scilab

Description

-args Arguments

If this option is present, arguments are passed to Scilab. They can then be got by sciargs function. For multi arguments passing use a quoted, blank separated sequence of words like: scilab -args 'foo1 foo2'. Without this option, unknown arguments will not be accepted.

-display Display

For use under Xwindow systems only to set a specific X server display. Default display is unix:0.0

-display can be abbreviated by -d

-debug

Start Scilab under the debugguer gdb (Unix/Linux/Mac OS X only).

Define the variable SCILAB_GDB_OPT to add custom options to gdb.

Advise: use this option on a Scilab source tree.

-debug-kdbg

Start Scilab under kdbg (Unix/Linux/Mac OS X only).

Advise: use this option on a Scilab source tree.

-profiling

Start Scilab under valgrind (Unix/Linux/Mac OS X only).

Define the variable SCILAB_VALGRIND_OPT to add custom options to valgrind (and override the existing valgrind options).

Advise: use this option on a Scilab source tree.

-profiling-visu

Start Scilab under callgrind (Unix/Linux/Mac OS X only).

Define the variable SCILAB_VALGRIND_OPT to add custom options to callgrind (and override the existing callgrind options).

Advise: use this option on a Scilab source tree.

-electric-fence

Start Scilab with the Electric Fence (Unix/Linux/Mac OS X only).

Advise: use this option on a Scilab source tree.

-e Instruction

If this option is present then Scilab instruction Instruction is executed first (just after startup file execution) into Scilab. -e and -f options are mutually exclusive.

Note that several instructions can be used in with -e.

scilab-cli -e  "a=1+%i; aPlusPi=a+%pi; disp(aPlusPi);exit;" -nb

-f file

If this option is present then Scilab script file is executed first (just after startup file execution) into Scilab. -e and -f options are mutually exclusive.

-l lang

If this option is present it fixes the user language. lang can be: ca_ES de_DE en_US es_ES fr_FR ja_JP pt_BR ru_RU zh_CN zh_TW (from Scilab 5.2).

Other possible lang values are 'fr' for french and 'en' for english for compatibility reasons. The default language is english. This default value is fixed the scilab.start file.

On some systems, locales must be compiled to render correctly UTF-8 fonts.

Scilab can be also called the following way:

LANG=ja_JP scilab
# equivalent to
scilab -l ja_JP

-mem N

Set the initial stacksize, for use with -ns option. Without -ns option the initial stacksize is set by scilab.start script.

-nb

If this option is present then the scilab welcome banner is not displayed.

-ns

If this option is present the startup file SCI/etc/scilab.start and the user startup files SCIHOME/.scilab, SCIHOME/scilab.ini are not executed.

This option will disable many features in Scilab (Only use if you know what you are doing).

-nouserstartup

If this option is present the user startup files SCIHOME/.scilab, SCIHOME/scilab.ini are not executed.

-nw

If this option is present, Scilab is started as command line with advanced features (graphics...).

This option may be used with -f or -e options.

From Scilab 5.2:

• Scilab distribution also provides a dedicated binary which is doing the same as -nw: scilab-adv-cli (Scilab Advanced Command Line Interpreter).

• pipes are enabled for all operating systems (see the examples for further details).

-nwni / -nogui

If this option is present, Scilab is started as command line without advanced features.

This option may be used with -f or -e options.

From Scilab 5.2:

• Scilab distribution also provides a dedicated binary which is doing the same as -nwni: scilab-cli (Scilab Command Line Interpreter).

• pipes are enabled for all operating systems (see the examples for further details).

This mode does not load the Java Virtual Machine (faster to start and uses less memory)

--texmacs

This option is reserved for TeXMacs.

-version

This option prints product version and exits.

Java Virtual Machine options

Starting from Scilab 5.0, the graphical user interface (GUI) and the build documentation are based on Java features. In some cases, it can be important to edit the JVM options (Java Virtual Machine).

These options are available in the jvm_options.xml file.

In version 5.0.X and 5.1.X, this file is stored as SCI/modules/jvm/etc/jvm_options.xml

In version >= 5.2.0, the file is available in etc/jvm_options.xml

By default, the three following options are easily accessible in the configuration file:

-XmxXXXm

This option set the amount of memory available by the Java Virtual Machine. By default, 256M are allocated. If you change this value, check that the value does not exceed the memory available on the system.

-Djava.compiler=JIT

This option with the argument JIT enables the Java Just In Time compiler. It is activated by default. NONE disables the JIT and decreases dramatically performances.

-verbose:jni / -Xcheck:jni

These options enable more checks and output from the JNI calls. These options are usefull in case of debugging and are disabled by default since they decreases performances.

Many more options are available. They can improve the performances, change look and feel, change memory managements... See: http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/hotspot/vmoptions.jsp or http://blogs.sun.com/watt/resource/jvm-options-list.html

Examples

# Let's start Scilab in profiling mode without attaching a gdb one a SIGSEGV is meet.
# We are under Bash shell
export SCILAB_VALGRIND_OPT="--deb-attach=no --log-file=myfile.txt"
scilab -profiling

# Let's start Scilab in debug mode without stopping after each SIGSEGV
# First, we write a small command file
echo "handle SIGSEGV nostop" &> debug.txt
# Now set the custom option
# We are under Bash shell
export SCILAB_GDB_OPT="--command=debug.txt"
# Start Scilab in debug mode
scilab -debug

# Under GNU/Linux, Mac OS X or Unix:
$ echo "disp(%pi)"|scilab-cli
or
$ echo "disp(%pi)"|scilab -nwni

# Only open the Scilab help window:
$ scilab-adv-cli -e "help()"
or
$ scilab -nw -e "help()"

# Scilab can be used for scripting aspects:
echo "if 1<>2 then exit(99) end"|scilab-cli
echo $?

See Also

• exit — Ends the current Scilab session