize[kmg]
101              Sets the global stack size to size.  The default  is  4  Mbytes.
102              The global stack is used to store compound terms, floating point
103              numbers, big integers and strings. See also the -L option.
104
105       -Lsize[kmg]
106              Sets the local stack size to size.  The default unit is  Kbytes.
107              The  local  stack  is  used to store environment frames, choice‐
108              points and foreign-language term-references.  Note that SWI-Pro‐
109              log  does  last-call  optimisation  to  minimize the local stack
110              requirements. If the argument ends in m , the argument is inter‐
111              preted  in  Mbytes.  A g suffix is interpreted in Gbytes (64-bit
112              machines only).  This flag sets the maximum value to  which  the
113              stack  is allowed to grow (default 2048). A maximum is useful to
114              prevent buggy programs from claiming all the  memory  resources.
115              -L0 sets the limit to the highest possible value.
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117       -O     Optimised  compilation.  See set_prolog_flag/3 in the SWI-Prolog
118              Reference Manual.
119
120       -Tsize[kmg]
121              Sets the trail stack size to size K bytes. The default is  4096.
122              See -L for more details.
123
124       -b initfile ... -c file ...
125              Boot  compilation.   initfile ...  are compiled by the C written
126              bootstrap compiler, file ...  by the normal Prolog compiler into
127              an intermediate code file. This option is for system maintenance
128              and is given for reference only.
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130       -c file ...
131              Compiles file ...  into an intermediate code file.
132
133       -d level
134              Set debug level to level.  This option is for system maintenance
135              and is given for reference only.
136
137       -f file
138              Use  file  as  initialisation file instead of `.plrc'. `-f none'
139              stops SWI-Prolog from searching for an initialisation file.
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141       -F file
142              Select startup script from the SWI-Prolog home directory.   file
143              Specifies  the  base-name  of the script.  The extension is .rc.
144              The default script is deduced from  the  basename  of  the  exe‐
145              cutable,  taking all leading alphanumerical (letters, digits and
146              underscore) from the program name.  Thus if the program is named
147              swi-2.0  it will try to load the file swi.rc from the SWI-Prolog
148              home directory.  If the file does not exist, or the user has  no
149              read-access to it, the script is silently not loaded.
150
151       -s file
152              Load  file  as a script.  This option may be used from the shell
153              to make Prolog load a file before entering the toplevel.  It  is
154              also  used  to  turn  a file into an executable Prolog script on
155              Unix systems using the following first line
156
157              #!/usr/bin/pl option ... -s
158
159       -q     Operate silently.  This option suppresses all informational mes‐
160              sages, such as for compiling files.
161
162       -g goal
163              Goal is executed just before entering the top level. The default
164              is a predicate which prints the  welcome  message.  The  welcome
165              message can thus be suppressed by giving -g true.  goal can be a
166              complex term. In this case, quotes are normally needed  to  pro‐
167              tect it from being expanded by the Unix shell.
168
169       -o output
170              Used  in  combination with -b or -c to determine the output file
171              for compilation.
172
173       -p alias=pathlist
174              Define a path  alias  for  file_search_path/2.   pathlist  is  a
175              "`":"'"   separated   list   of   values   for  the  alias.  See
176              file_search_path/2 in the SWI-Prolog Reference Manual.
177
178       -t goal
179              Use goal as an interactive top level instead of the default goal
180              prolog/0.   goal  can  be  a complex term. If the top level goal
181              succeeds, SWI-Prolog exits with status 0. If it fails, the  exit
182              status  is  1.  This  flag  also  determines the goal started by
183              break/0 and abort/0.  If you want to stop the user from entering
184              interactive  mode, start the application with `-g goal' and give
185              `halt' as the top level.
186
187       -x bootfile
188              Start from an intermediate code file  resulting  from  a  Prolog
189              compilation  using  the  -b  or  -c  option,  or  created  using
190              qsave_program/[1,2].
191
192       [+|-]tty
193              Switches tty control (using ioctl(2)) on (+tty) or  off  (-tty).
194              Normally tty control is switched on. This default depends on the
195              installation. You may wish to switch tty control off if SWI-Pro‐
196              log  is  used from an editor such as GNU Emacs. If switched off,
197              get_single_char/1 and  the  tracer  will  wait  for  a  carriage
198              return.
199
200       --     Stops scanning for more arguments.
201

