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1990-04-05
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Version 8 of Icon for OS/2
Ralph E. Griswold
Department of Computer Science, The University of Arizona
1.__Introduction
Version 8 of Icon for OS/2 should run on any computer that
runs OS/2. Icon for OS/2 is a large-memory model program. Its
data regions are limited to 65K and are fixed in size once execu-
tion begins. Math coprocessors are supported and used if
present; otherwise software emulation is used.
Version 8 of Icon for OS/2 is distributed on a 3.5" or 5.25"
diskette. It includes executable binary files, a few test pro-
grams, and documentation in machine-readable form. Printed docu-
ments are included with diskettes distributed by the Icon Project
at the University of Arizona.
This implementation of Icon is in the public domain and may be
copied and used without restriction. The Icon Project makes no
warranties of any kind as to the correctness of this material or
its suitability for any application. The responsibility for the
use of Icon lies entirely with the user.
2.__Documentation
The basic reference for the Icon programming language is the
book
The Icon Programming Language, second edition, Ralph E.
Griswold and Madge T. Griswold, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Engle-
wood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1990. 365 pages. ISBN 0-13-447889-
4. $29.95.
This book is available from the Icon Project at the University of
Arizona. It also can be ordered through any bookstore that han-
dles special orders or by telephone directly from Prentice-Hall:
(201) 767-9520.
Note that the first edition of this book, published in 1983,
describes an older version of Icon and does not contain informa-
tion about many of the features of Version 8.
A brief overview of Icon is contained in technical report TR
90-6 [1] (tr90-6.doc on the distribution diskette). Features that
have been added to Icon since the first edition of the book was
written are described in TR 90-1 [2] (tr90-1.doc on the distribu-
tion diskette). These technical reports, together with this
document (ipd131.doc on this diskette), provide enough informa-
tion to write and run simple Icon programs, but persons who
IPD131a - 1 - April 5, 1990
intend to use Icon extensively will need the book.
3.__Installing_OS/2_Icon
Two executable binary files are needed to run Icon:
icont.exe translator
iconx.exe executor
These files should be located at a place on your PATH specifica-
tion.
The distribution is contained in several files in ARC format.
A copy of arc.exe is included for dearchiving. The distribution
files are:
arc.exe archiving utility
icon.arc executable binary files [302KB]
samples.arc Icon programs and data [3KB]
docs.arc documents [90KB]
readme installation overview and recent notes
The figures in brackets give the approximate amount of disk space
needed when the files are extracted from their archives.
To install the .exe files, set your current directory to the
desired place, place the distribution diskette in drive A, and
dearchive the files there using arc.exe on the distribution
diskette:
a:arc x a:icon.arc
4.__Running_OS/2_Icon_-_Basic_Information
Files containing Icon programs must have the extension .icn.
Such files should be plain text files (without line numbers or
other extraneous information). The icont translator produces an
``icode'' file that can be executed by iconx. For example, an
Icon program in the file prog.icn is translated by
icont prog.icn
The result is an icode file with the name prog.icx. This file
can be run by
iconx prog.icx
Alternatively, icont can be instructed to execute the icode file
after translation by appending a -x to the command line, as in
IPD131a - 2 - April 5, 1990
icont prog.icn -x
If icont is run with the -x option, the file prog.icx is left
and can be run subsequently using iconx as described above.
The extensions .icn and .icx are optional. For example, it is
sufficient to use
icont prog
and
iconx prog
5.__Testing_the_Installation
There are a few programs on the distribution diskette that can
be used for testing the installation and getting a feel for run-
ning Icon:
hello.icn This program prints the Icon version number,
time, and date. Run this test as
icont hello
iconx hello
Note that this can be done in one step with
icont hello -x
cross.icn This program prints all the ways that two words
intersect in a common character. The file
cross.dat contains typical data. Run this test
as
icont cross -x <cross.dat
meander.icn This program prints the ``meandering strings''
that contain all subsequences of a specified
length from a given set of characters. Run this
test as
icont meander -x <meander.dat
roman.icn This program converts Arabic numerals to Roman
numerals. Run this test as
IPD131a - 3 - April 5, 1990
icont roman -x
and provide some Arabic numbers from your con-
sole.
If these tests work, your installation is probably correct and
you should have a running version of Icon.
6.__More_on_Running_Icon
For simple applications, the instructions for running Icon
given in Section 4 may be adequate. The icont translator supports
a variety of options that may be useful in special situations.
