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ii iiii ii sss cccc ssssssss cccccccc iiiii sss sss ccc ccc iiiii sssss ccc iii sssss ccc iii sssss ccc iii sss sss ccc ccc iii ssssssss cccccccc iiiiiiiii ssss cccc iiiiiiiii Small C Interpreter Version 1.3 for MS-DOS by Bob Brodt, 28 Nov 1985 DISCLAIMER The author makes no expressed or implied warranties of any kind regarding this program and documentation. In no event will the author be liable for any damages or losses arising out of use of this program and documentation. Bob Brodt 34 Mehrhof Road Little Ferry, NJ 07643 Phone (201) 641-9582 INTRODUCTION SCI is a "C" language interpreter loosely based on the language subset described in James Hendrix' "Small C" (see the section "DIFFERENCES FROM SMALL C", below). It is a fully interactive interpreter (no compilation!) that includes a simple line editor and a program trace facility. SCI was meant to be a stepping stone for the experienced BASIC programmer who is ready to move up to the exciting world of "C"! The SCI interpreter is very similar to BASIC internally - each line of input is first scanned and "tokenized", a process in which language elements (numbers, variables, keywords, etc.) are converted to one-, two- or three-byte "tokens" which are easier to handle by a computer than arbitrarily long character sequences. Unlike BASIC however, SCI programs do not require line numbers. The program flow is directed by SCI purely through the structured programming constructs inherent in the "C" language. SCI should run on any MS-DOS or PC-DOS computer that has a minimum of 64Kbytes of RAM. The available free memory (that portion of memory not used by the interpreter's code and data storage) is automatically divided among "user progam code", "variable table", "function table" and "stack" memory segments. If necessary, the sizes of these segments may be changed at program startup, however their total may not exceed 64Kbytes. The integrated editor does require that the terminal emulation firmware in your particular computer be capable of responding to the following ASCII control codes: backspace (08 HEX) - moves the cursor one column to the left without destroying the character at the new column position. return (0D HEX) - positions the cursor at the left margin of the current line on the CRT. linefeed (OA HEX) - moves the cursor down one line and causes the screen to scroll up at the last CRT display line. These control codes are fairly standard and should work on your machine. STARTING OUT The files on the distribution diskette are: SCI.DOC - documentation SCI.COM - the interpreter proper SHELL.SCI - the command shell, written in "Small C" CALC.SCI - a sample calculator program written in "Small C" To start up SCI, make sure that SHELL.SCI resides on the current drive and then execute SCI.COM. The interpreter will then read and execute the program it finds in SHELL.SCI. You may also specify a different "Small C" program file for SCI to execute on startup. By typing the following operating system command line, for example: A>SCI B:STARTUP the interpreter will search disk B: for a file called STARTUP and execute it in lieu of the default SHELL.SCI file. Be aware, however, that the standard SHELL.SCI file contains many often-used operating system interface functions that must be copied over to your customized startup program if they are going to be used by that program. See the section on "LIBRARY FUNCTIONS" for a list of these functions. MEMORY ALLOCATION The interpreter automatically divides up whatever free memory is available (after SCI is loaded) among four segments for use by your programs and data. These segments are: the Program Code, Variable Table, Function Table and Stack. The Program Code segment contains the tokenized version of your program code. The Variable Table contains information about all "active" variables. All global variables are active at all times. Local variables are considered to be active if the function in which they were declared is still active. A function is active even though it may be waiting for another called function to return to it. Thus, if you have a habit of writing deeply recursive functions, you will soon run out of Variable Table space. Each function takes up exactly one entry in the Function Table. If the interpreter complains about "out of memory", "too many variables", "too many functions" or "stack overflow", you may be able to circumvent the problem by telling SCI how much memory to assign to each of these four segments with the following options: -P nnnn - assign "nnnn" decimal bytes for program storage. -V nn - allow space for a maximum of "nn" active variables. -F nn - allow space for a maximum of "nn" functions. -S nn - set the stack size to "nn". Thus, the command line: A>SCI -P 8000 -V 30 -F 80 -S 40 will set aside 8000 bytes for program storage, allow a maximum of 30 variables to be active at one time, allow a maximum of 80 function declarations and leave 40 stack entries. COMMAND LINE OPTIONS It is possible to pass command line parameters to the startup program with the "-A" option, thus: A>SCI STARTUP -A FILE1.DAT FILE2.DAT FILE3.DAT will pass the strings FILE1.DAT, FILE2.DAT and FILE3.DAT to the startup program