ici(1)ici(1)NAMEici - ICI programming language interpreter
SYNOPSISici file args...
ici [-f file] [-] [-e prog] [-#] [-l mod] [-m name] [--] args...
ici [-h | -? | -v]
DESCRIPTIONici is an interpreter for the ICI language defined in The ICI Program‐
ming Language (ici.pdf from ici.sf.net, and probably installed on this
system). ICI is a general purpose interpretive programming language
that has dynamic typing and flexible data types with the basic syntax,
flow control constructs andoperators of C. It is designed for use in
many environments, including embedded systems, as an adjunct to other
programs, as a text-based interface to compiled libraries, and as a
cross-platform scripting language with good string-handling capabili‐
ties. The ICI language and source is free for any use but without war‐
ranties of any kind.
This page details the command line switches, and gives a summary of the
language. More detail may be found in the following man pages.
icisyn Statement forms and syntax.
iciops Expression operators.
icifuncs Core language functions.
icitypes Core language data types and their semantics.
icire Regular expressions.
icioo Object oriented programming.
iciex A summary of extension modules. Each extension module also
has its own man page. These are a seperate installation from
the language core.
The ICI language is reminiscent of C, with a very similar syntax, and
the same operator precedence. Features of the language include auto‐
matic garbage collection, exception handling, dynamic aggregate data
types like sets, associative arrays (`structs'), and support for object
oriented programming. ICI is strongly, but dynamically, typed. That
is, types are properties of objects, rather than the variables that
refer to them. The only requirement is that types must make sense at
run-time. Functions can be called with optional parameters, default
values, and varying types. Case-expressions in switch statements can
be strings and other types.
The most visible differences between ici and C are:
· Declarations take no type specifier.
· Function declarations require a storage class (e.g. static) to dis‐
tinguish them from a function call.
· There is no `main' - execution starts with the first executable
statement.
· Declarations are executable statements - but they are executed once
only, at parse time.
The interpreter may be invoked in three ways, the first using no com‐
mand line switches, the second using switches, and the third (which is
trivial) just prints version or help information and exits.
The first form is useful when your program is a script invoked via a #!
on the first line. In this form all arguments are passed directly to
your program. The second form allows certain options to be specified
to the interpreter itself, rather than just your program.
In both usages the file argument may be replaced with a − to indicate
that standard input should be read. Also any remaining command line
arguments are collected into an array and made available to the ici
program as the global variable argv.
The interpreter parses the ICI program from the named file and executes
it. ICI programs are ordinary text files. Comments may started with the
characters /* and continue until the next */, and they may also be
stated with // and continue till end of line. Also, lines which start
with a # in column one are ignored by the core language.
A program consists of a series of statements. Statements may be either
declarations or executable statements. A declaration defines a name and
possibly associates a parse-time value with that name. Expressions and
other executable statements generate code which is executed.
Command Line Arguments
The ici interpreter accepts the command line options described below.
For these options to be accepted, they must be provided before any
other options intended for the ici script itself. They may be termi‐
nated by the `--' option.
The remaining options (after those intended for the interpreter), are
made available to the user's program via the extern variable argv, an
array of strings. The variable argc gives the number of options. The
first element (``argv[0]''), is the name of the ici program, with sub‐
sequent elements being the options.
The following options are understood by the ici interpreter:
−− End of switches. All remaining options are placed in the ici
program's argv array. This can be used to avoid conflicts
between options provided for the interpreter and options pro‐
vided for the ici program (script).
−v Outputs a message to stderr describing the version of the ici
interpreter and exits.
−m name Use name as the name of the module being parsed. The ici pro‐
gram's argv[0] is set to name. This is done prior to any
files being parsed.
−f pathname
Parse the named file. In other words, run the ici script
provided in pathname.
−e expression
Parse (run) the expression. Multiple -e options may be given
and may also be mixed with other switches.
−# # is a decimal digit. Parse a module from a specific file
descriptor.
