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2.6 Options to Generated Programs

Once the compiler runs and produces an output executable, that executable itself will accept a range of options that control the way it runs. None of these options have to be used; a default value will be assumed if they aren’t.

+help
-help

Whether ‘+’ or ‘-’ is given at the start of this option, it will cause the program to print out what options are available and what state they are in. It will then cause the program to exit via an internal error.

+wimpmode
-wimpmode

If the ‘+’ version of this is given (rather than the default ‘-’), then the program will print a message explaining that you are a wimp (the mode itself is known as wimpmode), and for the rest of execution will input in Arabic numerals (‘123’ rather than ‘ONE TWO THREE’) and likewise will output in Arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals (such as ‘CXXIII’). True INTERCAL programmers should rarely have to use this mode.

+traditional
-traditional

This option does not actually appear to do anything.

+instapipe
-instapipe

This option causes standard output to be flushed whenever any characters are output when the ‘+’ version is used, rather than on each newline (the default ‘-’ version). It is most useful for more responsive pipes when outputting binary data, and also useful for debugging very slow programs.

+printflow
-printflow

The usual debugging methods don’t work with multithreaded or backtracking programs. This option exists to give at least a slim chance of working out what is going on with them. It causes the program to print the line number of the command it thinks it may be executing next (i.e. the line number that would be printed if that line had an error) immediately after executing each command, and also an internal identifier for the thread that that command was in. It also prints a trace of what parts of the multithreader are being activated; so for instance, it will tell you when a thread is being forked into multiple threads or when a choicepoint has been deleted. Note that the -w option (see -w) must be given to gain full support for flow printing in non-multithreaded non-backtracking programs, because otherwise the required code to print this information will not be generated.

+mystery
-mystery

This option is occasionally capable of doing something, but is deliberately undocumented. Normally changing it will have no effect, but changing it is not recommended.


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