E ICL Environment Variables

ICL’s operation can be controlled by several (optional) environment variables. The variables are:

ICL_LOGIN_SYS, ICL_LOGIN_LOCAL and ICL_LOGIN

these may be set to specify ICL command files to be obeyed, in the above order, by ICL before the ICL prompt appears. A default file extension of .icl is assumed. For example:

  % setenv ICL_LOGIN ~/myprocs

will cause file myprocs.icl in the user’s home directory to be loaded as ICL starts up.

ICL_LOGIN_SYS and ICL_LOGIN_LOCAL should be reserved for system use. SSN/64 describes how they are used at Starlink sites.

EDITOR

If set, this will override the ICL default editor (vi). For example:

  % setenv EDITOR tpu

ICL_HELPFILE

If set, this will override the default search path for the ICL helpfile. The default search path is:

  ../help/icl/iclhelp.shl

relative to each of the directories on the user’s PATH.

This process for finding the default helpfile only operates if the default helpfile is not defined – i.e. initially and after any SET NOHELPFILE command.

SHELL

Defines the shell which ICL will use to run Unix commands. If SHELL is undefined, csh will be used.

ICL_TASK_NAME

This environment variable is set by ICL to the name by which it wants the task to register with the ADAM message system. Other user-interfaces controlling ADAM tasks via the ADAM message system will use the same mechanism. If the environment variable is not set, the task assumes it is being run directly from a shell and does not register with the message system.

In addition to the above, ICL also makes use of some of the environment variables listed in Section D, notably ADAM_USER and ADAM_EXTN.