−l mod Loads the module mod as if by the load() function.
Any arguments not starting with a `−' are placed in the ici program's
argv array. Such options DO NOT constitute the end of switch process‐
ing. The `−−' option must be used if that behaviour is required.
On Win32 platforms, ici performs wildcard expansion in the traditional
MS-DOS fashion. Arguments containing wildcard meta-characters, `?' and
`*', may be protected by enclosing them in single or double quotes.
The character / may be used as well as − to introduce options.
In an ICI program, access to the command line options is via the vari‐
able:
argv
An array of strings containing the command line options. The first ele‐
ment is the name of the ici program and subsequent elements are the
options (arguments) passed to that program.
Reserved Words
The complete list of ICI's reserved words is:
NULL auto break
case continue default
do else extern
for forall if
in onerror return
static switch try
waitfor while
Lexicon
The first stage of the ici parser breaks the input streams into tokens,
optionally separated by white space. The next token is always formed
from the longest meaningful sequence of characters. These are the
tokens that make up ici's set of operators:
* & − + !
~ ++ −− @ ,
$ / % >> <<
< > <= >= ==
!= ~ !~ ~~ ~~~
& ^ | && ||
: ? = += −=
*= /= %= >>= <<=
&= ^= |= ~~= <=>
. −> : := :^
Other tokens are:
[ ] ( ) { } ;
Still other tokens are literal regular expressions (they start and end
with a `#', enclosing any sequence of characters except newline), lit‐
eral strings, literal characters, and literal numbers.
White space consists of spaces, tabs, newlines, or comments. Comments
are as in C++ (/* ... */ and // till end of line). Also, lines start‐
ing in # in the first column are ignored by the core interpreter.
Literal strings and literal characters can include the following escape
sequences:
\a audible bell (ASCII 0x07)
\b backspace (ASCII 0x08)
\cx control-x (ASCII 0x01 .. 0x1A)
\e escape (ASCII 0x1B)
\f form feed (ASCII 0x0C)
\n newline (ASCII 0x0A)
\r carriage return (ASCII 0x0D)
\t tab (ASCII 0x09)
\v vertical tab (ASCII 0x0B)
\" double quote (ASCII 0x22)
\' single quote (ASCII 0x27)
\? question mark (ASCII 0x3F)
\\ backslash (ASCII 0x5C)
\xx.. the character with hex code x.. (1, or 2 hexadecimal digits).
\xn... the character with octal code n... (1, 2, or 3 octal digits).
Adjacent string literals (separated by white space) are concatenated to
form a single string literal. As are regular expressions. A sequence
of upper or lower case letters, underscores and digits is interpreted
as:
An integer if possible,
otherwise as a floating point number if possible,
otherwise as an identifier.
Syntax
Ici's syntax is defined by the following grammar.
statement executable-statement
declaration
executable-statement expression ;
compound-statement
if ( expression ) statement
if ( expression ) statement else statement
while ( expression ) statement
do statement while ( expression ) ;
for ( [ expression ] ; [ expression ] ; [ expression ] ) statement
forall ( expression [ , expression ] in expression ) statement
switch ( expression ) compound-statement
case parser-evaluated-expression :
default ;
break ;
continue ;
return [ expression ] ;
try statement onerror statement
waitfor ( expression ; expression ) statement
critsect statement
;
factor integer-number
character-code
floating-point-number
string
regular-expression
identifier
NULL
( expression )
[ array expression-list ]
[ set expression-list ]
[ struct [(:|=) expression ,] assignment-list ]
[ class [(:|=) expression ,] assignment-list ]
[ func function-body ]
[ module [(:|=) expression ,] statement...]
