Squeak Man Pages - OS X
Last updated at 12:01 pm UTC on 17 January 2006
Man page (Mac OS X 2.6.g-2) See the actual man page for a correctly formatted and current rendition
NAME
squeak, inisqueak - Unix Squeak virtual machine and installer
SYNOPSIS
inisqueak
squeak [ option... ] [ image ] [ script [ argument... ] ]
DESCRIPTION
squeak is the virtual machine for the Squeak Smalltalk system. It
requires three files to operate correctly: an image file containing a
`snapshot' of a live Squeak session, a changes file containing the
source code for modified methods in the image, and a copy of (or a link
to) a shared system sources file containing the source code for methods
that have not been modified since the last major version increment.
The image and changes files contain the state of a user's Squeak ses-
sion, which is persistent between consecutive sessions. Private copies
of these files are therefore normally required. The inisqueak script
checks that the local Squeak installation appears sane, and then copies
the required files to the current working directory. If inisqueak
encounters no problems, it will finish by running squeak to start a
Squeak session using the newly copied image and changes files.
inisqueak should be run once, when using Squeak for the first time, to
create a new 'personal' Squeak session. Afterwards, squeak should be
run each time that session is to be resumed.
INVOCATION
inisqueak has no options or arguments. Simply 'cd' to the directory
that is to contain the working copies of the image and changes files,
then run it.
squeak accepts various options (described below), and then an optional
image name (which must not begin with a minus sign '-'). If an image
name is given on the command line then squeak tries to run that image.
Otherwise squeak checks the environment variable SQUEAK_IMAGE and, if
it is set, uses its value as the name of the image to run. Otherwise
squeak looks for an image called 'squeak.image' in the current direc-
tory. If the image file does not exist then squeak prints a message
indicating which image file it failed to find and then exits. If the
extension '.image' is missing in the image argument or in the value of
the SQUEAK_IMAGE variable, it will be appended automatically.
The image argument can be followed by a script name. This is the name
of a 'document' that should contain Smalltalk code to be executed on
startup. The document can be either the name of a file or a URL start-
ing with 'http:'. Any arguments that appear after the script name are
ignored, but are made available to the script from within Squeak via
the method getSystemAttribute:. (See the section SCRIPTS below.)
If image is given as '–' then squeak immediately stops argument pro-
cessing (and behaves as if image was not specified). This is useful to
specify a script (possibly with script arguments) without specifying an
explicit image.
OPTIONS
Command line options fall into two categories: 'common' options that
are recognised by the base VM and 'specific' options that are tied to a
particular display or sound driver. Common options will always be
recognised by squeak, whereas a given specific option will be recog-
nised only after squeak has loaded the driver to which it relates.
Refer to the '-vm' option below for more details.
The common options recognised by squeak are as follows:
-encoding enc
specifies the internal character encoding to be used by Squeak.
This affects the translation that the VM performs when importing
text (from the keyboard or via 'paste' from an external selec-
tion) or exporting text (pasting text from Squeak to another
application, or when generating filenames containing special
characters). In other words, it affects the correspondence
between what Squeak displays on the screen and what it sends to
(or receives from) external applications. The correct value
depends on the way Squeak's internal fonts are encoded. Current
images are delivered with traditional Macintosh 'New York' fonts
that use Mac Roman encoding, and so this is the default internal
encoding. If other fonts (from X11 or elsewhere) are imported
into the image and used as system fonts then the this default
translation will give incorrect results for diacritical marks
and special characters. In such cases the -encoding option can
be used to change the internal encoding, for example
-encoding ISO-8859-15
(aka Latin9) which would be appropriate for many of the fonts
designed for European languages.
-help prints a short summary of the command-line syntax, options and
available drivers, then exits.
-memory size[mk]
requests that a fixed heap of size bytes be allocated for the
Squeak image. If the suffix `k' is given then the argument is
expressed in kilobytes. If the suffux `m' is given then the
argument is expressed in megabytes. This option SHOULD NOT be
used, unless there is a good reason to do so, since it places an
arbitrary limit on Squeak's object memory size.
-mmap size[mk]
requests that a variable heap of at most size bytes be allo-
cated. (The suffixes are as described for the '-memory'
option.) squeak will initially allocate a heap that is large
enough to hold the image, with a small amount of headroom. If
at any time Squeak requires more memory for its image then addi-
tional space will be allocated dynamically. Likewise, when mem-
ory is no longer needed it will deallocated and returned to the
system. The size argument places an upper limit on how big the
heap can grow in this fashion. squeak uses a dynamic heap by
default with the maximum size set to 75% of the available vir-
tual memory or 1 gigabyte, whichever is smaller.
