| 1 | !!! This is not a Guile release; it is a source tree retrieved via |
| 2 | anonymous CVS or as a nightly snapshot at some random time after the |
| 3 | Guile 1.6 release. If this were a Guile release, you would not see |
| 4 | this message. !!! [fixme: zonk on release] |
| 5 | |
| 6 | This is a 1.7 development version of Guile, Project GNU's extension |
| 7 | language library. Guile is an interpreter for Scheme, packaged as a |
| 8 | library that you can link into your applications to give them their |
| 9 | own scripting language. Guile will eventually support other languages |
| 10 | as well, giving users of Guile-based applications a choice of |
| 11 | languages. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | Guile versions with an odd middle number, i.e. 1.7.* are unstable |
| 14 | development versions. Even middle numbers indicate stable versions. |
| 15 | This has been the case since the 1.3.* series. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | The next stable release will be version 1.8.0. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Please send bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | See the LICENSE file for the specific terms that apply to Guile. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | |
| 24 | Additional INSTALL instructions =========================================== |
| 25 | |
| 26 | Generic instructions for configuring and compiling Guile can be found |
| 27 | in the INSTALL file. Guile specific information and configure options |
| 28 | can be found below, including instructions for installing SLIB. |
| 29 | |
| 30 | Guile requires a few external packages and can optionally use a number |
| 31 | of external packages such as `readline' when they are available. |
| 32 | Guile expects to be able to find these packages in the default |
| 33 | compiler setup, it does not try to make any special arrangements |
| 34 | itself. For example, for the `readline' package, Guile expects to be |
| 35 | able to find the include file <readline/readline.h>, without passing |
| 36 | any special `-I' options to the compiler. |
| 37 | |
| 38 | If you installed an external package, and you used the --prefix |
| 39 | installation option to install it somewhere else than /usr/local, you |
| 40 | must arrange for your compiler to find it by default. If that |
| 41 | compiler is gcc, one convenient way of making such arrangements is to |
| 42 | use the --with-local-prefix option during installation, naming the |
| 43 | same directory as you used in the --prefix option of the package. In |
| 44 | particular, it is not good enough to use the same --prefix option when |
| 45 | you install gcc and the package; you need to use the |
| 46 | --with-local-prefix option as well. See the gcc documentation for |
| 47 | more details. |
| 48 | |
| 49 | |
| 50 | Required External Packages ================================================ |
| 51 | |
| 52 | Guile requires the following external packages: |
| 53 | |
| 54 | - GNU MP, at least version 4.1 |
| 55 | |
| 56 | GNU MP is used for bignum arithmetic. It is available from |
| 57 | http://swox.com/gmp |
| 58 | |
| 59 | - libltdl from libtool, at least from libtool version 1.5.6 |
| 60 | |
| 61 | libltdl is used for loading extensions at run-time. It is |
| 62 | available from http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/ |
| 63 | |
| 64 | |
| 65 | Special Instructions For Some Systems ===================================== |
| 66 | |
| 67 | We would like Guile to build on all systems using the simple |
| 68 | instructions above, but it seems that a few systems still need special |
| 69 | treatment. If you can send us fixes for these problems, we'd be |
| 70 | grateful. |
| 71 | |
| 72 | <none yet listed> |
| 73 | |
| 74 | Guile specific flags Accepted by Configure ================================= |
| 75 | |
| 76 | If you run the configure script with no arguments, it should examine |
| 77 | your system and set things up appropriately. However, there are a few |
| 78 | switches specific to Guile you may find useful in some circumstances. |
| 79 | |
| 80 | --with-threads --- Build with thread support |
| 81 | |
| 82 | Build a Guile executable and library that supports multi-threading. |
| 83 | |
| 84 | The default is to enable threading support when your operating |
| 85 | system offsers 'POSIX threads'. When you do not want threading, use |
| 86 | `--without-threads'. |
| 87 | |
| 88 | --enable-deprecated=LEVEL |
| 89 | |
| 90 | Guile may contain features that are `deprecated'. When a feature is |
| 91 | deprecated, it means that it is still there, but that there is a |
| 92 | better way of achieving the same thing, and we'd rather have you use |
| 93 | this better way. This allows us to eventually remove the old |
