ECLiPSe Command Line Options

The ECLiPSe system has several parameters which may be specified on the command line at invocation time. They are as follows:

-b bootfile

Compile the file bootfile before starting the session. Multiple -b options are allowed. The file name is expected to be in the operating system's syntax. The file is processed by ensure_loaded/1, i.e. it can be a precompiled file or a source file, and file extensions are added as specified there.

-e goal

Instead of starting an interactive toplevel, the system will execute the goal goal. goal is given in normal Prolog syntax, and has to be quoted if it contains any characters that would normally be interpreted by the shell. The -e option can be used together with the -b option and is executed afterwards. Only one -e option is allowed.

The exit status of the ECLiPSe process reflects success or failure of the executed Prolog goal (0 for success, 1 for failure, 2 for abort).

When you only have a runtime installation of eclipse, the -e option is compulsory because a runtime system does not have an interactive toplevel.

-g size

This option specifies to which limit the memory consumption of the ECLiPSe global/trail stack can grow. The size is specified in kilobytes (followed by an optional K), in megabytes (followed by M) or in gigabytes (followed by G). The default is 128M, ie. 128 Megabytes. The amount required for this stack depends on the program's data structures and may need to be increased for very large applications.

-l size

This option specifies to which limit the memory consumption of the ECLiPSe local/control stack can grow. The size is specified in kilobytes (followed by an optional K), in megabytes (followed by M) or in gigabytes (followed by G). The default is 128M, ie. 128 Megabytes. The local/control stack is unlikely to require more than this default. If it does, it is probably caused by a programming error.

-h size

This option is largely obsolete and currently effective only on SunOS 4. It specifies to which limit the memory consumption of the ECLiPSe private heap can grow. The size is specified in kilobytes (followed by an optional K), in megabytes (followed by M) or in gigabytes (followed by G). The default is 32M, ie. 32 Megabytes.

-s size

This option is largely obsolete and currently effective only on SunOS 4. It specifies to which limit the memory consumption of the ECLiPSe shared heap can grow. The size is specified in kilobytes (followed by an optional K), in megabytes (followed by M) or in gigabytes (followed by G). The default is 64M, ie. 64 Megabytes.

-D directory

This options allows to explicitly specify the ECLiPSe installation directory, i.e. the directory under which the system tries to find the ECLiPSe runtime system and libraries. This option overrides (and renders unnecessary) any setting of the ECLIPSEDIR environment variable (Unix) or, respectively, an ECLIPSEDIR registry entry (Windows) that may be in effect.

- -

The ECLiPSe system will ignore this argument and everything that follows on the commmand line. The Prolog program will only see the part of the command line that follows this argument.