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.\"   $Id: freem.1,v 1.8 2025/04/18 01:23:05 snw Exp $
.\"    FreeM man page
.\"
.\"  
.\"   Author: Serena Willis <snw@coherent-logic.com>
.\"    Copyright (C) 1998 MUG Deutschland
.\"    Copyright (C) 2020, 2025 Coherent Logic Development LLC
.\"
.\"
.\"   This file is part of FreeM.
.\"
.\"   FreeM is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
.\"   it under the terms of the GNU Affero Public License as published by
.\"   the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
.\"   (at your option) any later version.
.\"
.\"   FreeM is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
.\"   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
.\"   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
.\"   GNU Affero Public License for more details.
.\"
.\"   You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero Public License
.\"   along with FreeM.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
.\"
.\"   $Log: freem.1,v $
.\"   Revision 1.8  2025/04/18 01:23:05  snw
.\"   More documentation updates
.\"
.\"   Revision 1.7  2025/04/17 17:57:35  snw
.\"   Major updates to man pages
.\"
.\"   Revision 1.6  2025/04/17 15:08:24  snw
.\"   Add documentation on FREEM_LOG_THRESHOLD environment variables to man pages
.\"
.\"   Revision 1.5  2025/04/04 12:49:19  snw
.\"   Dollar signs cut off in ENVIRONMENT sections of both man pages
.\"
.\"   Revision 1.4  2025/04/03 15:56:41  snw
.\"   Add fmadm man page to CVS
.\"
.\"
.TH freem 1 "3 April 2025" FreeM "FreeM User Manual"
.SH NAME
freem
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B freem [OPTION...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.B freem
program runs an instance of
.IR "FreeM"
\.

FreeM is an implementation of the MUMPS programming language, began by the efforts of the mysterious Shalom ha-Ashkenaz. In response to InterSystems' spree of buying up all competing MUMPS implementations, Shalom gifted FreeM to MUG Deutschland in 1998, in hopes that the MUMPS community would turn it into a viable, freely available, and fully-featured MUMPS implementation.

After years of dormancy, the FreeM project has been resurrected, and under the stewardship of Coherent Logic Development and a small core team of contributors, work is proceeding towards completing the original FreeM team's goals, and much more.

More information is available at https://freem.coherent-logic.com/

Please see the FreeM
\fIinfo\fR documentation for language, database, and administration details.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\-h, --help
.RS 4
Display a list of freem command-line flags
.RE
.TP
\-i, --import
.RS 4
Imports UNIX environment variables as M locals
.RE
.TP
\-e <environment-name>, --environment=<environment-name>
.RS 4
Sets active environment to
\fI<environment-name>\fR;
\fIDEFAULT\fR if unspecified
.RE
.TP
\-f, --filter
.RS 4
Allows M code to be used as a filter
.RE
.TP
\-n <NAMESPACE>, --namespace=<NAMESPACE>
.RS 4
Selects
\fI<NAMESPACE>\fR as the startup namespace instead of
\fIUSER\fR
.RE
.TP
\-q, --quiet
.RS 4
Disables startup messages and prompt string
.RE
.TP
\-r <LABEL^ROUTINE>, --routine=<LABEL^ROUTINE>
.RS 4
Executes
\fI<LABEL^ROUTINE>\fR on startup instead of entering direct mode
.RE
.TP
\-s <standard>, --standard=<standard>
.RS 4
Restricts access to FreeM vendor extensions not present in relevant standards
\fI*\fR. In this flag,
\fI<standard>\fR can be:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
M77
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
M84
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
M90
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
M95
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
MDS
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
M5
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
FREEM

.RE
\fB*\fR FreeM is not entirely compliant with any MDC standard, regardless of the value of the
\fI--standard\fR command-line flag.

