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

FILES

icont       Icon translator

iconc      Icon compiler

iconx      Icon executor

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.