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14725cbb | 1 | This is release 1.3 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 This Distribution ============================================== |
9 | ||
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10 | Building and installing this distribution gives you: |
11 | guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in | |
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12 | /usr/local/bin. With no arguments, this is a simple |
13 | interactive Scheme interpreter. It can also be used as an | |
14 | interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details. | |
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15 | guile-config --- a Guile script which provides the information necessary |
16 | to link your programs against the Guile library. | |
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17 | guile-snarf --- a script to parse declarations in your C code for |
18 | Scheme-visible C functions, Scheme objects to be used by C code, etc. | |
49becc4d | 19 | libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter, |
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20 | usually installed in /usr/local/lib. You can use Guile in |
21 | your own programs by linking against this. | |
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22 | libqthreads.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads |
23 | primitives. If you enabled thread support when you configured | |
24 | Guile, you will need to link your code against this too. | |
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25 | <libguile.h>, <guile/gh.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for |
26 | libguile.a, usually installed in /usr/local/include. | |
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27 | ice-9, ice-9/*.scm --- run-time support for Guile: the module |
28 | system, read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other | |
29 | infrastructure. Usually installed in | |
30 | /usr/local/share/guile/<version>. | |
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31 | data-rep.info --- An essay on how to write C code that works with |
32 | Guile Scheme values. | |
0196b30a | 33 | |
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34 | Interesting files include: |
35 | - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile. | |
36 | - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile. | |
37 | - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute | |
38 | Guile, and explains that there is no warranty. | |
39 | ||
40 | The Guile source tree is laid out as follows: | |
41 | ||
1325feea | 42 | libguile: |
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43 | The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library |
44 | for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run. | |
1325feea | 45 | ice-9: Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure. |
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46 | guile-config: |
47 | Source for the guile-config script. | |
9a3c1149 | 48 | qt: A cooperative threads package from the University of Washington, |
cf78e9e8 | 49 | which Guile can use. If you configure Guile with the |
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50 | --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt |
51 | library, found in this directory. Qt is under a separate | |
52 | copyright; see `qt/README' for more details. | |
17f8d40c | 53 | doc: Some preliminary documentation for Guile. The real Guile |
14725cbb | 54 | manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised. |
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55 | doc/example-smob: Sample code, discussed in the preliminary |
56 | documentation above, for a program that extends Guile with a | |
57 | new data type, and functions that operate on it. | |
1dfe003f | 58 | |
4c8980a2 | 59 | |
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60 | Anonymous CVS Access and FTP snapshots =============================== |
61 | ||
62 | We make the developers' working Guile sources available via anonymous | |
63 | CVS, and by nightly snapshots, accessible via FTP. See the files | |
64 | `ANON-CVS' and `SNAPSHOTS' for details. | |
65 | ||
66 | ||
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67 | Hacking It Yourself ================================================== |
68 | ||
69 | As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system | |
70 | to compile. However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a | |
71 | few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand. If | |
72 | you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will | |
73 | find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile. They | |
74 | are the following: | |
75 | ||
dec4cca9 | 76 | Autoconf 2.12 --- a system for automatically generating `configure' |
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77 | scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a |
78 | program would like to use. Available in | |
79 | "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu". | |
3c555f81 | 80 | |
5798fd97 | 81 | Automake 1.3 --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that |
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82 | conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards. The |
83 | nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make | |
84 | dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates | |
2b272b1e | 85 | Makefile dependencies. Automake is available in |
5798fd97 | 86 | "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu". |
3c555f81 | 87 | |
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88 | Before using automake, you may need to copy `threads.m4' and |
89 | `guile.m4' from the top directory of the Guile core disty to | |
90 | `/usr/local/share/aclocal. | |
91 | ||
5798fd97 | 92 | libtool 1.2 --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed |
cf78e9e8 | 93 | on various systems to produce shared libraries. Available in |
5798fd97 | 94 | "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu". |
3c555f81 | 95 | |
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96 | You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all |
97 | different. | |
cf78e9e8 | 98 | > |
05264287 | 99 | |
3c555f81 | 100 | |
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101 | Obtaining Guile ====================================================== |
102 | ||
103 | The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from | |
14725cbb | 104 | prep.ai.mit.edu, as /pub/gnu/guile-1.3.tar.gz. |
c484bf7f | 105 | |
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106 | Via the web, that's: ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/guile-1.3.tar.gz |
107 | For getit, that's: prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/guile-1.3.tar.gz | |
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108 | |
109 | The mailing list `guile@cygnus.com' carries discussions, questions, | |
110 | and often answers, about Guile. To subscribe, send mail to | |
111 | guile-request@cygnus.com. Of course, please send bug reports (and | |
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112 | fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org. Note that one address is @cygnus.com, |
113 | and the other is at @gnu.org. | |
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114 | |
115 | ||
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116 | Authors And Contributors ============================================= |
117 | ||
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118 | Many people have generously contributed to Guile. However, any errors |
119 | are the responsibility of the primary Guile maintainer, Jim Blandy. | |
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120 | |
121 | Mikael Djurfeldt designed and implemented: | |
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122 | * the source-level debugging support (although the debugger's user |
123 | interface is not yet complete) | |
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124 | * stack overflow detection, |
125 | * the GDB patches to support debugging mixed Scheme/C code, | |
9518bec3 | 126 | * the original implementation of weak hash tables, |
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127 | * enhancements to the `threads' interface (based on Anthony Green's |
128 | work), and | |
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129 | * detection of circular references during printing. |
130 | ||
3a629497 | 131 | Mark Galassi contributed the Guile high-level functions (gh_*), and |
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132 | wrote the guile-programmer and guile-user manuals. (These are in the |
133 | process of revision.) | |
134 | ||
3a629497 | 135 | Anthony Green wrote the original version of `threads', the interface |
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136 | between Guile and qt. |
137 | ||
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138 | Gary Houston wrote much of the Unix system call support, including the |
139 | socket support, and did a lot of work on the error handling code. | |
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140 | |
141 | Tom Lord librarified SCM, yielding Guile. He wrote Guile's operating | |
142 | system, Ice-9, and connected Guile to Tcl/Tk and the `rx' regular | |
143 | expression matcher. | |
144 | ||
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145 | Aubrey Jaffer is the author of SCM upon which Guile is based. Guile |
146 | started from SCM version 4e1 in November -94 and is still largely | |
147 | composed of the original SCM code. | |
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148 | |
149 | George Carrette wrote SIOD, a stand-alone scheme interpreter. | |
150 | Although most of this code as been rewritten or replaced over time, | |
151 | the garbage collector from SIOD is still an important part of Guile. |