in the file called STARTUP. See the section on "PASSING ARGUMENTS TO THE SHELL" for an example of how these arguments are handled from within a program. THE SHELL The "stock" version of the shell simply displays a prompt on the console, reads a line of input, and attempts to execute the input line. The entire shell program (sans Library Functions) is shown here: int size,top; char line[80]; char program[24000]; main() { int from, to; top=24000; program[0]='Z'; # This is an "End of program" token - required size=1; # print sign-on message printf("%s\nShell V1.1, 24 Oct 1985\n",sys(0)); while(1) { puts("> "); if(gets(line)) { if (!strncmp(line,"edit",4)) size = sys(atoi(line+5),program,15); # envoke the editor else if (!strncmp(line,"list",4)) { if(line[4]) sscanf(line+4,"%d %d",&from,&to); else { from=1; to=32765; } sys(program,from,to,22); # list the program buffer } else if (!strncmp(line,"save",4)) sys(line+5,program,21); # save the program buffer else if (!strncmp(line,"load",4)) size = sys(line+5,program,20); # load the program buffer else if (!strncmp(line,"core",4)) printf("%d bytes free\n",top-size); # memory available else # # attempt to parse the line as a "Small C" statement. # Note that the shell always displays the results of the # statement, so you could enter something like: 2+2 and # a 4 would be printed. # printf("%d\n",sys(line,program,12)); } } } Later, as you become more familiar with the "C" language, you may wish to modify the shell program and add your own commands. The stock version of the shell recognizes four basic (pardon the pun) commands: "edit", "list", "load", "save", "core" and "exit". These are functionally similar to the BASIC commands: "EDIT", "LIST", "LOAD", "SAVE", "FREE" and "SYSTEM" respectively, with the exception that no quote (") is required in front of the file name for the "load" and "save" commands. Anything else typed at the shell prompt is assumed to be a valid "Small C" statement and is handed off to the interpreter to be executed. By the way, programs that are "save"d by SCI are ordinary text files, suitable for editing with your favourite text editor. THE EDITOR To edit a program, simply type "edit", or "edit n", where "n" is the line number in the program to start editing. The requested line number is displayed followed by a colon (:) and then by the program text of that line. The cursor is positioned on the first character of the program text, i.e. immediately to the right of the colon. The editor has two different operating modes: EDIT and INSERT. In EDIT mode, you may move the current character position ("cursor") anywhere within the program and you may delete text. In INSERT mode, any characters that you type are inserted into the program until you return to EDIT mode. There are two flavors of INSERT: CHARACTER INSERT and LINE INSERT. CHARACTER INSERT mode remains in effect only until you type a <RETURN>, in other words you may only insert characters on the current line. LINE INSERT mode allows you to enter entire lines into the program buffer and is ended when you type an <ESCAPE>. These will be described more fully below. Any changes you make during an editing session affect only the program currently residing in memory. The copy of the program on disk (if one exists) is not changed until you issue a "save" command from the standard command shell. To leave the editor and return to the command shell, type an <ESCAPE> character. Editing commands are divided into 3 categories: cursor movement, text insertion and text deletion. The cursor movement commands allow you to position the cursor anywhere in the program. These are: 'h' or <BACKSPACE> - moves the cursor to the left by 1 character position. 'l' (that's a lower-case "ell") or <SPACE> - moves the cursor to the right by 1 character position. 'j' or <RETURN> or <LINEFEED> - advances the cursor to the next line ON THE SCREEN and displays the next line of the program. 'k' - advances the cursor to the next line ON THE SCREEN and displays the previous line of the program. 'g' - prompts for a line number, advances the cursor to the next line on the screen and displays the requested line of the program. If the requested line number is beyond the last line (or before the first) line of program text, the last (resp. first) line is displayed. 'f' - prompts for a character sequence to be searched for in the program, advances the cursor to the next line on the screen and displays the requested line of the program. The cursor is positioned to the first character of the string sought. If the cursor is moved past the end of the program, the editor will display an <EOF> and will not allow you to move past it. Similarly, if the cursor is moved to the first line of the program, the 'k' command will be inoperative. The text insertion commands are: 'i' - will cause characters to be inserted before the current cursor position. As you type, the characters to the right of the cursor will appear to be overwritten on the screen, but are actually shifted (in the editor's buffer) to make room for the inserted text. To leave the character insertion mode, end the line with a <RETURN>. The cursor will advance to the next line on the screen and the line will be redrawn with the newly inserted text. Typing an <ESCAPE> will cancel anything that was typed before it and return to EDIT mode with the original line intact. 