-noevents
disables the new (image 2.8 and later) event-driven input mecha-
nism. This option is only useful for testing backwards compati-
bility with older images and should not be used.
-notimer
disables the use of the interval timer for keeping track of low-
resolution time. (If you are having problems with file, sound
or socket i/o reporting `interrupted system call' then setting
this flag might help.)
-pathenc enc
specifies the external character encoding to be used by Squeak
when accessing the filesystem (file and directory pathnames).
The correct value depends on the local platform's
characteristics. If no encoding conversion should be performed
then this should be set to the same encoding as Squeak uses
internally (see the -encoding option). Otherwise ISO-8859-15
(aka Latin9) might make sense on a filesystem supporting 8-bit
characters, and UTF-8 for filesystems that use Unicode-based
pathnames. The default is UTF-8 which is correct for Mac OS X
and very recent GNU/Linux distributions, and which (in an ideal
world) will eventually be adopted by all Unix variants.
-plugins path
specifies an alternative location for external plugins (collec-
tions of named primitives) and drivers (for display and sound).
The path argument contains a pattern in which any occurrences of
`%n' will be replaced by the name of the plugin or driver being
loaded. The path can name either a directory or the plugin
itself and can be absolute or relative (to the directory in
which squeak was run). If a plugin or driver cannot be found in
the location specified by path then the search continues in the
default locations.
-textenc enc
specifies the external character encoding to be used by Squeak
when exchanging clipboard text with other applications. The
default is UTF-8 on Mac OS X and ISO-8859-15 (aka Latin9) on
other Unix systems. Note that X11 applications requesting the
selection converted to UTF8_STRING data will (correctly) receive
the clipboard text encoded as UTF-8, regardless of this setting.
Squeak recognises a subset of the encoding names defined by the
IANA. (If you prefer to use the international currency symbol
rather than the Euro symbol in external text then you might want
to set this to ISO-8859-1, aka Latin1.)
-version
prints three or more lines of version information, as follows:
o the architecture configured for the virtual machine at
compile time, the compilation `sequence number', the time
and date of compilation, and the name (and version, if
known) of the compiler that was used to compile squeak;
o the complete uname(1) information for the host on which
the virtual machine was compiled;
o the default installed location for plugins and drivers;
After printing the above, the virtual machine exits.
-vm driver
asks squeak to load a sound/display driver. For each supported
device there is a corresponding driver that squeak loads during
initialisation. Unless told otherwise, squeak will figure out
sensible default drivers to load. This choice can be overridden
using this option. The driver argument is a list of one or more
'assignments' of the form
class=device
separated by spaces or commas. The supported combinations are
currently:
display=X11
to display the Squeak window on a local or remote X Win-
dow System server.
display=Quartz
to display on the local Mac OS X desktop.
display=none
to disable the display (and keyboard/mouse) entirely.
(This driver is useful primarily for running 'server'
applications in Squeak.)
sound=OSS
provides sound input and output via the Open Sound Sys-
tem. (If you have a device called '/dev/dsp' then this
is likely the one you want.)
sound=MacOSX
provides sound input/output via Core Audio on Mac OS X.
sound=NAS
provides sound i/o via the Network Audio System.
sound=Sun
provides sound on Sun Microsystems hardware.
sound=none
disables sound entirely. squeak will not attempt to play
or record sounds when this driver is loaded.
Note that only those drivers relevant to the local platform will
be available. Attempting to load an unsupported driver will
cause squeak to exit with an error message. A list of available
drivers is printed by the '-help' option. If a particular
driver cannot load system libraries on which it depends then it
will neither be listed nor be available to load at runtime.
Note also that on Mac OS X both the X11 and Quartz display
drivers are supported, although the former will refuse to load
if the X11 client libraries are not installed on the local
machine. The Quartz driver will happily load (and Squeak will
run as a fully-fledged application) even when squeak is invoked
from the command line. Exercise caution when logged into Mac OS
X from another machine: forgetting to set DISPLAY before trying
to run squeak on the remote display could cause embarrassement.
Options specific to the X11 display driver are as follows:
-browserWindow id
specifies the id of the window that squeak should use for its
display. This option is intended for use when Squeak is running
as a web browser plugin.
