4.0 - STk manual page

stk, snow

A Scheme interpreter using the Tk toolkit

SYNOPSIS

stk [options] [arg arg ...]
snow [options] [arg arg ...]

stk interpreter accepts several command-line options which may be abbreviated, as long as the abbreviation is unambiguous (e.g. -h, -he, -hel are three possibe abbreviations for the -help option).

-display display: Display (and screen) on which to display window.
-file fileName: Read commands from fileName rather than standard input. The last element in fileName will be used as the title for the application and name of its interpreter for send commands (unless overridden by the -name option\fR).
-geometry geometry: Initial geometry to use for window.
-name name: Use name as the title to be displayed in the window, and as the name of the interpreter for send commands.
-new-colormap: Specifies that the main window should have a new private colormap instead of using the default colormap for the screen.
-sync: Execute all X server commands synchronously, so that errors are reported immediately. This will result in much slower execution, but it is useful for debugging.
-visual visual: Specifies the visual to use for the window.Visual may be one of the following: best, directcolor, grayscale, greyscale, pseudocolor, staticcolor, staticgray, staticgrey, truecolor, or default
-no-tk: Don't initialize the Tk toolkit
-load fileName: Evaluate expressions contained in fileName before reading expressions from standard input.
-image fileName: Restore the state saved in fileName by the dump primitive (Note: For now, dump works only on SunOS 4.1.x, Linux 1.x (a.out format) and FreeBSD).
-cells number: Set the default size for the heap to number cells. The given number is also the amount of cells used when extending the heap. Default value is 20000.
-interactive: Tell the interpreter that it is used interactively (even if it doesn't think so).
-help: Print a summary of the command-line options and exit.
--: Pass all remaining arguments through to the script's argv variable without interpreting them. This provides a mechanism for passing arguments such as -name to a script instead of having wish interpret them.

DESCRIPTION

Stk is a Scheme R4RS interpreter which provide a simple access to the X11 Tk toolkit. If the -no-tk option is provided to the interpreter, the Tk library is not initialized and no main window is created. If stk is invoked with no -f option then it reads Scheme expressions interactively from standard input. It will continue processing commands until all windows have been deleted or until end-of-file is reached on standard input.

Snow is a light version of the stk interpreter which does not provide support for the Tk toolkit. This interpreter does not recognize the options -display, -geometry, -sync new-colormap, visual and -no-tk which are meaningless without Tk. This interpreter is called, rather than the standard one, when the shell DISPLAY variable is not initialized.

If the -file option is provided to Tk, then stk reads Scheme forms from the file named in the -file option. These forms will normally create an interactive interface consisting of one or more widgets. When the end of the command file is reached, stk will continue to respond to X events until all windows have been deleted.

The -interactive option forces the interpreter in interactive mode. In this mode, standard output and standard error are unbuffered. Use this option when you launch stk from emacs.

VARIABLES

Following Scheme variables are set when Stk starts:

*argc*: Contains a count of the number of arg arguments (0 if none), not including the options described above.
*argv*: Contains a Scheme list whose elements are the arg arguments (not including the options described above), in order, or an empty list if there are no arg arguments.
*program-name*: Contains fileName if it was specified. Otherwise, contains the name by which stk was invoked.

SCRIPT FILES

If you create a STk script in a file whose first line is

#!/usr/local/bin/stk -f

then you can invoke the script file directly from your shell if you mark it as executable. This assumes that stk has been installed in the default location in /usr/local/bin; if it's installed somewhere else then you'll have to modify the above line to match.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

stk uses the following shell variables:

STK_LIBRARY: This variable indicates where the library files are located. This variable allows to overload the default value of the Scheme variable *stk-library* which is automatically calculated by the interpreter.(i.e. stk or snow).
STK_LOAD_PATH: This variable serves to initialize the *load-path* Scheme variable. This variable is a list of paths to try when in a load command.
STK_HELP_PATH: This variable serves to initialize the *help-path* Scheme variable. It must contain a list of documentation directories. This variable is used by the help procedure.

FILES

./init.stk
$STK_LIBRARY/STk/init.stk: When stk starts running, it tries to load the file init.stk in the current directory. If this file is not present, it tries to load this file in the STk_LIBRARY directory (the value of STk_LIBRARY is automatically computed to be in a sibling directory of the interpreter executable.
~/.stkrc: Standard init.stk file tries to load the file ~/.stkrc. This file can be used to store function definitions or variables settings that you want to be executed at each interpretater invocation.