'I' - will enter LINE INSERT mode. All characters typed will be inserted into the program in front of the line the cursor was resting on. When in LINE INSERT mode, you will be prompted with the word "new:" instead of the current line number, to indicate that the editor is in the special INSERT mode. To leave LINE INSERT mode type an <ESCAPE>. Text may be deleted from the program either a character-at-a-time or a line-at-a-time: 'd' - will delete the character the cursor is resting on. The cursor advances to the next line on the screen and the current line is redrawn with the deleted character missing. 'D' - will delete the line the cursor is resting on. The cursor advances to the next line on the screen and the next line in the program is displayed. Remember, type <ESCAPE> to exit the editor! LANGUAGE ELEMENTS Although SCI implements only a subset of the "C" language, it is powerful enough to teach you the major principles of "C". We're going to cop out now and refer you to a higher authority for a sound introduction to "C", but we will list here the major features of the language subset recognized by SCI for easy reference. Line Terminators In standard "C", a statement is typically terminated with a semi- colon (;). In SCI, all statements are terminated by either the end of the line or by a semicolon, although the semicolon is optional. This means that an expression MUST be completely contained on one line. This is not as major a deficiency as it may seem at first, when you consider the fact that extremely long expressions are very difficult for the human reader to understand and, after all, we ARE interested in learning how to write readable programs. Comments Comments start with a number symbol (#) and end at the end of the current program line. The standard "C" comment delimiters, /* and */ are not recognized and will cause a "syntax error" message. Identifiers Identifiers may be a maximum of 8 characters long, the first character must be an uppercase or lowercase letter ("a-z", "A-Z") or an underscore ("_"). The remaining 7 characters may include digits ("0-9"). The following are all examples of valid identifiers: this_is_an_identifier _0123 XYZ Keywords The following words are reserved by SCI and may not be used as variable names: break entry return char if sys else int while The "entry" keyword is used to tell the interpreter which function in the startup program (normally SHELL.SCI) is to be executed first after the program has been loaded. There may be only one "entry" within a program. Any functions or variables that were declared before the "entry" keyword are considered "Library Functions" and are globally known to all functions. Functions and variables declared after the "entry" keyword are hidden from user-written functions. Please read the section on "SCOPE OF VARIABLES" for more information. The keyword "sys" is a user program interface to some useful interpreter functions, such as the program editor. These are described in the "LIBRARY FUNCTIONS" section. Constants Numeric Constants SCI supports decimal integer constants in the range -32767 to 32766. SCI also supports the standard "C" notation for integer hexadecimal and octal notation. Character Constants A character constant must be surrounded by apostrophes (') and may be one of the following: * a single ASCII alphanumeric or punctuation (i.e. printable) character * a backslash (\) character followed by 3 octal digits which may be used to represent any 1 byte value * a backslash followed by one of the characters n, r, b or t which represent the <LINEFEED> (a.k.a. "newline"), <RETURN> carriage return), backspace and tab characters respectively The following are examples of valid character constants: 'A' the ASCII character "A" '\177' octal character '\n' newline '\r' carriage return '\b' backspace '\t' horizontal tab '\\' the backslash character '\'' the apostrophe character Strings Strings may include any of the character constants mentioned above, as for example: "this is a string\007\n" Strings always include a null (zero) byte, marking the end of the string. A zero-length string may be written as two consecutive quotes, thus: "" Data Types Only the "char" and "int" data types are supported. Characters (char's) are 1 byte and integers (int's) 2 bytes in length. Both are treated as signed quantities. Chars may range in value from -128 to +127. Ints range from -32767 to 32766. SCI also supports pointers and arrays of both char and int. Pointers require 2 bytes of storage. Operators Unary Operators The following unary operators are supported, all are evaluated from right to left: +--------------------------------+ | * pointer | | & address | | - negation | | ! logical NOT | | ~ one's complement | | ++ pre- and post-increment | | -- pre- and post-decrement | +--------------------------------+ Binary Operators The following binary operators are supported, all are evaluated from left to right. The operators are listed from highest to lowest precedence, each group of operators (in the boxes) have the same precedence: +--------------------------------+ | * multiplication | | / division | | % modulo (remainder) | +--------------------------------+ | + addition | | - subtraction | +--------------------------------+ | << shift left | | >> shift right | +--------------------------------+ | < less than | | > greater than | | <= less than or equal to | | >= greater than or equal to | +--------------------------------+ | == equal | | != not equal | +--------------------------------+ | & bitwise AND | +--------------------------------+ | ^ bitwise exclusive OR | +--------------------------------+ | | bitwise OR | +--------------------------------+ | && logical AND | +--------------------------------+ | || logical OR | +--------------------------------+ Assignment Operator The assignment operator, "=", is evaluated from from right to left and has lowest precedence of all operators. Comma Operator The Comma Operator (,) as used by SCI is not an operator in the strict sense, but rather as a function argument and variable seperator. Trying to use a comma anywhere other than in function calls, or data declarations will cause a "syntax error". SCOPE OF VARIABLES When we talk about the "scope" of a variable, we are referring to MY FIRST PROGRAM To get you started writing "C" programs, step right up to your computer (don't be shy), fire 'er up and insert the disk. Then type "SCI" and wait for the shell program to load (don't get too anxious now!). When the shell prompts you with "> " boldly type the word: > edit and hit <RETURN>. You are now in the editor. It's time to refer back to "THE EDITOR" section of this manual. Since there is nothing in the program buffer, the editor displays: 1:<EOF> Hold down that shift key and poke the key with the letter 'I' on it. You are now in LINE INSERT mode. Anything you type from here on will be inserted into the program buffer until you press <ESCAPE>. So, why not just type in the little program below. Don't type in the word "new:" each time, silly - they are the editor's LINE INSERT prompts. new:hi() new:{ new: puts( "hello, world\n" ); new:} When you're done, hit <ESCAPE> to end LINE INSERT mode, and then <ESCAPE> again to leave the editor. When the shell gives you its prompt, type: > hi The shell will hand the input line off to the interpreter, the interpreter will scan the program buffer for a function named "hi" and call that function. The "hi" function will then call the library function "puts" to print the string "hello, world\n" on the console. What you see is simply: hello, world > Congratulations, even if six months ago you couldn't spell "programmur", you now are one! THE LIBRARY FUNCTIONS The "sys" keyword has been reserved by SCI as a means of communicating between a user's program and the interpreter. It is treated exactly as a (pre-defined) function that may be referenced by a user program. This interface has been provided mainly as a convenience to the user. A "sys" call may have several arguments, the number and type of which depends upon the integer value of the last (right-most) argument. This righ-most argument is called the "sys number" and defines the actual function performed by a "sys" call. To make life easier and to provide a more or less "standard" programming environment, higher-level functions have been wrapped around these "sys" calls - these are known as the "Library Functions" and may be found in the standard command shell found on the distribution disk. These "sys numbers" and their corresponding Library Functions are listed below. 1 fputc 2 fgetc 3 fputs 4 fgets 5 sprintf 6 sscanf 7 fopen 8 fread 9 fwrite 10 fclose 11 exit 12 stmt 13 totok 14 untok 15 edit 16 strcmp and strncmp 17 memleft 18 malloc 19 free 20 load 21 save 22 list 23 trace The Library functions are described below in more detail: atoi( string ) char *string; Converts the string "str" containing the ASCII representation of a decimal number to an integer. The string consits of optional leading spaces or tabs, an optional plus or minus sign (+ or -) followed by one or more decimal digits. Returns the integer value of the ASCII number string. edit( line_num, program ) int line_num char *program Envokes the built-in program editor, starting at the line given by "line_num" on the tokenized program buffer "program". Returns the new size of the program buffer after the editing session. exit( value ) int value Causes the currently executing program to return control to the operating system. fclose( channel ) int channel; Closes a disk file previously opened by the Library Function "fopen". Returns zero if successful, -1 on error. fgetc( channel ) Reads a single character from the given channel. Returns the character read, or a -1 on error or end of file. fgets( buffer, length, channel ) char *buffer; int length; int channel; Reads characters from the file associated with "channel". Characters are read from the file until either a newline is encountered, length minus 1 characters have been read, or an end of file is found. Returns the address of "buffer", or a zero on end of file. fopen( file_name, mode ) char *file_name, *mode; Opens a disk file whose name is given by the string "file_name". The string "mode" determines how the file will be opened: "r" - open for ASCII read. The file MUST exist or fopen returns an error