Unix-like systems support a mechanism where a script can
specify a programs that should execute it. The convention
is that the first line of the file should start with the two characters
‘#!’ followed by the absolute path of the program that should
process (interpret) the script.
This is convention works well for script languages that use ‘#’
to indicate the start of a comment, since the interpreter will
automatically ignore the line specifying the interpreter filename.
Scheme, however, uses ‘#’ for various special objects,
and Kawa specifically uses ‘#!’ as a prefix for
various Special named constants such as #!optional.
Kawa does recognize the three-character sequence ‘#!/’ at the
beginning of a file as special, and ignores it. So you can
specify command interpreters, as long as you don't put a space
between the ‘#!’ and the interpreter filename.
Here is an example:
#!/usr/local/bin/kawa (format #t "The time is ~s~%" (make <java.util.Date>))
If this file has the execute permission set and is in your PATH,
then you can execute it just my naming it on command line. The
system kernel will automatically execute kawa, passing it the
filename as an argument.
Note that the full path-name of the kawa interpreter
must be hard-wired into the script. This means you may have to edit
the script depending on where Kawa is installed on your system.
Another possible problem is that the interpreter must be an
actual program, not a shell script. Depending on how you configure
and install Kawa, kawa can be a real program or a script.
You can avoid both problems by the env program, available on
most modern Unix-like systems:
#!/usr/bin/env kawa (format #t "The time is ~s~%" (make <java.util.Date>))