ON-LINE HELP

203       SWI-Prolog  has  on-line help. This provides a fast lookup and browsing
204       facility to the SWI-Prolog Reference manual.  The  on-line  manual  can
205       show predicate definitions as well as entire sections of the manual.
206
207       help   Equivalent to help(help/1).
208
209       help(+What)
210              Show a specified part of the manual.  What is one of:
211
212              Name/Arity
213                     give help on the specified predicate
214
215              Name   give  help  on  the named predicate with any arity or a C
216                     interface function with that name.
217
218              Section
219                     display the specified section of the SWI-Prolog Reference
220                     Manual.  Section numbers are dash separated numbers: e.g.
221                     2-3 refers to section 2.3 of the manual.
222
223              If Prolog is used together with the GUI tool XPCE, these  predi‐
224              cates  start  a graphical interface, providing a coherent inter‐
225              face to help/1, apropos/1 and explain/1.
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FILES

228       This installation of SWI-Prolog has been configured using the configure
229       option  --prefix=/usr.   If the files listed below are not at the indi‐
230       cated place, the installation has probably been moved.  Use
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232       ?- current_prolog_flag(home, Home).
233
234       to find the local installation directory of SWI-Prolog.
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236       .plrc
237
238       ~/.plrc
239              Personal  initialisation  files  consulted  by   SWI-Prolog   on
240              startup.  If both exist .plrc is used.
241
242       /usr/lib/pl-5.6.35/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu/
243              Location for the executables.
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245       /usr/lib/pl-5.6.35/include/
246              Location  for  the  include files.  If writable, SWI-Prolog.h is
247              also copied to /usr/include/SWI-Prolog.h.
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249       /usr/lib/pl-5.6.35/library/
250              SWI-Prolog user libraries.
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252       /usr/lib/pl-5.6.35/boot/
253              SWI-Prolog kernel parts written in  Prolog.   The  startup  file
254              /usr/lib/pl-5.6.35/boot32.prc may be recreated using the command
255              from the directory /usr/lib/pl-5.6.35:
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257              bin/x86_64-linux-gnu/pl -O -o boot32.prc -b boot/init.pl
258
259       /usr/lib/pl-5.6.35/doc/packages
260              HTML and/or PDF documentation on the installed add-ons.
261
262       /usr/lib/pl-5.6.35/boot32.prc
263              Default startup file.  This is a `intermediate code'  file  con‐
264              taining  precompiled  code from the boot directory.  The -xboot‐
265              file option may be used to select a different file.
266
267       /usr/lib/pl-5.6.35/runtime/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpl.a
268              SWI-Prolog library for embedding.  See also plld(1).
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WARRANTY

284       The software is provided as is, without warranty of any  kind,  express
285       or  implied,  including  but  not  limited  to  the  warranties of mer‐
286       chantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non infringement. In
287       no event shall the author or his employer be liable for any claim, dam‐
288       ages or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort or oth‐
289       erwise,  arising from, out of or in connection with the software or the
290       use or other dealings in the software.
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COPYING

293       SWI-Prolog is distributed under the LGPL (Lesser GNU  Public  Licence).
294       The  license  terms  are  in  the file COPYING or on the GNU website at
295       http://www.gnu.org.
296

COPYRIGHT

298       Copyright (c) 1986-2007 University of Amsterdam.
299

AUTHOR

301       Jan Wielemaker
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306SWI-Prolog 5                      Feb 8, 2006                           pl(1L)