diff --git a/src/compiler/GF/Command/Commands.hs b/src/compiler/GF/Command/Commands.hs
index d320396d5..c82ee79af 100644
--- a/src/compiler/GF/Command/Commands.hs
+++ b/src/compiler/GF/Command/Commands.hs
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ import PGF.Macros
 import PGF.Data ----
 import PGF.Morphology
 import PGF.Printer
+import PGF.ToAPI
 import PGF.Probabilistic -- (getProbsFromFile,prProbabilities,defaultProbabilities)
 import PGF.Generate (generateRandomFrom) ----
 import PGF.Tree (Tree(Fun), expr2tree, tree2expr)
@@ -851,6 +852,11 @@ allCommands env@(pgf, mos) = Map.fromList [
      exec = \opts es ->
        if isOpt "mk" opts
        then return $ fromString $ unlines $ map (tree2mk pgf) es  
+       else if isOpt "api" opts
+       then do 
+         ss <- mapM exprToAPIIO es
+         mapM_ putStrLn ss
+         return void
        else do
          let funs = not (isOpt "nofun" opts)
          let cats = not (isOpt "nocat" opts)
@@ -869,7 +875,8 @@ allCommands env@(pgf, mos) = Map.fromList [
        "p \"hello\" | vt -view=\"open\" -- parse a string and display trees on a Mac"
        ],
      options = [
-       ("mk", "show the tree with function names converted to 'mkC' with value cats C"),
+       ("api", "show the tree with function names converted to 'mkC' with value cats C"),
+       ("mk",  "similar to -api, deprecated"),
        ("nofun","don't show functions but only categories"),
        ("nocat","don't show categories but only functions")
        ],
diff --git a/src/runtime/haskell/PGF/ToApi.hs b/src/runtime/haskell/PGF/ToApi.hs
index 41ccb2248..e22132c34 100644
--- a/src/runtime/haskell/PGF/ToApi.hs
+++ b/src/runtime/haskell/PGF/ToApi.hs
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 module PGF.ToAPI 
- (stringToAPI,exprToAPI)
+ (stringToAPI,exprToAPI,exprToAPIIO)
   where
 
 import PGF.Expr
@@ -14,6 +14,10 @@ import qualified Data.Map as Map
 import PGF.Signature
 
 
+--- this will be changed
+exprToAPIIO :: Expr -> IO String
+exprToAPIIO = exprToAPI   -- return . exprToAPI
+
 
 -- intermediate structure for representing the translated expression
 data APIfunc = BasicFunc String | AppFunc String [APIfunc] | NoAPI