Toms Lisp Invocation

[Basic Input Format] [Lists, Pairs and Related Operations] [Conditional Evaluation] [Basic Function Definition] [Definitions and Scope] [Functions Which Take Functions] [String Functions] [Exception Handling] [Quoting And Evaluation] [Variable-Length Parameter Lists] [Macro Definitions] [Printing] [The Tomslsp command and its switches] [Index of Standard Functions]

Tom's Lisp is invoked from the command line with the form

tomslsp [ flags ] [ files ]

The usual invocation is without arguments, where tomslsp loads the standard defintions and comes up in interactive mode. The following switches are available:

`-s` path		Set the search path used by the `load` command and for loading files on the command line. It is a list of directories separated by colons (or semicolons under Window).
`-b`		Run in bare mode --- do not load the standard definitions file. Tom's Lisp will have the built-in definitions implemented directly in C++, but not the ones in the basic setup file. You can effectively choose an alternate init file by using the `-b` flag and listing your alternate on the command line.
`-B`		Run in batch mode. Exit after loading the base definitions and any files listed on the command line, before starting the main read-eval-print loop. (If you invoke Tom's Lisp with `-b`, `-B` and no file names, you prevent it from running any code at all. Might be for the best . . .)
`-q`		Disable the history mechanism for error reporting.
`-e` n		Limit error history reporting to n entries. If the total number of history entries exceeds n, some entries in the middle will not be printed. Default is 15.
`-S` in `-F` fi		These flags are similar to `-e`, but set the limit more specifically by setting the max number of initial and final entries printed. Both in and fi are integers. If the number of entries does not exceed in + fi, all entries are printed. Otherwise, only the first in and final fi. Defaults are 5 and 10.
`-C`		Prints some complile-time options.

The file names listed after the switches are loaded before entering the interactive read loop.

The environment variable LSP_PATH specifies the file search path when the -s flag is not used. The environment variables HOME and USER, if they exist, are imported as Tom's Lisp definitions. Also, the identifier PID is set to the process id.