[ identifier users-data... ]
expression-list empty
expression [ , ]
expression , expression-list
assignment-list empty
assignment [ , ]
assignment , assignment-list
assignment struct-key = expression
struct-key identifier
( expression )
function-body ( identifier-list ) compound-statement
identifier-list empty
identifier [ , ]
identifier , identifier-list
primary-expression factor primary-operation...
primary-operation [ expression ]
. identifier
. ( expression )
-> identifier
-> ( expression )
( expression-list )
term [ prefix-operator...] primary-expression [ postfix-operator... ]
prefix-operator Any of:
* & − + ! ~ ++ −− @ $
postfix-operator Any of:
++ −−
expression term
expression binary-operator expression
binary-operator Any of:
@
* / %
+ −
>> <<
< > <= >=
== != ~ !~ ~~ ~~~
&
^
|
&&
||
:
?
= := += −= *= /= %= >>= <<= &= ^= |= ~~= <=>
,
compound-statement
{ statement... }
Unary Operators
Prefix operators
* Indirection; applied to a pointer, gives target of the pointer.
& Address of; applied to any lvalue, gives a pointer to it.
− Negation; gives negative of any arithmetic value.
+ Positive; no real effect.
! Logical not; applied to 0 or NULL, gives 1, else gives 0.
~ Bit-wise complement.
++ Pre-increment; increments an lvalue and gives new value.
−− Pre-decrement; decrements an lvalue and gives new value.
@ Atomic form; gives the (unique) read-only version of any value.
$ Immediate evaluation. This $, is only a pseudo-operator. It
actually has its effect entirely at parse time. The $ operator
causes its subject expression to be evaluated immediately by
the parser and the result of that evaluation substituted in its
place. This is used to speed later execution, to protect
against later scope or variable changes, and to construct con‐
stant values which are better made with running code than lit‐
eral constants.
Postfix operators
++ Post-increment; increments an lvalue and gives old value.
−− Post-increment; decrements an lvalue and gives old value.
Binary Operators
@ Form a pointer.
* Multiplication, Set intersection.
/ Division.
% Modulus.
+ Addition, Set union.
− Subtraction, Set difference
>> Right shift (shift to lower significance)
<< Left shift (shift to higher significance)
< Logical test for less than, Proper subset
> Logical test for greater than, Proper superset
<= Logical test for less than or equal to, Subset
>= Logical test for greater than or equal to, Superset
== Logical test for equality
!= Logical test for inequality
~ Logical test for regular expression match
!~ Logical test for regular expression non-match
~~ Regular expression sub-string extraction
~~~ Regular expression multiple sub-string extraction
& Bit-wise and
^ Bit-wise exclusive or
| Bit-wise or
&& Logical and
|| Logical or
: Choice separator (must be right hand subject of ? operator)
? Choice (right hand expression must use : operator)
= Assignment
:= Assignment to most local scope or context
+= Add to
−= Subtract from
*= Multiply by
/= Divide by
%= Modulus by
>>= Right shift by
<<= Left shift by
&= And by
^= Exclusive or by
|= Or by
~~= Replace by regular expression extraction
<=> Swap values
, Multiple expression separator
ENVIRONMENT
ICIPATH A colon-separated (semi-colon on Windows) list of directories
in which to look for modules.
FILES
/usr/local
Is the usual base of installation.
.../bin/ici
The main ICI executable.
.../share/doc/ici4/ici.pdf
The core language manual.
.../man/man1/ici*.1
Man pages.
.../lib/ici4/
The directory for extension modules.
.../include/ici.h
ICI SDK include file.
.../lib/libici4.a
ICI SDK library.
SEE ALSOicifuncs(1), icinet(1), icioo(1), iciops(1), icisyn(1), icitypes(1)
See the ICI website, http://ici.sf.net
ICI source code is maintained at SourceForge, http://sf.net. Distribu‐
tions are also available there.
AUTHOR
Tim Long
With the assistance of:
Andy Newman
Chris Amies
Luke Kendall
Giordano Pezzoli
Yiorgos Adamopolous
Gary Gendel
John Rosauer
Ross Cartlidge
not to mention:
Henry Spencer
Philip Hazel
ici(1)