code. "rw" - open for ASCII read/write. The file MUST exist. "w" - open for ASCII write. If the file exists, it is first deleted. "wr" - open for ASCII read/write. If the file already exists, it is first deleted. "a" - open for ASCII write append. If the file does not exist, it is created. If it does exist, the file pointer is positioned to the end of the file. "ar" - open for ASCII read/write append. If the file does not exist it is created. If it DOES exist, it is opened and the file pointer positioned to the end of the file. The file may then be read or written. By appending a "b" to any of the modes above, the file is opened in BINARY mode instead of ASCII. When a file is opened in ASCII mode, all <LINEFEED>s ("\n") are converted to <RETURN> <LINEFEED> character pairs when writing to the file. Similarly, <RETURN> <LINEFEED> pairs are converted to a single <LINEFEED> character on input from the file. In binary read/write mode, no such conversions are performed. Returns an integer value known as a "channel". The special channels 0, 1 and 2 refer to the standard input, standard output and standard error files. The channel number must be used in all Library calls that perform file I/O functions. A Minus one is returned if the file could not be opened. fputc( c, channel ) char c; int channel; Writes the character "c" to the specified file channel. Returns the character written, or a -1 on error. fputs( string, channel ) char *string; int channel; Writes the string to the specified file channel. Returns zero, or a -1 on error. fread( buffer, length, channel ) int channel; char *buffer; int length; Reads a maximum of "length" bytes into memory at the address pointed to by "buffer" from the open file, "channel". If the file was opened in ASCII read or read/write mode, "fread" only reads up to and including a newline character. If the file was opened in binary read mode, "length" number of characters are read if they are available. Note that "channel" must be the value returned from a previous "fopen" Library Function call, and the file must still be open. Returns the number of characters that were actually read, or 0 on EOF. free( memory ) char *memory Returns the block of memory pointed to by "memory" that was previously gotten from a "malloc" Library Function call. fwrite( channel, buffer, length ) int channel; char *buffer; int length; Writes "length" number of characters from memory at the address pointed to by "buffer" to the file associated with "channel". Note that "channel" must be the value returned from a previous "fopen" Library Function call, and the file must still be open. Returns the number of characters actually written if successful, or a -1 on error. load( file, program ) char *file, *program Loads a program from the file whose name is in the string "file" tokenizes the statements therein and places the tokenized program at "program". Returns the size of the resulting tokenized program. If the file could not be found, an error message is printed on the console. memleft() Returns a count of the number of free memory bytes available from the main memory allocator. malloc( size ) int size Main memory allocator. This function is responsible for handing out (to programs) chunks of free memory to be used by the program as it sees fit. WARNING: wreckless programs that write data beyond the size of the allocated chunk of memory will cause the allocator to loose its mind and dole out "rotten" chunks of memory. This will almost surely cause SCI to crash and burn. Returns a pointer to a block of memory "size" bytes long. Be sure to de-allocate the block using the Library Function "free" when you're done with it, or it will be lost forever... printf( format, arg1, arg2, ... arg8 ) char *format; int arg1, arg2, ... arg8; Prints a formatted string to the standard output file. The characters in the string "format" are copied to the output file. If a percent character ("%") is encountered in the format string, it is assumed to be a conversion specification. Each conversion specification converts exactly one argument in the list "arg1", "arg2", ... "arg8". Once an argument has been converted and output, it is skipped over the next time a conversion specification is encountered. Therefore, you need just as many arguments as you have conversion specifications. The character(s) that follow a conversion specification may be one or more of the following: minus sign (-) Indicates that output should be left justified instead of right justified. zero fill character (0) The field will be padded on the left with zeros. field width (number other than 0) This is the minimum # of characters output. The field will be padded with zeros or blanks depending on the fill character (above). precision (. followed by a number) For numeric fields, this is the # of decimal places to the right of the decimal point. For string fields, at most that many characters of the string will be output. conversion code (the letter d, u, x, o, b, s or c) A conversion code indicates the type of conversion that is to be done on the argument as follows: d - convert to a decimal (base 10) number u - unsigned decimal number x - hexadecimal (base 16) number o - octal (base 8) number b - binary (base 2) number