-display server
specifies that Squeak should connect to the given display server
instead of looking in the environment variable DISPLAY (the
default behaviour) to find the name of the server to use.
-fullscreen
causes the Squeak window to occupy as much of the screen area as
possible. Implies '-notitle'.
-headless
disables the graphical display and mouse/keyboard input. This
mode of operation is useful primarily for servers.
-iconic
asks the window manager to iconify the Squeak window at startup.
-lazy causes Squeak to `snooze' whenever the main winodw is unmapped.
This can be used if Squeak appears to be using consuming CPU
time while idling (which should not normally be the case). Note
that if this option is in effect, when the Squeak window is
unmapped squeak will not respond to any external stimuli (other
than to provide the X selection to requestors, when Squeak is
the owner).
-mapdelbs
maps the Delete key onto Backspace. Backspace deletes the char-
acter to the left of the cursor and Delete normally deletes the
character to the right of the cursor. With this option, Deletes
will behave like Backspace. The behaviour of Backspace is not
changed.
-nointl
disables the handling of dead keys on international keyboards.
Without this option, dead key handling is enabled if either
LC_ALL or LC_CTYPE is set in the environment.
-notitle
disables the title bar on the Squeak window (if the window man-
ager supports it). This option is implied by '-fullscreen'.
-swapbtn
swaps the yellow and blue buttons. (Traditionally, the red
button is on the left, yellow in the middle and blue on the
right. The colourful names come from the Xerox Alto on which
Smalltalk was first implemented.) Squeak normally maps X but-
tons 1, 2 and 3 to the red, yellow and blue buttons, in that
order. With this option, it maps X buttons 1, 2 and 3 to the
red, blue and yellow buttons.)
-xasync
causes Squeak to use asynchronous display updates. The virtual
machine normally flushes and synchronises the display connection
at regular intervals. Using this option disables synchronisa-
tion, which will be performed only when the image explicitly
requests it.
-xshm enables the use of the X Shared Memory extension on servers that
support it. This can dramatically improve display performance,
but works only when Squeak is running on the server.
Options specific to the FBDev display driver are as follows:
:
-fbdev device
Use the given framebuffer device instead of the default
'/dev/fb0'.
-kbmap mapfile
Load the keyboard map from the given mapfile instead of reading
it from the running kernel. Note that squeak cannot (currently)
read compressed or 'shorthand' map files (as found in
/usr/share/keymaps or /lib/kbd/keymaps). To generate a keymap
file usable by squeak, execute the following program from the
console:
dumpkeys -f -n –keys-only > key.map
If squeak encounters a problem while trying to load mapfile, it
will print an error message and exit. See keymaps(5) for more
information about the keymap file format. The programs dump-
keys(1), loadkeys(1), and showkey(1) can be used to modify the
keyboard map before creating a keymap file for squeak.
-msdev device
Use the given mouse device instead of the default. The default
is to try '/dev/psaux', '/dev/input/mice' and '/dev/adbmouse',
in that order, and to use the first one that has a physical
device attached.
-msproto protocol
Use the given mouse protocol instead of the default. The sup-
ported protocols are 'ps2' and 'adb'. The default is 'ps2' for
mice attached to '/dev/psaux' or '/dev/input/mice', and 'adb'
for mice attached to '/dev/adbmouse'.
-vtlock
Disallows VT switching, regardless of whether the request comes
from the keyboard or from another program such as chvt(1).
-vtswitch
Enables keyboard VT switching. Note that this option is effec-
tively disabled if the '-vtlock' option is also enabled.
Options specific to the OSS and MacOSX sound drivers are as follows:
-nomixer
disables the primitives that change mixer (sound) settings. If
you prefer that Squeak leave these alone (they are, after all,
really the reponsibility of whichever mixer program or sound
control panel you use) then this option is for you.
Several common options are deprecated and are provided only for back-
ward compatibility. These options should not be used and will be
removed in a future release:
-display dpy
is equivalent to '-vm display=X11 -display dpy'.
-headless
is equivalent to '-vm display=X11 -headless'.
-nodisplay
is equivalent to '-vm display=none'.
-nosound
is equivalent to '-vm sound=none'.
-quartz
is equivalent to '-vm display=Quartz'.
ENVIRONMENT
Many of the options that can be set on the command line can also be set
from environment variables.
SQUEAK_ASYNC
if set in the environment then equivalent to the '-xasync' flag.
(The value is ignored.)
SQUEAK_ENCODING
the name of the internal character encoding used by Squeak.
