Commit | Line | Data |
---|---|---|
c484bf7f | 1 | This is a nightly snapshot of Guile, a portable, embeddable Scheme |
9518bec3 JB |
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 | |
86f40248 JB |
6 | Please send bug reports to bug-guile@prep.ai.mit.edu. |
7 | ||
c484bf7f JB |
8 | About Snapshots ====================================================== |
9 | ||
86f40248 | 10 | |
c484bf7f JB |
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 | ||
86f40248 JB |
32 | The development FTP site is mirrored nightly in Europe at |
33 | ftp://ftp.aec.at/pub/guile. | |
c484bf7f | 34 | |
7fcc90c4 | 35 | |
cf78e9e8 JB |
36 | About This Distribution ============================================== |
37 | ||
49becc4d JB |
38 | Building and installing this distribution gives you: |
39 | guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in | |
cf78e9e8 JB |
40 | /usr/local/bin. With no arguments, this is a simple |
41 | interactive Scheme interpreter. It can also be used as an | |
42 | interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details. | |
49becc4d | 43 | libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter, |
cf78e9e8 JB |
44 | usually installed in /usr/local/lib. You can use Guile in |
45 | your own programs by linking against this. | |
1dfe003f JB |
46 | libqt.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads primitives. |
47 | If you enabled thread support when you configured Guile, you | |
48 | will need to link your code against this too. | |
49becc4d | 49 | <libguile.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for libguile.a, usually |
cf78e9e8 | 50 | installed in /usr/local/include. |
9a8b5764 TP |
51 | ice-9, ice-9/*.scm --- run-time support for Guile: the module |
52 | system, read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other | |
53 | infrastructure. Usually installed in | |
54 | /usr/local/share/guile/<version>. | |
0196b30a | 55 | |
5c54da76 JB |
56 | Interesting files include: |
57 | - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile. | |
58 | - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile. | |
59 | - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute | |
60 | Guile, and explains that there is no warranty. | |
61 | ||
62 | The Guile source tree is laid out as follows: | |
63 | ||
1325feea | 64 | libguile: |
cf78e9e8 JB |
65 | The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library |
66 | for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run. | |
1325feea | 67 | ice-9: Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure. |
0682f7ab | 68 | |
cf78e9e8 JB |
69 | qt: A cooperative threads package from Washington University, |
70 | which Guile can use. If you configure Guile with the | |
3a629497 JB |
71 | --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt |
72 | library, found in this directory. Qt is under a separate | |
73 | copyright; see `qt/README' for more details. | |
ee81f9ca | 74 | |
1dfe003f JB |
75 | (The present release doesn't include any documentation; the Guile |
76 | manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.) | |
77 | ||
4c8980a2 | 78 | |
3c555f81 JB |
79 | Hacking It Yourself ================================================== |
80 | ||
81 | As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system | |
82 | to compile. However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a | |
83 | few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand. If | |
84 | you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will | |
85 | find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile. They | |
86 | are the following: | |
87 | ||
dec4cca9 | 88 | Autoconf 2.12 --- a system for automatically generating `configure' |
cf78e9e8 JB |
89 | scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a |
90 | program would like to use. Available in | |
91 | "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu". | |
3c555f81 | 92 | |
cb0a5b39 | 93 | Automake 1.2c --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that |
cf78e9e8 JB |
94 | conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards. The |
95 | nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make | |
96 | dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates | |
2b272b1e | 97 | Makefile dependencies. Automake is available in |
cf78e9e8 | 98 | "ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/tromey". |
3c555f81 | 99 | |
2b272b1e JB |
100 | Before using automake, you may need to copy `threads.m4' and |
101 | `guile.m4' from the top directory of the Guile core disty to | |
102 | `/usr/local/share/aclocal. | |
103 | ||
476f3c84 | 104 | libtool 1.0c --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed |
cf78e9e8 JB |
105 | on various systems to produce shared libraries. Available in |
106 | "ftp://alpha.gnu.ai.mit.edu/gnu". | |
3c555f81 | 107 | |
05264287 JB |
108 | You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all |
109 | different. | |
cf78e9e8 | 110 | > |
05264287 | 111 | |
3c555f81 | 112 | |
c484bf7f JB |
113 | Obtaining Guile ====================================================== |
114 | ||
115 | The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from | |
116 | prep.ai.mit.edu, as /pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz. | |
117 | ||
118 | Via the web, that's: ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz | |
119 | For getit, that's: prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz | |
120 | ||
121 | The mailing list `guile@cygnus.com' carries discussions, questions, | |
122 | and often answers, about Guile. To subscribe, send mail to | |
123 | guile-request@cygnus.com. Of course, please send bug reports (and | |
124 | fixes!) to bug-guile@prep.ai.mit.edu. | |
125 | ||
126 | ||
9518bec3 JB |
127 | Authors And Contributors ============================================= |
128 | ||
01cf3840 JB |
129 | Many people have generously contributed to Guile. However, any errors |
130 | are the responsibility of the primary Guile maintainer, Jim Blandy. | |
9518bec3 JB |
131 | |
132 | Mikael Djurfeldt designed and implemented: | |
01cf3840 JB |
133 | * the source-level debugging support (although the debugger's user |
134 | interface is not yet complete) | |
2a786759 JB |
135 | * stack overflow detection, |
136 | * the GDB patches to support debugging mixed Scheme/C code, | |
9518bec3 | 137 | * the original implementation of weak hash tables, |
c5ac623b JB |
138 | * enhancements to the `threads' interface (based on Anthony Green's |
139 | work), and | |
2a786759 JB |
140 | * detection of circular references during printing. |
141 | ||
3a629497 | 142 | Mark Galassi contributed the Guile high-level functions (gh_*), and |
01cf3840 JB |
143 | wrote the guile-programmer and guile-user manuals. (These are in the |
144 | process of revision.) | |
145 | ||
3a629497 | 146 | Anthony Green wrote the original version of `threads', the interface |
01cf3840 JB |
147 | between Guile and qt. |
148 | ||
c5ac623b JB |
149 | Gary Houston wrote much of the Unix system call support, including the |
150 | socket support, and did a lot of work on the error handling code. | |
01cf3840 JB |
151 | |
152 | Tom Lord librarified SCM, yielding Guile. He wrote Guile's operating | |
153 | system, Ice-9, and connected Guile to Tcl/Tk and the `rx' regular | |
154 | expression matcher. | |
155 | ||
156 | Aubrey Jaffer seriously tuned performance and added features. He | |
157 | designed many hairy but beautiful parts of the tag system and | |
158 | evaluator. | |
159 | ||
160 | George Carrette wrote SIOD, a stand-alone scheme interpreter. | |
161 | Although most of this code as been rewritten or replaced over time, | |
162 | the garbage collector from SIOD is still an important part of Guile. |