ELK(1) ELK(1)
15 January 1991
NAME
elk, scheme - extensible Scheme interpreter
SYNOPSIS
scheme [ -l file ] [ -h KBytes ] [ -p load-path ] [ -g ] [ -i ] [ -v
type ] [[ -- ] args] elk...
DESCRIPTION
Elk (Extension Language Kit) is a Scheme implementation designed as a
general extension language for applications written in C or C++.
Normally, Elk is linked with the application it serves, but a stand-
alone version of the Scheme interpreter is installed as well (usually
under the name scheme). This interpreter, together with the standard
Scheme toplevel, Elk can be used as an ordinary, stand-alone
implementation of the Scheme language. When called without the -l
option, Elk loads the standard toplevel to start an interactive
session. When called with -l file, the contents of the specified file
is loaded instead. If a `-' is given as a filename argument, Elk
loads from standard input. The option -p load-path can be used to
override the standard load-path. The argument is a colon-separated
list of directories. If this option is not present and the
environment variable ELK_LOADPATH is defined, the value of this
variable is used to initialize the load-path. The value of
ELK_LOADPATH has the same format as the argument to the -p option.
The -h KBytes option is used to specify a non-standard heap size. The
default heap size is 512 KBytes. If the option -i is specified,
symbols are mapped to lower case. Normally, Elk is case-sensitive.
The -g option causes the interpreter to run the garbage collector each
time memory is allocated on the heap. This is useful for writers of
extensions who want to test the garbage collect behavior of an
extension. Running Elk with the -g option is likely to reveal GC-
related bugs in extensions (such as not properly protected local
objects), as it triggers a garbage collection each time an object is
allocated on the Scheme heap. A dot is written to standard output
each time a garbage collection is performed when -g has been
specified. When called with one or more -v type (``verbose'')
options, the interpreter prints additional informational messages to
standard output, depending on the value of the type argument. If type
is load, the linker command and options are printed each time an
object file is loaded; if type is init, the names of extension
initialization and finalization functions are printed as they are
called. The remaining args are put into a list of strings, and the
Scheme variable command-line-args is bound to this list in the global
environment. If arguments could be interpreted as options, `--' can
be used to indicate the end of the options.
FILES
$TMPDIR/ldXXXXXX Temporary files
AUTHOR
Oliver Laumann
- 1 - Formatted: November 3, 2025