There also are several aspects of execution that can be con-
trolled with environment variables. These are listed here. If
you are new to Icon, you may wish to skip this section on the
first reading but come back to it if you find the need for more
control over the translation and execution of Icon programs.
6.1__Arguments
Arguments can be passed to the Icon program by appending them
to the command line. Such arguments are passed to the main pro-
cedure as a list of strings. For example,
iconx prog text.dat log.dat
runs the icode file prog.icx, passing its main procedure a list
of two strings, "text.dat" and "log.dat". The program also can
be translated and run with these arguments with a single command
line by putting the arguments after the -x:
icont prog -x text.dat log.dat
These arguments might be the names of files that prog.icn reads
from and writes to. For example, the main procedure might begin
as follows:
procedure main(a)
in := open(a[1]) | stop("cannot open input file")
out := open(a[2],"w") | stop("cannot open output file")
.
.
.
See also the information about the processing of command-line
arguments given in Section 6.4.
6.2__The_Translator
The icont translator can accept several Icon source files at
one time. When several files are given, they are translated and
combined into a single icode file whose name is derived from the
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name of the first file. For example,
icont prog1 prog2
translates the files prog1.icn and prog2.icn and produces one
icode file, prog1.icx.
A name other than the default one for the icode file produced
by icont can be specified by using the -o option, followed by the
desired name. For example,
icont -o probe.icx prog
produces the icode file named probe.icx rather than prog.icx.
If the -c option is given to icont, the translator stops
before producing an icode file and intermediate ``ucode'' files
with the extensions .u1 and .u2 are left for future use (normally
they are deleted). For example,
icont -c prog1
leaves prog1.u1 and prog1.u2, instead of producing prog1.icx.
These ucode files can be used in a subsequent icont command by
using the .u1 name. This saves translation time when the program
is used again. For example,
icont prog2 prog1.u1
translates prog2.icn and combines the result with the ucode files
from a previous translation of prog1.icn. Note that only the .u1
name is given. The extension can be abbreviated to .u, as in
icont prog2 prog1.u
Ucode files also can be added to a program using the link
declaration in an Icon source program as described in [2].
Icon source programs may be read from standard input. The
argument - signifies the use of standard input as a source file.
In this case, the ucode files are named stdin.u1 and stdin.u2 and
the icode file is named stdin.icx.
The informative messages from the translator can be suppressed
by using the -s option. Normally, both informative messages and
error messages are sent to standard error output.
The -t option causes &trace to have an initial value of -1
when the icode file is executed. Normally, &trace has an initial
value of 0.
The option -u causes warning messages to be issued for unde-
clared identifiers in the program.
IPD131a - 5 - April 5, 1990
Icon has several tables related to the translation of pro-
grams. These tables are large enough for most programs, but
translation is terminated with an error message, indicating the
offending table, if there is not enough room. If this happens,
larger table sizes can be specified by using the -S option. This
option has the form -S[cfgilnrstCFL]n, where the letter following
the S specifies the table and n is the number of storage units to
allocate for the table.
c constant table 100
f field table 100
g global symbol table 200
i identifier table 500
l local symbol table 100
n line number table 1000
r record table 100
s string space 20000
t tree space 15000
C code buffer 15000
F file names 10
L labels 500
The units depend on the table involved, but the default values
can be used as guides for appropriate settings of -S options
without knowing the units. For example,
icont -Sc200 -Sg600 prog
translates prog.icn with twice the constant table space and three
times the global symbol table space that ordinarily would be pro-
vided.
6.3__Environment_Variables
When an icode file is executed, several environment variables
are examined to determine execution parameters. The values
assigned to these variables should be numbers.
Environment variables are particularly useful in adjusting
Icon's storage requirements. This may be necessary if your com-
puter does not have enough memory to run programs that require an
unusually large amount of data. Particular care should be taken
when changing default sizes: unreasonable values may cause Icon
to malfunction.
The following environment variables can be set to affect
Icon's execution parameters. Their default values are listed in
parentheses after the environment variable name:
TRACE (undefined). This variable initializes the value
of &trace. If this variable has a value, it overrides the
translation-time -t option.
NOERRBUF (undefined). If this variable is set, &errout
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is not buffered.
STRSIZE (65000). This variable determines the size, in
bytes, of the region in which strings are stored.
HEAPSIZE (65000). This variable determines the size, in
bytes, of the region in which Icon allocates lists, tables,
and other objects.
