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 debugger 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.

A file with .xcos extension will be opened by Xcos.

-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 loading message 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.

-noatomsautoload

If this option is present the ATOMS modules previously installed are not loaded for this session.

-nw

If this option is present, Scilab is started as command line with advanced features still available (graphics, export, xcos, scinotes, help browser, ...).

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 (graphics, export, xcos, scinotes, help browser, ...).

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.

Please install ATOMS module:

atomsInstall('texmacs')

-version

This option prints product version and exits.

Description of environment variables

SCIVERBOSE

If this variable is present, Scilab startup script will show a startup debug information. Mainly used for bug report and debugging purposes.

JAVA_HOME

Specify which Java to use. For example, JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk/ scilab will start Scilab with Java 7.

SCI_DISABLE_TK

Disable Tk (but not Tcl) features.

SCI_JAVA_ENABLE_HEADLESS

Enable Java Headless VM (i.e. without GUI features).

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.

Since Scilab 5.4.0, this value can be changed in the preferences menu.

-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 useful 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://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/tech/vmoptions-jsp-140102.html.

Examples

# Let's start Scilab in profiling mode without attaching a gdb once a SIGSEGV is met.
# We are under Bash shell
export SCILAB_VALGRIND_OPT="--db-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
• startup — startup files

History