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cf78e9e8 | 1 | This is a nightly snapshot of Guile, a portable, embeddable Scheme |
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2 | implementation written in C. Guile provides a machine independent |
3 | execution platform that can be linked in as a library when building | |
4 | extensible programs. | |
7fcc90c4 | 5 | |
9518bec3 | 6 | Please send bug reports to bug-guile@prep.ai.mit.edu. |
7fcc90c4 | 7 | |
4c8980a2 | 8 | |
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9 | Important Facts About Snapshots ====================================== |
10 | ||
11 | Please keep in mind that these sources are strictly experimental; they | |
12 | will usually not be well-tested, and may not even compile on some | |
13 | systems. They may contain interfaces which will change. They will | |
14 | usually not be of sufficient quality for use by people not comfortable | |
15 | hacking the innards of Guile. Caveat! | |
16 | ||
17 | However, we're providing them anyway for several reasons. We'd like | |
18 | to encourage people to get involved in developing Guile. People | |
19 | willing to use the bleeding edge of development can get earlier access | |
20 | to new, experimental features. Patches submitted relative to recent | |
21 | snapshots will be easier for us to evaluate and install, since the | |
22 | patch's original sources will be closer to what we're working with. | |
23 | And it allows us to start testing features earlier. | |
24 | ||
25 | Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are available via | |
59b8e23b | 26 | anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz. |
cf78e9e8 | 27 | |
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28 | Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz |
29 | For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz | |
cf78e9e8 | 30 | |
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31 | |
32 | The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from | |
5761caf8 | 33 | prep.ai.mit.edu, as /pub/gnu/guile-1.1.tar.gz. |
9518bec3 | 34 | |
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35 | Via the web, that's: ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/guile-1.1.tar.gz |
36 | For getit, that's: prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/guile-1.1.tar.gz | |
fb21f202 | 37 | |
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38 | The mailing list `guile@cygnus.com' carries discussions, questions, |
39 | and often answers, about Guile. To subscribe, send mail to | |
40 | guile-request@cygnus.com. Of course, please send bug reports (and | |
41 | fixes!) to bug-guile@prep.ai.mit.edu. | |
42 | ||
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43 | |
44 | About This Distribution ============================================== | |
45 | ||
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46 | Building and installing this distribution gives you: |
47 | guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in | |
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48 | /usr/local/bin. With no arguments, this is a simple |
49 | interactive Scheme interpreter. It can also be used as an | |
50 | interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details. | |
49becc4d | 51 | libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter, |
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52 | usually installed in /usr/local/lib. You can use Guile in |
53 | your own programs by linking against this. | |
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54 | libqt.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads primitives. |
55 | If you enabled thread support when you configured Guile, you | |
56 | will need to link your code against this too. | |
49becc4d | 57 | <libguile.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for libguile.a, usually |
cf78e9e8 | 58 | installed in /usr/local/include. |
0196b30a | 59 | |
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60 | |
61 | Interesting files include: | |
62 | - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile. | |
63 | - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile. | |
64 | - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute | |
65 | Guile, and explains that there is no warranty. | |
66 | ||
67 | The Guile source tree is laid out as follows: | |
68 | ||
1325feea | 69 | libguile: |
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70 | The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library |
71 | for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run. | |
1325feea | 72 | ice-9: Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure. |
0682f7ab | 73 | |
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74 | qt: A cooperative threads package from Washington University, |
75 | which Guile can use. If you configure Guile with the | |
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76 | --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt |
77 | library, found in this directory. Qt is under a separate | |
78 | copyright; see `qt/README' for more details. | |
ee81f9ca | 79 | |
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80 | (The present release doesn't include any documentation; the Guile |
81 | manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.) | |
82 | ||
4c8980a2 | 83 | |
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84 | Hacking It Yourself ================================================== |
85 | ||
86 | As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system | |
87 | to compile. However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a | |
88 | few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand. If | |
89 | you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will | |
90 | find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile. They | |
91 | are the following: | |
92 | ||
dec4cca9 | 93 | Autoconf 2.12 --- a system for automatically generating `configure' |
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94 | scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a |
95 | program would like to use. Available in | |
96 | "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu". | |
3c555f81 | 97 | |
3628c737 | 98 | Automake 1.1p --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that |
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99 | conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards. The |
100 | nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make | |
101 | dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates | |
102 | Makefile dependencies. Available in | |
103 | "ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/tromey". | |
3c555f81 | 104 | |
12afb619 | 105 | libtool 0.9d --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed |
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106 | on various systems to produce shared libraries. Available in |
107 | "ftp://alpha.gnu.ai.mit.edu/gnu". | |
3c555f81 | 108 | |
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109 | You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all |
110 | different. | |
cf78e9e8 | 111 | > |
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3c555f81 | 113 | |
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114 | Authors And Contributors ============================================= |
115 | ||
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116 | Many people have generously contributed to Guile. However, any errors |
117 | are the responsibility of the primary Guile maintainer, Jim Blandy. | |
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118 | |
119 | Mikael Djurfeldt designed and implemented: | |
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120 | * the source-level debugging support (although the debugger's user |
121 | interface is not yet complete) | |
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122 | * stack overflow detection, |
123 | * the GDB patches to support debugging mixed Scheme/C code, | |
9518bec3 | 124 | * the original implementation of weak hash tables, |
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125 | * enhancements to the `threads' interface (based on Anthony Green's |
126 | work), and | |
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127 | * detection of circular references during printing. |
128 | ||
3a629497 | 129 | Mark Galassi contributed the Guile high-level functions (gh_*), and |
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130 | wrote the guile-programmer and guile-user manuals. (These are in the |
131 | process of revision.) | |
132 | ||
3a629497 | 133 | Anthony Green wrote the original version of `threads', the interface |
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134 | between Guile and qt. |
135 | ||
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136 | Gary Houston wrote much of the Unix system call support, including the |
137 | socket support, and did a lot of work on the error handling code. | |
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138 | |
139 | Tom Lord librarified SCM, yielding Guile. He wrote Guile's operating | |
140 | system, Ice-9, and connected Guile to Tcl/Tk and the `rx' regular | |
141 | expression matcher. | |
142 | ||
143 | Aubrey Jaffer seriously tuned performance and added features. He | |
144 | designed many hairy but beautiful parts of the tag system and | |
145 | evaluator. | |
146 | ||
147 | George Carrette wrote SIOD, a stand-alone scheme interpreter. | |
148 | Although most of this code as been rewritten or replaced over time, | |
149 | the garbage collector from SIOD is still an important part of Guile. |