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c484bf7f | 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 | |
e1b6c710 | 6 | Please send bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org. |
86f40248 | 7 | |
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8 | About Snapshots ====================================================== |
9 | ||
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11 | Each night, we make the current Guile sources available via anonymous |
12 | FTP. Please keep in mind that these sources are strictly | |
13 | experimental; they will usually not be well-tested, and may not even | |
14 | compile on some systems. They may contain interfaces which will | |
15 | change. They will usually not be of sufficient quality for use by | |
16 | people not comfortable hacking the innards of Guile. Caveat! | |
17 | ||
18 | However, we're providing them anyway for several reasons. We'd like | |
19 | to encourage people to get involved in developing Guile. People | |
20 | willing to use the bleeding edge of development can get earlier access | |
21 | to new, experimental features. Patches submitted relative to recent | |
22 | snapshots will be easier for us to evaluate and install, since the | |
23 | patch's original sources will be closer to what we're working with. | |
24 | And it allows us to start testing features earlier. | |
25 | ||
26 | Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are available via | |
27 | anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-core-snap.tar.gz. | |
28 | ||
29 | Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-core-snap.tar.gz | |
30 | For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-core-snap.tar.gz | |
31 | ||
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32 | The snapshot FTP site is mirrored at the following locations: |
33 | Austria: ftp://ftp.aec.at/pub/guile | |
34 | Japan: ftp://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/lang/scheme/guile | |
c484bf7f | 35 | |
7fcc90c4 | 36 | |
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37 | About This Distribution ============================================== |
38 | ||
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39 | Building and installing this distribution gives you: |
40 | guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in | |
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41 | /usr/local/bin. With no arguments, this is a simple |
42 | interactive Scheme interpreter. It can also be used as an | |
43 | interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details. | |
49becc4d | 44 | libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter, |
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45 | usually installed in /usr/local/lib. You can use Guile in |
46 | your own programs by linking against this. | |
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47 | libqt.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads primitives. |
48 | If you enabled thread support when you configured Guile, you | |
49 | will need to link your code against this too. | |
49becc4d | 50 | <libguile.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for libguile.a, usually |
cf78e9e8 | 51 | installed in /usr/local/include. |
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52 | ice-9, ice-9/*.scm --- run-time support for Guile: the module |
53 | system, read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other | |
54 | infrastructure. Usually installed in | |
55 | /usr/local/share/guile/<version>. | |
0196b30a | 56 | |
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57 | Interesting files include: |
58 | - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile. | |
59 | - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile. | |
60 | - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute | |
61 | Guile, and explains that there is no warranty. | |
62 | ||
63 | The Guile source tree is laid out as follows: | |
64 | ||
1325feea | 65 | libguile: |
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66 | The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library |
67 | for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run. | |
1325feea | 68 | ice-9: Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure. |
0682f7ab | 69 | |
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70 | qt: A cooperative threads package from Washington University, |
71 | which Guile can use. If you configure Guile with the | |
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72 | --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt |
73 | library, found in this directory. Qt is under a separate | |
74 | copyright; see `qt/README' for more details. | |
ee81f9ca | 75 | |
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76 | (The present release doesn't include any documentation; the Guile |
77 | manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.) | |
78 | ||
4c8980a2 | 79 | |
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80 | Hacking It Yourself ================================================== |
81 | ||
82 | As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system | |
83 | to compile. However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a | |
84 | few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand. If | |
85 | you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will | |
86 | find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile. They | |
87 | are the following: | |
88 | ||
dec4cca9 | 89 | Autoconf 2.12 --- a system for automatically generating `configure' |
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90 | scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a |
91 | program would like to use. Available in | |
92 | "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu". | |
3c555f81 | 93 | |
5798fd97 | 94 | Automake 1.3 --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that |
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95 | conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards. The |
96 | nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make | |
97 | dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates | |
2b272b1e | 98 | Makefile dependencies. Automake is available in |
5798fd97 | 99 | "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu". |
3c555f81 | 100 | |
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101 | Before using automake, you may need to copy `threads.m4' and |
102 | `guile.m4' from the top directory of the Guile core disty to | |
103 | `/usr/local/share/aclocal. | |
104 | ||
5798fd97 | 105 | libtool 1.2 --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed |
cf78e9e8 | 106 | on various systems to produce shared libraries. Available in |
5798fd97 | 107 | "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/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 | Obtaining Guile ====================================================== |
115 | ||
116 | The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from | |
117 | prep.ai.mit.edu, as /pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz. | |
118 | ||
119 | Via the web, that's: ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz | |
120 | For getit, that's: prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz | |
121 | ||
122 | The mailing list `guile@cygnus.com' carries discussions, questions, | |
123 | and often answers, about Guile. To subscribe, send mail to | |
124 | guile-request@cygnus.com. Of course, please send bug reports (and | |
e1b6c710 | 125 | fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org. |
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126 | |
127 | ||
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128 | Authors And Contributors ============================================= |
129 | ||
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130 | Many people have generously contributed to Guile. However, any errors |
131 | are the responsibility of the primary Guile maintainer, Jim Blandy. | |
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132 | |
133 | Mikael Djurfeldt designed and implemented: | |
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134 | * the source-level debugging support (although the debugger's user |
135 | interface is not yet complete) | |
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136 | * stack overflow detection, |
137 | * the GDB patches to support debugging mixed Scheme/C code, | |
9518bec3 | 138 | * the original implementation of weak hash tables, |
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139 | * enhancements to the `threads' interface (based on Anthony Green's |
140 | work), and | |
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141 | * detection of circular references during printing. |
142 | ||
3a629497 | 143 | Mark Galassi contributed the Guile high-level functions (gh_*), and |
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144 | wrote the guile-programmer and guile-user manuals. (These are in the |
145 | process of revision.) | |
146 | ||
3a629497 | 147 | Anthony Green wrote the original version of `threads', the interface |
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148 | between Guile and qt. |
149 | ||
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150 | Gary Houston wrote much of the Unix system call support, including the |
151 | socket support, and did a lot of work on the error handling code. | |
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152 | |
153 | Tom Lord librarified SCM, yielding Guile. He wrote Guile's operating | |
154 | system, Ice-9, and connected Guile to Tcl/Tk and the `rx' regular | |
155 | expression matcher. | |
156 | ||
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157 | Aubrey Jaffer is the author of SCM upon which Guile is based. Guile |
158 | started from SCM version 4e1 in November -94 and is still largely | |
159 | composed of the original SCM code. | |
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160 | |
161 | George Carrette wrote SIOD, a stand-alone scheme interpreter. | |
162 | Although most of this code as been rewritten or replaced over time, | |
163 | the garbage collector from SIOD is still an important part of Guile. |