s - string constant c - single ASCII character save( file, program ) char *file, *program Saves a program in its tokenized form at "program" to the file whose name is in the string "file". Returns the number of bytes written to the file. If the file could not be created, an error message is printed on the console. scanf( format, arg1, arg2, ... arg8 ) char *format int arg1, arg2, ... arg8 Read characters from the standard input file and converts them using the conversion string "format" (same as for Library Function "printf"). The arguments "arg1", "arg2", ... "arg8" must be POINTERS to the appropriate data types. sprintf( buffer, format, arg1, arg2, ... arg8 ) char *buffer, *format int arg1, arg2, ... arg8 Performs formated conversion of the arguments, exactly like the Library Function "printf", but writes its output to the "buffer" instead of the standard output file. sscanf( buffer, format, arg1, arg2, ... arg8 ) char *buffer, *format int arg1, arg2, ... arg8 Performs formated input conversion of the arguments, exactly like the Library Function "scanf" but reads its input from the "buffer" instead of the standard input file. stmt( line, program ) char *line, *program Hands a "Small C" statement off to the interpreter for execution. The statement is in its untokenized form at "line". The program in its tokenized form at "program" is used by the interpreter to satisfy any global variable or function references made by the statement. strcmp( string_1, string_2 ) char *string_1, *string_2 or strncmp( string_1, string_2, limit ) char *string_1, *string_2 int limit Compares (character-by-character) the two strings. The comparison stops when a zero is encountered in either of the two strings. "strncmp" does the same thing, but at most "limit" number of bytes are compared. Returns a 0 if the two strings are identical, non-zero if they differ. totok( sourcebuf, tokenbuf ) char *sourcebuf, *tokenbuf Converts the C statement at "sourcebuf" to its tokenized equivalent and places the result at "tokenbuf". Returns the length of "tokenbug". trace( on_off ) int on_off; Allows a program to enable or disable SCI's trace feature. If "on_off" is zero, trace is disabled, anything else enables it. untok( tokenbuf, sourcebuf ) char *tokenbuf, *sourcebuf Converts the tokenized statement at "tokenbuf" to its printable form at "sourcebuf". Returns the length of "tokenbuf" (not "sourcebuf"!). This function is the opposite of the "totok" function. TRACE/DEBUG FEATURE The Library Function "trace", described in the previous section, allows you to enable or disable the program trace/debug feature. In the trace mode, you can set and remove breakpoints, examine and modify program variables and control the execution of your program. When trace is enabled, the interpreter first displays each line of the program on the console before it is executed, and then displays a question mark (?) prompt. At this point, you may either enter another "Small C" statement (to display the contents of a variable for example), or enter one of the following commands (NOTE: all of these commands must start with a dot (.) immediately following the "?" prompt to distinguish them from a valid "Small C" statement): .b# sets a breakpoint at a given line in your program. The "#" symbol represents the line number at which the program will be halted. .B displays all breakpoints set in the program. .c continues program execution until the next breakpoint is encountered. .d# deletes the breakpoint at line number "#". The breakpoint must have been previously set with a ".b" command. .D deletes all breakpoints. .e# lets you examine the program with the program editor. Editor commands that would normally modify the program are disabled. .g displays all of the program's global variables and their values. If the variable is an array, its address is printed followed by the first 10 elements of the array. .G same as ".g" but also displays the first line of every function in the program along with its line number. This is useful for locating a function in a long program. .q quits program execution and returns to the shell program. .s# steps through the program without displaying each line as it is executed. The "#" is the number of lines to be executed before control returns to the debuger. .t displays the list of active functions with the current one at the top of the list. This is handy for finding out "how did I get here?". .T same as ".t" but also displays each function's local variables and their values. <RETURN> repeats the last ".s" or ".c" command entered. This is a handy way of tracing program flow from one breakpoint to the next. <ESCAPE> disables the trace/debug facility and continues execution normally. The interpreter will no longer stop at If the interpreter finds an error in your program, it will auto- matically enable trace/debug and halt the program at the line where the error occurred. This can be a little confusing if you are already in the debuger and you happen to make a mistake while typing a statement for the debuger to execute, because the resulting error message and the "?" prompt will refer to the statement you just entered. If this happens, just hit a <RETURN> and you will be returned to the program trace