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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	language
     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 environment.

     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 interpreter 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 directory.

     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, debug-
     ging 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  error
     ("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

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