scilab-cli(1)

💖 scilab-cli — bestie's guide to the Scilab shell 💖

okay so. this is the manual page for scilab-cli, straight out of the General Commands Manual section, and honestly? it's giving "powerful but nobody told you how it works." so i'm telling you. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

scilab, scilab-cli and scilab-adv-cli — it's the Scilab shell, bestie. that's the whole vibe. 🦋

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

scilab <arguments>

that's it. that's the whole invocation. you just throw arguments at it and hope for the best (jk, we're gonna go through every single one). 💅

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

there's a complete list of options below — and yes, i mean complete, we are not skipping a single one, no cap. ⭐

🌈 General options 🌈

• -args <rest> — soaks up all the extra arguments you throw at it and makes them available through sciargs. it's the "and everything else" bucket, iconic honestly.
• -display <display> (or -d <display>) — use the given server display. this is an Xwindow-systems thing, so if you're not on X, this isn't your moment.
• -e <instruction> — execute the Scilab instruction that you passed as the argument. 🫡 heads up: -e and -f are mutually exclusive — you pick one, not both, that's the rule.
• -f <file> — execute the Scilab script you passed as the argument. same deal: -e and -f are mutually exclusive. choose your fighter.
• -quit — force scilab to exit after it runs the script from the -e or -f argument. ⚠️ lowkey important: this flag gets ignored if you don't use it together with -e or -f. it doesn't do anything on its own, it's a sidekick not a main character.
• -l <lang> — change the language of scilab. the default is en_US. ✨
• -nocolor — strips the color out of the cli and adv-cli modes. monochrome era, i guess. 💀
• -nw — enable console mode.
• -nwni (or -nogui) — enable terminal mode. two names, one vibe.

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🔥 Developer Trace arguments 🔥

• --parse-trace — display bison state machine evolution. yes, the parser's whole inner monologue, on your screen. 👑
• --AST-trace — display ASCII-art AST so it's human readable. the tree, but make it art. 🌈
• --pretty-print — display pretty-printed code, in standard Scilab syntax.

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⏱️ Developer Timer arguments ⏱️

• --AST-timed — time each AST node. every single one. clocked. 💅
• --timed — time the global execution.

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🐛 Developer Debug arguments 🐛

• --context-dump — display context status.
• --exec-verbose — display the command before running it. narrating your own life, honestly relatable.
• -nb — do not display Scilab loading on start. quiet entrance. 🧚
• -noatomsautoload — do not load the ATOMS installed module.
• --no-exec — only do lexing/parsing, do not execute instructions. all vibes, no consequences. 🙈
• -nouserstartup — do not execute the user startup files SCIHOME/.scilab or SCIHOME/scilab.ini.
• -ns — don't execute etc/scilab.start. ⚠️ and this one comes with a warning, fr fr: it will disable many features — only use if you know what you are doing. bestie, if you're reading this like "wait, what's etc/scilab.start?", maybe don't. 🫶
• --timeout <delay> — kill the Scilab process after the given delay. it's on a timer and it means it.

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💀 Developer arguments 💀

• -debug — start Scilab under gdb. you can define the variable SCILAB_GDB_OPT to add custom arguments to gdb.
• -debug-kdbg — start Scilab under kdbg.
• -profiling — start Scilab under valgrind. you can define the variable SCILAB_VALGRIND_OPT to add custom arguments to valgrind and override the existing valgrind arguments.
• -profiling-visu — start Scilab under callgrind. you can define the variable SCILAB_VALGRIND_OPT to add custom arguments to callgrind and override the existing callgrind arguments.
• -disable-exception-catching — disable the Scilab exception catching system.
• --parse-file <file> — only parse the given file argument, without execution, and exit. no running, just reading. 👀
• --parse-trace — display bison state machine evolution. (yes bestie, it's listed again. i don't make the rules, i just keep every single detail. ✨)
• --pretty-print — display pretty-printed code using standard Scilab syntax. (also a repeat. we stay faithful to the original. 💖)

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💜 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 💜

these are the little levers you can pull before scilab even wakes up:

• SCIVERBOSE — provides debugging information of the startup.
• JAVA_HOME — declares which Java Virtual Machine to use.
• SCI_DISABLE_TK — disables Tk features. ⚠️ note the fine print: but not Tcl. Tcl stays. Tk goes.
• SCI_JAVA_ENABLE_HEADLESS — runs Java Headless VM.
• SCI_DISABLE_EXCEPTION_CATCHING — disable the catch by Scilab of exceptions (segfault, ...). so when things go boom, they just... boom. 😭

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

this manual page was written by Julien Puydt for Debian. slay, Julien. 🎀

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and that's the whole page, bestie — no notes, no skips, every flag accounted for. 🌸

signing off: this was the scilab-cli(1) page from November 2017, part of the General Commands Manual. 💖