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PICOLISP(1)			 User Commands			   PICOLISP(1)

NAME
       pil, picolisp - a fast, lightweight Lisp	interpreter

SYNOPSIS
       pil [arguments ...] [-] [arguments ...] [+]
       picolisp	[arguments ...]	[-] [arguments ...] [+]

DESCRIPTION
       PicoLisp	is a Lisp interpreter with a small memory footprint, yet rela-
       tively  high  execution speed. It combines an elegant and powerful lan-
       guage with built-in database functionality.

       pil is the startup front-end for	the  interpreter.  It  takes  care  of
       starting	 the  binary base system and loading a useful runtime environ-
       ment.

       picolisp	is just	the bare interpreter binary. It	is usually  called  in
       stand-alone  scripts,  using  the  she-bang notation in the first line,
       passing the minimal environment in lib.l	and loading  additional	 files
       as needed:

	      #!/usr/bin/picolisp /usr/lib/picolisp/lib.l
	      (load "@ext.l" "myfiles/lib.l" "myfiles/foo.l")
	      (do ... something	...)
	      (bye)

INVOCATION
       PicoLisp	 has  no pre-defined command line flags; applications are free
       to define their own. Any	built-in or user-level Lisp  function  can  be
       invoked	from  the command line by prefixing it with a hyphen. Examples
       for built-in functions useful in	this context are  version  (print  the
       version	number)	 or  bye  (exit	the interpreter). Therefore, a minimal
       call to print the version number	and then immediately exit  the	inter-
       preter would be:

	      $	pil -version -bye

       Any other argument (not starting	with a hyphen) should be the name of a
       file  to	be loaded. If the first	character of a path or file name is an
       at-mark,	it will	be substituted with the	path to	the  installation  di-
       rectory.

       All  arguments  are  evaluated  from left to right, then	an interactive
       read-eval-print loop is entered (with a colon as	prompt).

       A single	hyphen stops the evaluation of the rest	of the	command	 line,
       so that the remaining arguments may be processed	under program control.

       If  the very last command line argument is a single plus	character, de-
       bugging mode is switched	on at interpreter startup,  before  evaluating
       any  of	the  command  line arguments. A	minimal	interactive session is
       started with:

	      $	pil +

       Here you	can access the reference manual	(expects  the  shell  variable
       BROWSER to be set, defaults to "w3m")

	      :	(doc)

       and the online documentation for	most functions,

	      :	(doc 'vi)

       or directly inspect their sources:

	      :	(vi 'doc)

       The interpreter can be terminated with

	      :	(bye)

       or by typing Ctrl-D.

FILES
       Runtime files are maintained in the ~/.pil directory:

       ~/.pil/tmp/<pid>/
	      Process-local temporary directories

       ~/.pil/rc
	      Loaded after interpreter startup

       ~/.pil/viprc
	      Loaded by	the Vip	editor

BUGS
       PicoLisp	doesn't	try to protect you from	every possible programming er-
       ror ("You asked for it, you got it").

AUTHOR
       Alexander Burger	<abu@software-lab.de>

RESOURCES
       Home page: http://home.picolisp.com
       Download: http://www.software-lab.de/down.html

								   PICOLISP(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=picolisp&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.0>

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