| 94 | implementation and helps to keep Guile reasonably clean of historic |
| 95 | baggage. |
| 96 | |
| 97 | Deprecated features are considered harmful; using them is likely a |
| 98 | bug. See below for the related notion of `discouraged' features, |
| 99 | which are OK but have fallen out of favor. |
| 100 | |
| 101 | See the file NEWS for a list of features that are currently |
| 102 | deprecated. Each entry will also tell you what you should replace |
| 103 | your code with. |
| 104 | |
| 105 | To give you some help with this process, and to encourage (OK, |
| 106 | nudge) people to switch to the newer methods, Guile can emit |
| 107 | warnings or errors when you use a deprecated feature. There is |
| 108 | quite a range of possibilities, from being completely silent to |
| 109 | giving errors at link time. What exactly happens is determined both |
| 110 | by the value of the `--enable-deprecated' configuration option when |
| 111 | Guile was built, and by the GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED environment |
| 112 | variable. |
| 113 | |
| 114 | It works like this: |
| 115 | |
| 116 | When Guile has been configured with `--enable-deprecated=no' (or, |
| 117 | equivalently, with `--disable-deprecated') then all deprecated |
| 118 | features are omitted from Guile. You will get "undefined |
| 119 | reference", "variable unbound" or similar errors when you try to |
| 120 | use them. |
| 121 | |
| 122 | When `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' has been specified (for LEVEL not |
| 123 | "no"), LEVEL will be used as the default value of the environment |
| 124 | variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED. A value of "yes" is changed to |
| 125 | "summary" and "shutup" is changed to "no", however. |
| 126 | |
| 127 | When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "no", nothing special |
| 128 | will happen when a deprecated feature is used. |
| 129 | |
| 130 | When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "summary", and a |
| 131 | deprecated feature has been used, Guile will print this message at |
| 132 | exit: |
| 133 | |
| 134 | Some deprecated features have been used. Set the environment |
| 135 | variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED to "detailed" and rerun the |
| 136 | program to get more information. Set it to "no" to suppress |
| 137 | this message. |
| 138 | |
| 139 | When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "detailed", a detailed |
| 140 | warning is emitted immediatly for the first use of a deprecated |
| 141 | feature. |
| 142 | |
| 143 | The default is `--enable-deprecated=yes'. |
| 144 | |
| 145 | In addition to setting GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED in the environment, you |
| 146 | can also use (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) and (debug-disable |
| 147 | 'warn-deprecated) to enable and disable the detailed messaged at run |
| 148 | time. |
| 149 | |
| 150 | --disable-discouraged |
| 151 | |
| 152 | In addition to deprecated features, Guile can also contain things |
| 153 | that are merely `discouraged'. It is OK to continue to use these |
| 154 | features in old code, but new code should avoid them since there are |
| 155 | better alternatives. |
| 156 | |
| 157 | There is nothing wrong with a discouraged feature per se, but they |
| 158 | might have strange names, or be non-standard, for example. Avoiding |
| 159 | them will make your code better. |
| 160 | |
| 161 | --disable-shared --- Do not build shared libraries. |
| 162 | --disable-static --- Do not build static libraries. |
| 163 | |
| 164 | Normally, both static and shared libraries will be built if your |
| 165 | system supports them. |
| 166 | |
| 167 | --enable-debug-freelist --- Enable freelist debugging. |
| 168 | |
| 169 | This enables a debugging version of scm_cell and scm_double_cell, |
| 170 | and also registers an extra primitive, the setter |
| 171 | `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'. |
| 172 | |
| 173 | Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable the |
| 174 | gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use: |
| 175 | |
| 176 | (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist |
| 177 | (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking |
| 178 | |
| 179 | Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and a |
| 180 | garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can slow |
| 181 | down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to |
| 182 | turn on this extra processing only when necessary. |
| 183 | |
| 184 | --enable-debug-malloc --- Enable malloc debugging. |
| 185 | |
| 186 | Include code for debugging of calls to scm_malloc, scm_realloc, etc. |
| 187 | |