session. PASSING ARGUMENTS TO THE SHELL A mechanism has been provided to pass operating system command line areguments to the startup program in a way similar to most commercially available "C" compilers. When you start up SCI, a "-A" will cause all following arguments to be passed to the startup program. For example, suppose the following program is to be executed by SCI at startup: main(argc, arv) int argc, *argv; { int i; while ( i<argc ) printf("<%s>\n",argv[i++]); } Then, when the following command is entered at the operating system level: A>SCI -A HELLO OUT THERE the program would print: <HELLO> <OUT> <THERE> Note that since SCI does not support pointers to pointers, the "argv" variable must be declared as a pointer to "int". Then, each "argv[i]" is a pointer to a string that points to one of the words passed on the command line. DIFFERENCES FROM "SMALL C" SCI supports the subset of the "C" language defined by J. Hendrix' public domain "Small C" compiler, available for many CP/M and MS-DOS machines. There are, however, some minor differences that have been dictated in part by the fact that this is an interpreter. These are: 0) Program source lines are limited to 80 characters, just to keep things simple. The editor will complain if you try to create a line longer than 80 characters. 1) There are no #define or #include statements, simply because there is no pre-processor! 2) Comments are introduced by the number symbol (#) and are terminated by the end of the line. The "/*" and "*/" combinations will only be barfed at by SCI. 3) Statements in general are terminated by the end of a line - the semicolon required by the "C" language at the end of a statement is superfluous. This restriction imposes that an expression be completely on one line (boooo, hissss!), however you no longer get penalized for forgeting a semicolon (hurray, yay!). This also implies that string and character constants are terminated by the end of the line. In fact, if you forget to add the terminating quote or apostrophe delimiter, SCI will append one for you. 4) The comma operator is recognized only when used in function calls and data declarations. For instance, it would be illegal to say: while ( argv++, argc-- ); 5) Data declarations may appear ANYWHERE within a program or function (hurray, yay!), however local data declarations remain active up to the end of the function - they don't go away at the end of the compound statement they were declared in (boooo, hissss!). 6) Pointer arithmetic is not smart enough to recognize data types so that pointers to integers are advanced to the next BYTE, not the next integer. For example, *(ip+1) will point to the least significant byte of the next integer (on an 8086 machine), not the next word (booo, hisss!). But, ip[1] and ++ip still point to the next integer (whew!). ERROR MESSAGES When SCI detects an error in your program, it will stop execution, display an error message and then the line number and program text of the offending line. The possible error messages are listed below: no entry point You forgot to specify an entry function with the "entry" keyword. not enough table space There was insufficient free memory available for the program, variable, function and stack segments. Specify a smaller -P, -V, -F or -S value. can't find '<file>' The specified program file could not be loaded, or SHELL.SCI does not exist on the default disk drive. can't create '<file>' The specified file could not be save on disk because of an operating system error. missing '}' The interpreter wandered off the edge of your program because you forgot a closing brace. missing operator The interpreter found two consecutive operands as for example the statement: var 3; missing ')' or ']' Mismatched left and right parentheses or brackets were detected. not a pointer A variable or constant expression was used as an array or pointer as for example the statement: *(buf+1); syntax error An error was detected in the structure of a statement. lexical error: ... <stmt> An illegal character was found in a statement. The offending character along with the remainder of the statement is printed. need an lvalue An attempt was made to assign a value to a constant. stack underflow Something is wrong! stack overflow The expression is too complex or function calls are nested too deeply. Try specifying a larger -S value when starting up SCI. too many functions The interpreter ran out of Function Table space. Try specifying a larger -F value when starting up SCI. too many symbols The interpreter ran out of Variabl Table space. Try specifying a larger -V value when starting up SCI. out of memory The interpreter ran out of Program space. Try specifying a larger -P value when starting up SCI. stmt outside of function There is something wrong with the structure of your program. Typically this results from a statement appearing outside of any function body. missing '{' The left brace that introduces a function body was missing. wrong # of arguments in sys call The number of arguments passed to a "sys" call is incorrect for the specified "sys" number. undefined symbol A variable has been used without ever having been declared. interrupt The program was interrupted by pressing the <ESCAPE> key.