[Axiom-developer] GCL in batch mode

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

Camm --

  I'm wondering what the behaviour of "gcl -batch" is.  The info page
says:

   `-batch'
        Do not enter the command print loop.  Useful if the other command
        line arguments do something.  Do not print the License and
        acknowledgement information.  Note if your program does print any
        License information, it must print the GCL header information
        also.


I intepreted that as meaning that only the licence and acknowledgement
information is not printed -- but anything else produced as side effect
of evaluating Lisp expressions would be printed.  That does not seem
to be the case.  In particular I expected the following command

   % echo '(format nil "~a" si::*system-directory*)' | gcl -batch

to just print the system directory name.  However, nothing is printed.

If I remove the option -batch, then I get

    GCL (GNU Common Lisp)  2.6.7 CLtL1    Aug 27 2006 19:51:04
    Source License: LGPL(gcl,gmp), GPL(unexec,bfd)
    Binary License:  GPL due to GPL'ed components: (READLINE BFD UNEXEC)
    Modifications of this banner must retain notice of a compatible
    license
    Dedicated to the memory of W. Schelter

    Use (help) to get some basic information on how to use GCL.

    >
    "/usr/local/lib/gcl-2.6.7/unixport/"


Only the information on the last line is of interest to me -- actually
to configure scripts trying to get some information about GCL
installation.  Can we convince GCL to have -batch deliver whatever is
printed by the lisp expression?

-- Gaby