38.2 Keyword Commands

Keyword commands are special keywords which are not interpreted as Maxima expressions. A keyword command can be entered at the Maxima prompt or the debugger prompt, although not at the break prompt. Keyword commands start with a colon, ’:’. For example, to evaluate a Lisp form you may type :lisp followed by the form to be evaluated.

(%i1) :lisp (+ 2 3) 
5

The number of arguments taken depends on the particular command. Also, you need not type the whole command, just enough to be unique among the break keywords. Thus :br would suffice for :break.

The keyword commands are listed below.

:break F n

Set a breakpoint in function F at line offset n from the beginning of the function. If F is given as a string, then it is assumed to be a file, and n is the offset from the beginning of the file. The offset is optional. If not given, it is assumed to be zero (first line of the function or file).

:bt

Print a backtrace of the stack frames

:continue

Continue the computation

:delete

Delete the specified breakpoints, or all if none are specified

:disable

Disable the specified breakpoints, or all if none are specified

:enable

Enable the specified breakpoints, or all if none are specified

:frame n

Print stack frame n, or the current frame if none is specified

:help

Print help on a debugger command, or all commands if none is specified

:info

Print information about item

:lisp some-form

Evaluate some-form as a Lisp form

:lisp-quiet some-form

Evaluate Lisp form some-form without any output

:next

Like :step, except :next steps over function calls

:quit

Quit the current debugger level without completing the computation

:resume

Continue the computation

:step

Continue the computation until it reaches a new source line

:top

Return to the Maxima prompt (from any debugger level) without completing the computation

Note: Keyword commands must (currently) start at the beginning of a line. Not even a single space character is allowed before the colon.