13.1 sicstus — SICStus Prolog Development System

Synopsis

     % sicstus [options] [-a argument...]

Description

The prompt `| ?-' indicates that the execution of is top-level mode. In this mode, Prolog queries may be issued and executed interactively. To exit from the top-level and return to the shell, either type ^D at the top-level, or call the built-in predicate halt/0, or use the e (exit) command following a ^C interruption.

Under Windows, sicstus.exe is a console-based program that can run in a command prompt window, whereas spwin.exe runs in its own window and directs the Prolog standard streams to that window. spwin.exe is a “windowed” executable.

Options

-f

Fast start. Don't read any initialization file on startup. If the option is omitted and the initialization file exists, SICStus Prolog will consult it on startup after running any initializations and printing the version banners. The initialization file is .sicstusrc or sicstus.ini in the users home directory, i.e. ~/.sicstusrc or ~/sicstus.ini. See ref-fdi-syn, for an explanation of how a file specification starting with `~/' is interpreted.

-i

Forced interactive. Prompt for user input, even if the standard input stream does not appear to be a terminal.

-m

Use malloc() et al. for memory allocations. See cpg-ref-SP_set_memalloc_hooks for more information.

--noinfo

Start with the informational Prolog flag set to off initially, suppressing informational messages. The flag is set before any prolog-file or initialization file is loaded or any saved-state is restored.

--nologo

Start without the initial version message.

-l prolog-file

Ensure that the file prolog-file is loaded on startup. This is done before any initialization file is loaded. Only one -l option is allowed.

-r saved-state

Restore the saved-state saved-state on startup. This is done before any prolog-file or initialization file is loaded. Only one -r option is allowed.

--goal Goal

Read a term from the text Goal and pass the resulting term to call/1 after all files have been loaded. As usual Goal should be terminated by a full stop (`.'). Only one --goal option is allowed.

--help

Display a help message and exit.

-- argument...

-a argument...

where the arguments can be retrieved from Prolog by prolog_flag(argv, Args), which will unify Args with argument... represented as a list of atoms.

Environment

The following environment variables can be set before starting SICStus Prolog. Some of these override the default sizes of certain areas. For variables enging with `SIZE', the size is in bytes, but may be followed by `K' or `M' meaning kilobytes or megabytes respectively.

SP_PATH

This environment variable can be used to specify the location of the Runtime Library. In most cases there is no need to use it, but see CPL Notes.

GLOBALSTKSIZE

Controls the initial size of the global stack. Please note: The global stack will not be subsequently trimmed to a size smaller than this initial size.

LOCALSTKSIZE

Controls the initial size of the local stack. Please note: The local stack will not be subsequently trimmed to a size smaller than this initial size.

CHOICESTKSIZE

Controls the initial size of the choicepoint stack. Please note: The choicepoint stack will not be subsequently trimmed to a size smaller than this initial size.

TRAILSTKSIZE

Controls the initial size of the trail stack. Please note: The trail stack will not be subsequently trimmed to a size smaller than this initial size.

GROWTHFACTOR

Meaningful values are between 10 and 100; the default is 62. Controls the rate at which the Prolog stacks grow when they are expanded. These stacks are stored in two data areas: one holding the global and local stacks; another one holding the choicepoint and trail stacks. In addition, both data areas hold some memory reserved for the garbage collector.

The sizes of the two data areas are constrained to take certain discrete values only. The initial size as well as the size after expansion is constrained to be w*((1+g)^n) kilobytes, rounded up to an integral number of words, where w is the word length in bits, g is GROWTHFACTOR/100, and n is an integer.

PROLOGINITSIZE

Controls the size of Prolog's initial memory allocation. Only used by the default memory allocator (see SP_set_memalloc_hooks). Please note: This initially allocated memory will be kept by the Prolog process forever.

PROLOGMAXSIZE

Defines an upper bound on the amount of memory that Prolog will use. If not set, Prolog will try to use the available address space. Only used by the default memory allocator (see SP_set_memalloc_hooks). Thus if Prolog needs to allocate memory beyond this bound, a memory resource error will be raised.

PROLOGINCSIZE

Controls the amount of memory Prolog asks the operating system for in any given memory expansion. Only used by the default memory allocator (see SP_set_memalloc_hooks).

PROLOGKEEPSIZE

Defines a lower bound on the amount of memory retained by trimcore/0. By default, Prolog gets memory from the O/S as the user program executes, whereas trimcore/0 endeavors to return free memory back to the O/S. If the programmer knows that her program, once it has grown to a certain size, is likely to need as much memory for future computations, she can advise Prolog not to return all the free memory back to the operating system by setting this variable. trimcore/0 only endavors to return memory that is allocated above and beyond PROLOGKEEPSIZE; the rest will be kept. Only used by the default memory allocator (see SP_set_memalloc_hooks). Please note: The initially allocated memory will be kept by the Prolog process forever, so it is not meaningful to set PROLOGKEEPSIZE smaller than PROLOGINITSIZE.

SP_ULIMIT_DATA_SEGMENT_SIZE

Sets the maximum size of the data segment of the Prolog process. The value can be unlimited or a numeric value as described in the first paragraph in this section. A numeric value of zero (0) is equivalent to unlimited. Not used under Windows.

SP_USE_MALLOC

If yes then malloc() et al. will be used for memory management instead of the default memory allocator. This is sometimes useful, e.g$: with debugging tools like valgrind. Corresponds to the -m flag to sicstus and the --userhook=malloc flag to spld (see SP_set_memalloc_hooks).

In addition the following environment variables are set automatically on startup.

SP_APP_DIR

The absolute path to the directory that contains the executable. Also available as the application file search path.

SP_RT_DIR

The full path to the directory that contains the SICStus run-time. If the application has linked statically to the SICStus run-time, SP_RT_DIR is the same as SP_APP_DIR. Also available as the runtime file search path.

SP_LIBRARY_DIR

The absolute path to the directory that contains the SICStus library files. Also available as the initial value of the library file search path.

SP_TEMP_DIR

A directory suitable for storing temporary files. It is particularly useful with the open/4 option if_exists(generate_unique_name). Also available as the temp file search path.

Files

file.pl

Prolog source file

file.po

Prolog Object file

.sicstusrc

sicstus.ini

SICStus Prolog initialization file, looked up in the home directory

See Also

Start.