| 188 | It records the number of allocated objects of each kind. This is |
| 189 | useful when searching for memory leaks. |
| 190 | |
| 191 | A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive |
| 192 | `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the |
| 193 | number of objects of that kind. |
| 194 | |
| 195 | --enable-guile-debug --- Include internal debugging functions |
| 196 | --disable-arrays --- omit array and uniform array support |
| 197 | --disable-posix --- omit posix interfaces |
| 198 | --disable-networking --- omit networking interfaces |
| 199 | --disable-regex --- omit regular expression interfaces |
| 200 | |
| 201 | |
| 202 | Cross building Guile ===================================================== |
| 203 | |
| 204 | As of guile-1.5.x, the build process uses compiled C files for |
| 205 | snarfing, and (indirectly, through libtool) for linking, and uses the |
| 206 | guile executable for generating documentation. |
| 207 | |
| 208 | When cross building guile, you first need to configure, build and |
| 209 | install guile for your build host. |
| 210 | |
| 211 | Then, you may configure guile for cross building, eg: |
| 212 | |
| 213 | ./configure --host=i686-pc-cygwin --disable-shared |
| 214 | |
| 215 | A C compiler for the build system is required. The default is |
| 216 | "PATH=/usr/bin:$PATH cc". If that doesn't suit it can be specified |
| 217 | with the CC_FOR_BUILD variable in the usual way, for instance |
| 218 | |
| 219 | ./configure --host=m68k-unknown-linux-gnu CC_FOR_BUILD=/my/local/gcc |
| 220 | |
| 221 | Guile for the build system can be specified similarly with the |
| 222 | GUILE_FOR_BUILD variable, it defaults to just "guile". |
| 223 | |
| 224 | |
| 225 | Using Guile Without Installing It ========================================= |
| 226 | |
| 227 | The top directory of the Guile sources contains a script called |
| 228 | "pre-inst-guile" that can be used to run the Guile that has just been |
| 229 | built. |
| 230 | |
| 231 | |
| 232 | Installing SLIB =========================================================== |
| 233 | |
| 234 | In order to use SLIB from Guile you basically only need to put the |
| 235 | `slib' directory _in_ one of the directories on Guile's load path. |
| 236 | |
| 237 | The standard installation is: |
| 238 | |
| 239 | 1. Obtain slib from http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~jaffer/SLIB.html |
| 240 | |
| 241 | 2. Put it in Guile's data directory, that is the directory printed when |
| 242 | you type |
| 243 | |
| 244 | guile-config info pkgdatadir |
| 245 | |
| 246 | at the shell prompt. This is normally `/usr/local/share/guile', so the |
| 247 | directory will normally have full path `/usr/local/share/guile/slib'. |
| 248 | |
| 249 | 3. Start guile as a user with write access to the data directory and type |
| 250 | |
| 251 | (use-modules (ice-9 slib)) |
| 252 | |
| 253 | at the Guile prompt. This will generate the slibcat catalog next to |
| 254 | the slib directory. |
| 255 | |
| 256 | SLIB's `require' is provided by the Guile module (ice-9 slib). |
| 257 | |
| 258 | Example: |
| 259 | |
| 260 | (use-modules (ice-9 slib)) |
| 261 | (require 'primes) |
| 262 | (prime? 7) |
| 263 | |
| 264 | |
| 265 | Guile Documentation ================================================== |
| 266 | |
| 267 | If you've never used Scheme before, then the Guile Tutorial |
| 268 | (guile-tut.info) is a good starting point. The Guile Reference Manual |
| 269 | (guile.info) is the primary documentation for Guile. The Goops object |
| 270 | system is documented separately (goops.info). A copy of the R5RS |
| 271 | Scheme specification is included too (r5rs.info). |
| 272 | |
| 273 | Info format versions of this documentation are installed as part of |
| 274 | the normal build process. The texinfo sources are under the doc |
| 275 | directory, and other formats like Postscript, PDF, DVI or HTML can be |
| 276 | generated from them with Tex and Texinfo tools. |
| 277 | |
| 278 | The doc directory also includes an example-smob subdirectory which has |
| 279 | the example code from the "Defining New Types (Smobs)" chapter of the |
| 280 | reference manual. |
| 281 | |
| 282 | The Guile WWW page is at |
| 283 | |
| 284 | http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html |
| 285 | |
| 286 | It contains a link to the Guile FAQ. |
| 287 | |
| 288 | About This Distribution ============================================== |
| 289 | |
| 290 | Interesting files include: |
| 291 | |
| 292 | - LICENSE, which contains the exact terms of the Guile license. |
| 293 | - COPYING, which contains the terms of the GNU General Public License. |
| 294 | - INSTALL, which contains general instructions for building/installing Guile. |
| 295 | - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile. |
