### 3.1.1 How to enter and exit

SINGULAR can either be run in an ASCII-terminal or within Emacs.

To start SINGULAR in its ASCII-terminal user interface, enter `Singular` at the system prompt. The SINGULAR banner appears which, among other data, reports the version and the compilation date.

To start SINGULAR in its Emacs user interface, either enter `ESingular` at the system prompt, or type `M-x singular` within a running Emacs (provided you have loaded the file `singular.el` in your running Emacs, see Running SINGULAR under Emacs for details).

Generally, we recommend to use SINGULAR in its Emacs interface, since this offers many more features and is more convenient to use than the ASCII-terminal interface (see Emacs user interface).

To exit SINGULAR type `quit;`, `exit;` or `$` (or, when running within Emacs preferably type `C-c $`).

SINGULAR and `ESingular` may also be started with command line options and with filenames as arguments. More generally, the startup syntax is

    Singular  [options] [file1 [file2 ...]]
    ESingular  [options] [file1 [file2 ...]]

See Command line options, Startup sequence, Running SINGULAR under Emacs.

User manual for Singular version 4.4.1, 2025, generated by texi2html.