COEXPSIZE (2000). This variable determines the size, in
32-bit words, of each co-expression block.
MSTKSIZE (10000). This variable determines the size, in
words, of the main interpreter stack.
QLSIZE (5000). This variable determines the size, in
bytes, of the region used by the garbage collector for
pointers to strings.
The maximum region size that can be specified is 65000.
Region sizes remain fixed during execution.
6.4__Details_of_Command-Line_Processing
The processing of command-line arguments normally is important
only in running iconx.
The following rules apply to both:
+ An argument containing white space must be enclosed in
double quotes ("). For example, "abc def" is a valid
argument. The quotes are deleted in the string passed to
iconx.
+ If a quoted argument contains a double quote, the embed-
ded quote must be preceded by a backslash. For example,
"abc de\"f" is a valid argument. The outer quotes and the
backslash are deleted in the string passed to iconx.
+ If a non-quoted argument contains a double quote, the
embedded quote can be preceded by a backslash or not. For
example, abc\"d and abc"d are equivalent arguments.
+ To pass a double quote as an argument, precede it with a
backslash.
+ Wild-card characters are not expanded.
+ Quote-balancing errors are not checked.
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7.__Features_of_OS/2_Icon
OS/2 Icon supports all the features of Version 8 of Icon,
including large-integer arithmetic, with the following exceptions
and additions:
+ There are two additional options for open: "t" and "u".
The "t" option, which is the default, indicates that the
file is to be translated into UNIX* format. All
carriage-return/line-feed sequences are translated into
line-feed characters on both input and output. The "u"
option indicates that the file is to be untranslated.
Examples are:
untranfile := open("test.fil","ru")
tranfile := open("test.new","wt")
For files opened in the translate mode, the position pro-
duced by seek may not reflect the actual byte position
because of the translation of carriage-return/line-feed
sequences to line-feed characters.
+ Path specifications can be entered using either a / or a
\. Examples are:
A:\ICON\TEST.ICN
A:/ICON/TEST.ICN
+ The following OS/2 device names can be used as file
names:
console CON
printer PRN LST LPT LPT1
auxiliary port AUX COM RDR PUN
null NUL NULL
For example,
prompt := open("CON","w")
causes strings written to prompt to be displayed on the
console. Use of a null file name means no file is
created.
8.__Known_Bugs
A list of known bugs in Icon itself is given in [2]. There
are no known bugs that are specific to the OS/2 implementation of
__________________________
*UNIX is a trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories.
IPD131a - 8 - April 5, 1990
Icon.
9.__Reporting_Problems
Problems with Icon should be noted on a trouble report form
(included with the distribution) and sent to
Icon Project
Department of Computer Science
Gould-Simpson Building
The University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
U.S.A.
(602) 621-4049
icon-project@cs.arizona.edu (Internet)
... {uunet, allegra, noao}!arizona!icon-project (uucp)
10.__Registering_Copies_of_Icon
If you received your copy of Version 8 of Icon directly from
the Icon Project, it has been registered in your name and you
will receive the Icon Newsletter without charge. This Newsletter
contains information about new implementations, updates, program-
ming techniques, and information of general interest about Icon.
If you received your copy of Version 8 of Icon from another
source, please fill out the registration form that is included in
the documents in the distribution) and send it to the Icon Pro-
ject at the address listed above. This will entitle you to a free
subscription to the Icon Newsletter and assure that you receive
information about updates.
Acknowledgements
The design and development of the Icon programming language
was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation under
grants MCS75-01397, MCS79-03890, MCS81-01916, DCR-8320138, DCR-
8401831, and DCR-8502015.
Many individuals contributed to the design and implementation
of Icon. The principal ones are Cary Coutant, Dave Gudeman, Dave
Hanson, Tim Korb, Bill Mitchell, Kelvin Nilsen, Janalee O'Bagy,
Gregg Townsend, Ken Walker, and Steve Wampler.
The implementation of Icon was adapted to OS/2 by Cheyenne
Wills in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He also provided some of
the technical material contained in this document.
IPD131a - 9 - April 5, 1990
References
1. R. E. Griswold, An Overview of Version 8 of the Icon
Programming Language, The Univ. of Arizona Tech. Rep. 90-6,
1990.
2. R. E. Griswold, Version 8 of Icon, The Univ. of Arizona
Tech. Rep. 90-1, 1990.
IPD131a - 10 - April 5, 1990