See the
\fBCompliance Clause\fR on the FreeM Wiki for more information on FreeM's deviations from MDC standards.
.RE
.TP
\-v, --version
Display FreeM version information
.TP
\-x <MCODE>, --execute=<MCODE>
Execute M code
\fI<MCODE>\fR on startup
.TP
\-d, --daemon
Run the FreeM daemon (one and only one FreeM daemon must always be running for each configured environment)
.TP
\-k, --nofork
Run the FreeM daemon in foreground (requires
\fI--daemon\fR)
.TP
\-S <BYTES>, --shmsize=<BYTES>
Sets the size of the shared memory segment where FreeM stores the job table, lock table, and IPC table.
 - Each concurrent job takes 1024 bytes (1 page) of shared memory
 - Each LOCK takes 2048 bytes (2 pages) of shared memory
 - Each IPC takes 1024 bytes (1 page) of shared memory
.SH "RETURN VALUES"
Returns 0 for non-error condition.
.SH FILES
.TP
env.conf
The FreeM environment catalog. Normally located in
\fI$PREFIX/etc/freem/env.conf\fR
.TP
freem.conf
The FreeM configuration file. Normally located in
\fI$PREFIX/etc/freem/<environment-name>/freem.conf\fR
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
$DISPLAY
Determines the value of the
\fI$PDISPLAY\fR intrinsic special variable. This determines the X11 display used by the M Windowing API. Only applies when FreeM is built with the
\fI--enable-mwapi\fR configuration option.
.TP
$TERM
Used by the
\fI^$DEVICE\fR structured system variable to provide the
\fITERMID\fR value for I/O channel 0.
.TP
$FREEM_LOG_THRESHOLD_FILE
Overrides the configured threshold at which log messages are written to files in
\fI/var/log/freem\fR, corresponding to the
\fIlog_threshold_file\fR environment setting in
\fI$PREFIX/etc/env.conf\fR. The default value is
\fIinfo\fR.
.TP
$FREEM_LOG_THRESHOLD_SYSLOG
Overrides the configured threshold at which log messages are sent to the
\fIsyslog\fR facility on systems that support it, corresponding to the
\fIlog_threshold_syslog\fR environment setting in
\fI$PREFIX/etc/env.conf\fR. The default value is
\fIinfo\fR.
.TP
$FREEM_LOG_THRESHOLD_STDERR
Overrides the configured threshold at which log messages are sent to
\fIstderr\fR, corresponding to the
\fIlog_threshold_stderr\fR environment setting in
\fI$PREFIX/etc/env.conf\fR. The default value is
\fIwarning\fR.
.SH LOG THRESHOLD VALUES
This section details the valid values for each of the
\fI$FREEM_LOG_THRESHOLD_*\fR environment variables, and each value indicates a minimum diagnostic level at which the indicated class of message will be delivered through the selected mechanism. All messages with an equal or higher diagnostic level than the class indicated will be delivered, i.e., if
\fIwarning\fR is selected, messages with a diagnostic class of
\fIwarning\fR,
\fIerror\fR, and
\fIfatal\fR will be delivered through the selected mechanism.

Valid values for each of these environment variables are as follows:
.TP
debug
.RS 4
Messages useful mostly for developers contributing to FreeM itself. Will produce a high volume of log messages, and is likely to impact system performance. Not recommended for production usage.
.RE
.TP
info
.RS 4
Includes messages of an informational nature. Will produce a moderately high volume of log messages. For heavily multi-user and multi-process systems, it is recommended to use
\fIwarning\fR instead.
.RE
.TP
warning
.RS 4
Includes warning messages. These indicate conditions (including retries when attempting to acquire semaphores) that warrant further investigation by the system operator, but do not typically prevent applications from running.
.RE
.TP
error
.RS 4
Includes error messages. This class of messages indicates that a recoverable error has occurred in the FreeM engine. Warrants immediate attention by the system operator.
.RE
.TP
fatal
.RS 4
Includes messages indicating errors that are not recoverable. If this class of message occurs, the process that triggered the message has terminated abnormally. Requires immediate system operator intervention, and can indicate gross misconfiguration of the FreeM engine or the host operating system environment, or even a FreeM bug.
.RE
.SH BUGS
Check the issue tracker at https://bugs.coherent-logic.com for more detailed information on current bugs.
.SH AUTHOR
Provided by Shalom ha-Ashkenaz, 1998/06/18 CE, to the stewardship of the
MUG Deutschland. The GUMP (Generic Universal M Project) took over after this point,
and ownership of the original SourceForge project was handed over to Serena Willis of
Coherent Logic Development LLC in 2014.
.br
The author's identity is a mystery.  Can anyone shed light on this?
.br

.br
Man page written by Ron Fox (rfox@dls.queens.org)
.br
Maintained and updated by Serena Willis (snw@coherent-logic.com)
.SH COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 1998 MUG Deutschland
.br
Copyright (C) 2025 Coherent Logic Development LLC

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
.SH FILES
.PP
$PREFIX/etc/freem/env.conf
.RS 4
FreeM environment catalog
.RE
.PP
$PREFIX/etc/freem/<environment-name>/freem.conf
.RS 4
FreeM per-environment configuration
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.PP
\fBfmadm\fR(8),
\fBenv.conf\fR(5),
\fBfreem.conf\fR(5)