NAME

docs/running.pod - Running

SYNOPSIS

 parrot [-options] <file> [arguments ...]

DESCRIPTION

This document describes Parrot's command line options.

VERSION

$Revision$

ENVIRONMENT

PARROT_RUNTIME
If this environment variable is set, parrot will use this path as its runtime prefix instead of the compiled in path.
PARROT_GC_DEBUG
Turn on the --gc-debug flag.

OPTIONS

Assembler options

-a, --pasm
Assume PASM input on stdin.
-c, --pbc
Assume PBC file on stdin, run it.
-h, --help
Print command line option summary.
--help-debug
Print debugging and tracing flag bits summary.
-o outputfile, --output=outputfile
Act like an assembler. Don't run code, unless -r is given too. If the outputfile ends with .pbc, a PBC file is written. If it ends with .pasm, a PASM output is generated, even from PASM input.
--output-pbc
Act like an assembler, but always output bytecode, even if the output file does not end in .pbc
-r, --run-pbc
Only useful after -o or --output-pbc. Run the program from the compiled in-memory image. If two -r options are given, the .pbc file is read from disc and run. This is mainly needed for tests.
-y, --yydebug
Turn on yydebug in yacc/bison.
-V, --version
Print version information and exit.
-E, --pre-process-only
Preprocess source file (expand macros) and print result to stdout: 
  $ parrot -E t/op/macro_10.pasm
  $ parrot -E t/op/macro_10.pasm | parrot -- -

Runcore Options

These options select the runcore, which is useful for performance tuning and debugging. See "About runcores" for details.

-R, --runcore CORE
Select the runcore. The following cores are available in Parrot, but not all may be available on your system: 
  slow, bounds  bounds checking core (default)
  gcdebug       performs a full GC run before every op dispatch (good for
                debugging GC problems)
  trace         bounds checking core w/ trace info (see 'parrot --help-debug')
  profiling     see F<docs/dev/profilling.pod>
The jit, switch-jit, and cgp-jit options are currently aliases for the fast, switch, and cgp options, respectively. We do not recommend their use in new code; they will continue working for existing code per our deprecation policy.
-p, --profile
Run with the slow core and print an execution profile.
-t, --trace
Run with the slow core and print trace information to stderr. See parrot --help-debug for available flag bits.

VM Options

-w, --warnings
Turn on warnings. See parrot --help-debug for available flag bits.
-D, --parrot-debug
Turn on interpreter debug flag. See parrot --help-debug for available flag bits.
--hash-seed <hexnum>
Sets the hash seed to the provided value. Only useful for debugging intermittent failures, and harmful in production.
--gc-debug
Turn on GC (Garbage Collection) debugging. This imposes some stress on the GC subsystem and can slow down execution considerably.
-G, --no-gc
This turns off GC. This may be useful to find GC related bugs. Don't use this option for longer running programs: as memory is no longer recycled, it may quickly become exhausted.
--leak-test, --destroy-at-end
Free all memory of the last interpreter. This is useful when running leak checkers.
-., --wait
Read a keystroke before starting. This is useful when you want to attach a debugger on platforms such as Windows.
--runtime-prefix
Print the runtime prefix path and exit.
-L path
Add path to the library search path

<file>

If the file ends in .pbc it will be interpreted immediately.

If the file ends in .pasm, then it is parsed as PASM code. Otherwise, it is parsed as PIR code. In both cases, it will then be run, unless the -o flag was given.

If the file is a single dash, input from stdin is read.

[arguments ...]

Optional arguments passed to the running program as ARGV. The program is assumed to know what to do with these.

GENERATED FILES

ABOUT RUNCORES

The runcore (or runloop) tells Parrot how to find the C code that implements each instruction. Parrot provides more than one way to do this, partly because no single runcore will perform optimally on all architectures (or even for all problems on a given architecture), and partly because some of the runcores have specific debugging and tracing capabilities.

In the default "slow" runcore, each opcode is a separate C function. That's pretty easy in pseudocode:

    slow_runcore( op ):
        while ( op ):
            op = op_function( op )
            check_for_events()

The GC debugging runcore is similar:

    gcdebug_runcore( op ):
        while ( op ):
            perform_full_gc_run()
            op = op_function( op )
            check_for_events()

Of course, this is much slower, but is extremely helpful for pinning memory corruption problems that affect GC down to single-instruction resolution. See http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2007/10/debugging_gc_problems_in_parro.html for more information.

The trace and profile cores are also based on the "slow" core, doing full bounds checking, and also printing runtime information to stderr.

OPERATION TABLE

 Command Line          Action         Output
 ---------------------------------------------
 parrot x.pir          run
 parrot x.pasm         run
 parrot x.pbc          run
 -o x.pasm x.pir       ass            x.pasm
 -o x.pasm y.pasm      ass            x.pasm
 -o x.pbc  x.pir       ass            x.pbc
 -o x.pbc  x.pasm      ass            x.pbc
 -o x.pbc -r x.pasm    ass/run pasm   x.pbc
 -o x.pbc -r -r x.pasm ass/run pbc    x.pbc
 -o x.o    x.pbc       obj

... where the possible actions are:

  run ... yes, run the program
  ass ... assemble sourcefile
  obj ..  produce native (ELF) object file for the EXEC subsystem

FILES

main.c