| 296 | |
| 297 | Files are usually installed according to the prefix specified to |
| 298 | configure, /usr/local by default. Building and installing gives you: |
| 299 | |
| 300 | Executables, in ${prefix}/bin: |
| 301 | |
| 302 | guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile. With no arguments, this |
| 303 | is a simple interactive Scheme interpreter. It can also be used |
| 304 | as an interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details. |
| 305 | guile-config --- a Guile script which provides the information necessary |
| 306 | to link your programs against the Guile library. |
| 307 | guile-snarf --- a script to parse declarations in your C code for |
| 308 | Scheme-visible C functions, Scheme objects to be used by C code, |
| 309 | etc. |
| 310 | |
| 311 | Libraries, in ${prefix}/lib. Depending on the platform and options |
| 312 | given to configure, you may get shared libraries in addition |
| 313 | to or instead of these static libraries: |
| 314 | |
| 315 | libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter, |
| 316 | You can use Guile in your own programs by linking against this. |
| 317 | libguilereadline.a --- an object library containing glue code for the |
| 318 | GNU readline library. |
| 319 | |
| 320 | libguile-srfi-*.a --- various SRFI support libraries |
| 321 | |
| 322 | Header files, in ${prefix}/include: |
| 323 | |
| 324 | libguile.h, guile/gh.h, libguile/*.h --- for libguile. |
| 325 | guile-readline/readline.h --- for guile-readline. |
| 326 | |
| 327 | Support files, in ${prefix}/share/guile/<version>: |
| 328 | |
| 329 | ice-9/* --- run-time support for Guile: the module system, |
| 330 | read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other infrastructure. |
| 331 | oop/* --- the Guile Object-Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) |
| 332 | scripts/* --- executable modules, i.e., scheme programs that can be both |
| 333 | called as an executable from the shell, and loaded and used as a |
| 334 | module from scheme code. See scripts/README for more info. |
| 335 | srfi/* --- SRFI support modules. See srfi/README for more info. |
| 336 | |
| 337 | Automake macros, in ${prefix}/share/aclocal: |
| 338 | |
| 339 | guile.m4 |
| 340 | |
| 341 | Documentation in Info format, in ${prefix}/info: |
| 342 | |
| 343 | guile --- Guile reference manual. |
| 344 | |
| 345 | guile-tut --- Guile tutorial. |
| 346 | |
| 347 | GOOPS --- GOOPS reference manual. |
| 348 | |
| 349 | r5rs --- Revised(5) Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme. |
| 350 | |
| 351 | |
| 352 | The Guile source tree is laid out as follows: |
| 353 | |
| 354 | libguile: |
| 355 | The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library |
| 356 | for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run. |
| 357 | ice-9: Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure. |
| 358 | guile-config: |
| 359 | Source for the guile-config script. |
| 360 | qt: A cooperative threads package from the University of Washington, |
| 361 | which Guile can use. If you configure Guile with the |
| 362 | --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt |
| 363 | library, found in this directory. Qt is under a separate |
| 364 | copyright; see `qt/README' for more details. |
| 365 | guile-readline: |
| 366 | The glue code for using GNU readline with Guile. This |
| 367 | will be build when configure can find a recent enough readline |
| 368 | library on your system. |
| 369 | doc: Documentation (see above). |
| 370 | |
| 371 | Anonymous CVS Access and FTP snapshots =============================== |
| 372 | |
| 373 | We make the developers' working Guile sources available via anonymous |
| 374 | CVS, and by nightly snapshots, accessible via FTP. See the files |
| 375 | `ANON-CVS' and `SNAPSHOTS' for details. |
| 376 | |
| 377 | If you would like to receive mail when people commit changes to the |
| 378 | Guile CVS repository, you can subscribe to guile-cvs@gnu.org by the |
| 379 | Mailman mailing list interface at |
| 380 | |
| 381 | <http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-cvs> |
| 382 | |
| 383 | |
| 384 | Obtaining Guile ====================================================== |
| 385 | |
| 386 | The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from |
| 387 | |
| 388 | ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.4.tar.gz |
| 389 | |
| 390 | The mailing list `guile-user@gnu.org' carries discussions, questions, |
| 391 | and often answers, about Guile. To subscribe, use the Mailman mailing |
| 392 | list interface at <http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-user> |
| 393 | Of course, please send bug reports (and fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org. |