Equivalent to giving the '-encoding' command-line option if set.
SQUEAK_FBDEV
the name of the framebuffer device to use when running on the
console. See the '-fbdev' option.
SQUEAK_FULLSCREEN
equivalent to '-fullscreen' if set.
SQUEAK_ICONIC
equivalent to the '-iconic' flag.
SQUEAK_IMAGE
the name of the image file to execute if no image argument is
given on the command line.
SQUEAK_KBMAP
the name of the keymap file to use when running on the console.
See the '-kbmap' option.
SQUEAK_LAZY
equivalent to the '-lazy' flag.
SQUEAK_MAPDELBS
equivalent to the '-mapdelbs' flag.
SQUEAK_MEMORY
the initial size of the heap, with optional 'k' or 'm' suffix.
Equivalent to the '-memory size[km]' flag.
SQUEAK_MSDEV
the name of the mouse device to use when running on the console.
See the '-msdev' option.
SQUEAK_MSPROTO
the name of the mouse protocl to use when running on the con-
sole. See the '-msproto' option.
SQUEAK_VTLOCK
if set then equivalent to specifying the '-vtlock' option on the
command line.
SQUEAK_VTSWITCH
if set then equivalent to specifying the '-vtswitch' option on
the command line.
SQUEAK_NOEVENTS
if set, equivalent to '-noevents'.
SQUEAK_NOINTL
equivalent to '-nointl' if set.
SQUEAK_NOMIXER
equivalent to '-nomixer' if set.
SQUEAK_NOTIMER
equivalent to '-notimer' if set.
SQUEAK_NOTITLE
if set, equivalent to '-notitle'.
SQUEAK_PATHENC
the name of the character encoding used to construct file and
directory names. Equivalent to giving the '-pathenc' command-
line option if set.
SQUEAK_PLUGINS
see '-plugins'.
SQUEAK_SWAPBTN
equivalent to '-swapbtn' if set.
SQUEAK_TEXTENC
the name of the character encoding used to copy/paste text
:
from/to external applications. Equivalent to giving the '-tex-
tenc' command-line option if set.
SQUEAK_VM
contains the names of one or more drivers to be loaded during
initialisation. See the '-vm' option for details.
SQUEAK_XSHM
equivalent to '-xshm'.
If an environment variable and a command-line option conflict over a
particular value then normally the value in the command line takes
precedence. The exception to this rule is the '-vm' option. Environ-
ment variables are processed before command-line arguments and '-vm'
cannnot be used to unload a driver that was loaded while processing the
contents of 'SQUEAK_VM'.
squeak also checks the environment for LC_ALL and LC_CTYPE. If either
of these variables is set then support for international keyboards
(including dead keys for diacritical marks) is enabled. To prevent
this support being enabled even when one or both of these variables is
set, use the '-nointl' option (or set SQUEAK_NOINTL in the environ-
ment). For example, to start squeak with support for dead keys on
Spanish keyboards, with Latin-1 encoding of external characters and the
default MacRoman internal font encoding, run squeak like this:
export LC_CTYPE=es_ES
export SQUEAK_TEXTENC=latin1
squeak
SCRIPTS
Squeak can load and execute a 'script' file containing Smalltalk code
at startup. The name of the file should be given as the script argu-
ment to squeak. For example, assuming that the image 'foo.image' con-
tains an open Transcript window, then the following represents the
'hello world' program for Squeak:
Transcript cr; show: 'Hello, world'.
If this script is in a file called 'hello.sq', then it could be run
like this:
squeak foo.image hello.sq
It is also possible to make 'self interpreting' scripts by adding an
'interpreter line' to the start of the script. The 'hello.sq' file
could be changed to
#!/usr/local/bin/squeak –
Transcript cr; show: 'Hello, world'.
and then made executable with
chmod +x hello.sq
and then invoked by running the script file directly:
SQUEAK_IMAGE="foo.image"
export SQUEAK_IMAGE
./hello.sq
If any arguments are present after the script name then they can be
retrieved from within the script using the method
Smalltalk getSystemAttribute: n
where n is the index of the argument, starting at 3 for the first argu-
ment. (See the method comment for
SystemDictionary>>getSystemAttribute:
in the image for an explanation of the meanings of the indices.)
As an example of this, here is the 'echo' program written as a Squeak
script:
:
#!/usr/local/bin/squeak –
"Echo arguments to the Transcript."
| i a |
i := 2.
