print the command described by a command descriptor
Major Section:  HISTORY

:pc 3    ; print the third command executed
:pc :max ; print the most recent command
:pc :x   ; print the most recent command
:pc fn   ; print the command that introduced fn
See command-descriptor.

Pc takes one argument, a command descriptor, and prints the command identified by that descriptor. See command-descriptor. For example

ACL2 !>:pc foo
 LVd     52 (DEFUN FOO (X) X)
Pc always prints a space first, followed by three (possibly blank) characters (``LVd'' above) explained below. Then pc prints the command number, a number uniquely identifying the command's position in the sequence of commands since the beginning of the user's session. Finally, the command itself is printed.

While pc always prints a space first, some history commands, for example :pcs and :pe, use the first column of output to delimit a region of commands or to point to a particular event within a command.

For example, :pcs 52 54 will print something like

/LVd     52 (DEFUN FOO (X) X)
 LV      53 (DEFUN BAR (X) (CONS X X))
\        54 (DEFTHM FOO-BAR (EQUAL (CAR (BAR X)) (FOO X)))
          : ...
        127 (DEFUN LATEST (X) X)
Here, the two slash characters in the first column are intended to suggest a bracket delimiting commands 52 through 54. The last command printed by pcs is always the most recent command, i.e., the command at :here, and is separated from the rest of the display by an elipsis if some commands are omitted.

Similarly, the :pe command will print a particular event within a command block and will indicate that event by printing a ``>'' in the first column. The symbol is intended to be an arrow pointing at the event in question.

For example, :pe true-listp-app might print:

         1 (INCLUDE-BOOK "list-book")
                    (EQUAL (TRUE-LISTP (APP A B)) (TRUE-LISTP B)))
using the arrow to indicate the event itself. The slash printed to connect the command, include-book, with the event, defthm, is intended to suggest a tree branch indicating that the event is inferior to (and part of) the command.

The mysterious three characters sometimes preceding a command have the following interpretations. The first two have to do with the function symbols introduced by the command and are blank if no symbols were introduced.

At any time we can classify our function symbols into three disjoint sets, which we will here name with characters. The ``P'' functions are those in :program mode. The ``L'' functions are those in :logic mode whose guards have not been verified. The ``V'' functions are those in :logic mode whose guards have been verified. Note that verify-termination and verify-guards cause function symbols to be reclassified. If a command introduces function symbols then the first mysterious character indicates the class of the symbols at the time of introduction and the second character indicates the current class of the symbols (if the current class is different from the introductory class).

Thus, the display

 PLd     52 (DEFUN FOO (X) X)
tells us that command 52 introduced a :program function but that some command after 52 changed its mode to :logic and that the guards of foo have not been verified. That is, foo's termination has been verified even though it was not verified as part of the command that introduced foo. Had a subsequent command verified the guards of foo, the display would contain a V where the L is.

The display

 P d     52 (DEFUN FOO (X) X)
indicates that foo was introduced in :program mode and still is in that mode.

The third character indicates the enabled/disabled status of the runes introduced by the command. If the status character is blank then all the runes (if any) introduced are enabled. If the status character is ``D'' then some runes were introduced and they are all disabled. If the status character is ``d'' then at least one, but not all, of the runes introduced is disabled. Thus, in the display

 L d     52 (DEFUN FOO (X) X)
we see that some rune introduced by command 52 is disabled. As noted in the documentation for rune, a defun command introduces many runes, e.g., the axiomatic definition rule, (:definition fn), the executable counterpart rule, (:executable-counterpart fn), and type-prescriptions, (:type-prescription fn). The display above does not say which of the runes based on foo is disabled, but it does tell us one of them is; see disabledp for how to obtain the disabled runes for a given function symbol.