User's Guide

Starting from a command line

To start your product from the command line, change to the directory where your image--the abt.icx file--is located. To start VisualAge, type abt.

OS/2
To prevent your product from hanging the OS/2 command session, you can type start abt instead.
UNIX
To prevent your product from hanging a UNIX command session, you can type abt& instead.

The above commands use the image file named abt.icx by default.

Command line arguments

You can specify a number of command line arguments that change the behavior of the product. These arguments are entered on the command line following one of the starting commands, and separated by a space. The following list explains the command line arguments:

Argument
Result

-iIMAGENAME
This option causes the image named IMAGENAME to start, instead of the default image named abt.icx.

-lFILENAME
On OS/2 and Windows, this option causes terminal (TTY) output to be logged to the file FILENAME. The default is not to log TTY output. If -l is entered without a file name, the output goes to the file ESVMLOG.

-ini:FILENAME
This option specifies the .ini file to be used with the image or executable, overriding the usual search mechanisn for finding the .ini file associated with the image or executable.

-mcXXXX
This option sets the size (in bytes) of the dynamic translation code cache on OS/2 and Windows. Use -mcd to disable dynamic translation for the session. Any size less than 262144 will also disable dynamic translation. The default code cache size is 2000000. This option applies only to the current session; the -mc value is not saved in the image.

-mfXXXX
This option sets the size of fixed space to be XXXX bytes in size. The default is the size of the fixed space in the image when it was saved. In a newly packaged image, the default size is the actual byte size required by the image, plus a small amount.

-miXXXX
This option sets the segment increment for allocation from the operating system to be XXXX bytes in size. When the executable is out of memory, a new segment of XXXX bytes is allocated from the operating system. The default allocation size is 2048K.

-mlXXXX
This option sets the minimum size of free memory after a global garbage collection to be XXXX bytes in size. The garbage collector uses this value to determine if it needs to allocate additional memory or return memory to the operating system. You use this option to specify a minimum amout of oldspace to remain free after a global garbage collection, and thus defer a garbage collection. The default minimum size is 500K.

-mnXXXX
This option sets the size of new space to be XXXX bytes in size. The default is the size of the new space in the image when it was saved. In a newly packaged image, the default size is 256K.

-moXXXX
This option sets the size of the largest old space to be XXXX bytes in size. The default is the size of the old space in the image when it was saved. In a newly packaged image, the default size is the actual byte size required by the image.

-mxXXXX
This option sets the maximum memory allocatable by the executable for object memory. The default is unlimited. If you set this option, the executable will stop requesting more memory from the operating system when memory allocation exceeds XXXX bytes. To disable dynamic memory allocation, you can specify -mx1.

-no_break
For Windows and UNIX systems, a User Break button is placed on the screen to provide the Ctrl+Break feature. This feature uses a process that signals Smalltalk when a break occurs. This dual process architecture may result in difficulty debugging applications using low-level debuggers such as adb or dbx. Using the -no_break option will cancel the process creation and allow normal debugging. If you disable the User Break button, you can still stop the product by using Ctrl+C from the xterm window that started the product.

-nosplash
This option keeps the splash screen from displaying when you start up an image.

-singleinstance
On Windows and OS/2, the -singleinstance option specifies that only a single instance of the associated executable can be running at the same time. Thus, specifying this option when you start the VisualAge product executable abt.exe runs one instance of abt.exe and prevents you from running another instance of abt.exe at the same time.

For a discussion of the terms new space, old space, and fixed space, see Types of memory space that you can monitor.


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