[(a := Smalltalk getSystemAttribute: (i := i + 1))
notNil]
whileTrue: [Transcript space; show: a].
When run as
./echo.sq one two three
this would print 'one two three' in the Transcript window.
DIAGNOSTICS
inisqueak
prints several informational messages while doing its stuff. If
it encounters a problem it prints an appropriate message before
bailing out. The messages should be self-explanatory.
squeak normally does not print anything at all. If it prints something
then there is a problem. The messages should be self-explana-
tory.
FILES
/usr/local/lib/squeak/SqueakV3.sources
Shared system sources file for the Squeak image. There must be
a copy of (or link to) this file in the working directory when
running squeak.
/usr/local/lib/squeak/Squeak.image
/usr/local/lib/squeak/Squeak.changes
Distributed image and changes files holding a `shapshot' of a
live Squeak session. (The contents of these files change during
a session, and so private copies should always be made before
running squeak for the first time. See inisqueak(1)).
./SqueakV3.sources
A link to the system sources file.
./name.image
./name.changes
Private copies of image and changes files.
/usr/local/lib/squeak/3.6g-2/.so
/usr/local/lib/squeak/3.6g-2/.la
Virtual machine 'plugins' (containing primitives that are loaded
on demand) and drivers (for different types of display and sound
hardware).
/usr/local/bin/squeak
/usr/local/bin/inisqueak
The Squeak virtual machine and personal image installer script.
/usr/local/man/squeak.1
This manual page.
/usr/local/doc/squeak/Miscellaneous documentation.
NOTES
This manual page documents version 3.6g-2 of Unix Squeak. It may not
be appropriate for any other version.
The image and changes files containing a saved Squeak session are inti-
mately related. They should always be used together, never be sepa-
rated, and under no circumstances should an image be run with a changes
file that has been used with a different image. Failure to adhere to
the above could cause the source code for the methods in the image to
become garbled and impossible to retrieve.
The Unix Squeak virtual machine fully supports OpenGL in both the X11
and Quartz display drivers. Open Croquet will run just fine with
either of these drivers (and many Mac OS X users will even have the
choice of which driver to use :).
live Squeak session. (The contents of these files change during
a session, and so private copies should always be made before
running squeak for the first time. See inisqueak(1)).
./SqueakV3.sources
A link to the system sources file.
./name.image
./name.changes
Private copies of image and changes files.
/usr/local/lib/squeak/3.6g-2/.so
/usr/local/lib/squeak/3.6g-2/.la
Virtual machine 'plugins' (containing primitives that are loaded
on demand) and drivers (for different types of display and sound
hardware).
/usr/local/bin/squeak
/usr/local/bin/inisqueak
The Squeak virtual machine and personal image installer script.
/usr/local/man/squeak.1
This manual page.
/usr/local/doc/squeak/
Miscellaneous documentation.
NOTES
This manual page documents version 3.6g-2 of Unix Squeak. It may not
be appropriate for any other version.
The image and changes files containing a saved Squeak session are inti-
mately related. They should always be used together, never be sepa-
rated, and under no circumstances should an image be run with a changes
file that has been used with a different image. Failure to adhere to
the above could cause the source code for the methods in the image to
become garbled and impossible to retrieve.
The Unix Squeak virtual machine fully supports OpenGL in both the X11
and Quartz display drivers. Open Croquet will run just fine with
either of these drivers (and many Mac OS X users will even have the
choice of which driver to use :).
BUGS
If a 'binary' option is enabled by an environment variable, there is no
way to disable it on the command line.
Similarly, drivers specified in the SQUEAK_VM environment variable can-
not be overridden by passing options on the command line.
squeak should never crash. In the unlikely event that it does crash,
or prints any kind of message that does not appear to be caused by
incorrect arguments or illegal operations from within a Squeak program,
please send a bug report to: . (Reports sent or
copied to this address, rather than just to the Squeak mailing list,
will stand a much better chance of being seen and dealt with in a
timely fashion.)
AUTHOR
This manual page was written by Ian Piumarta.
SEE ALSO
Dan Ingalls, Ted Kaehler, John Maloney, Scott Wallace and Alan Kay,
Back to the Future: The Story of Squeak, A Practical Smalltalk Written
in Itself. Proc. OOPSLA'97.
The official Squeak home page:
http://squeak.org
The archives of the Squeak mailing list:
http://squeak.cs.uiuc.edu/mail/squeak
The latest source and binary distributions of Unix Squeak:
http://www-sor.inria.fr/~piumarta/squeak
