---
name: "ol"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "owl-lisp"
version: "0.2.2-2"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/ol"
---

# ol(1)

an Owl Lisp compiler and interpreter

## NAME

ol - an Owl Lisp compiler and interpreter

## SYNOPSIS

**ol** \[*options*\] \[*path*\] *...*

## DESCRIPTION

Owl Lisp is a purely functional variant of R7RS Scheme. Ol can be used to evaluate programs interactively and compile them to native binaries via C.

## OPTIONS

This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (\`-'). A summary of essential command line flats options is included below. The complete list is shown on the help page.

- **-h, --help**

  Show summary of options.

- **-v, --version**

  Show version of program.

- **-e, --eval string**

  Evaluate the string, print it's value, and exit with 0 unless errors occurred.

- **-t, --test string**

  Evaluate the string and exit with 1 if the value is #false, 0 if it's true, or 126 if there is an error.

- **-o, --output output-file**

  Compile the given file to fasl or C code, and save the result to the given output file.

- **-r, --run path**

  Load the file silently, and call the last value with the remaining command line arguments.

- **-x, --output-format format**

  Choose what ol should compile the given input to. Valid options are currently *c* and *fasl*. This is normally deduced from the file suffix given in -o, and is thus not usually needed.

- **-O0, -O1, -O2**

  Write plain bytecode, compile some common functions to C or everything possible. These only make sense when compiling to C.

- **-l, --load path**

  Resume execution of program state saved with *suspend*.

## EXAMPLES

- **Make a simple binary**

   $ echo '(lambda (args) (for-each print args))' \> test.l\
    $ ol -o test.c test.l\
    $ gcc -o test test.c\
    $ ./test foo bar

- **Compile in a pipe**

  $ echo '(lambda (args) (print (cons "I got " args)))' \| ol -x c -o - \| gcc -x c -o test - && ./test 11 22 33

- **Loading vs running files**

   $ echo '(print "Hello, world!")' \> test.l\
    $ ol test.l\
    Hello, world!\
    $ echo '(lambda (args) (print "Hello, world!"))' \> test.l\
    $ ol --run test.l arg1 arg2 arg3\
    Hello, world!

## SEE ALSO

[**ovm**(1)](/ovm/1.md), [**gcc**(1)](/gcc/1.md), [**scheme48**(1)](/scheme48/1.md)

## AUTHOR

Owl Lisp and this manual page were written by Aki Helin \<aki.helin@iki.fi\>.