INSTALL

   1 Brief Installation Instructions ===========================================
   2
   3 To build Guile on unix, there are two basic steps:
   4
   5         1. Type "./configure", to configure the package for your system.
   6         2. Type "make", to build the package.
   7
   8 Generic instructions for configuring and compiling GNU distributions
   9 are included below.  For Guile, you might type the commands below.
  10 Their voluminous output is not shown.
  11
  12         $ tar xvfz guile-970416.tar.gz          # unpack the sources
  13         $ cd guile-970416
  14         $ ./configure                           # adapt Guile to your system
  15         $ make                                  # compile Guile
  16         $ make install                          # install in the usual places
  17
  18 (Note: under SunOS 4.1 and HP/UX, you may need to say:
  19         ./configure --disable-shared
  20 Guile's shared library support for that system seems to be confused, but
  21 hey; shared libraries are confusing.)
  22
  23 What You Get ==============================================================
  24
  25 The `configure' script examines your system, and adapts Guile to
  26 compile and run on it.
  27
  28 The `make' command builds several things:
  29 - An executable file `guile/guile', which is an interactive shell for
  30   talking with the Guile Scheme interpreter.
  31 - An object library `libguile/.libs/libguile.a', containing the Guile Scheme
  32   interpreter, ready to be linked into your programs.
  33
  34 To install Guile, type `make install'.  This installs the executable
  35 and libraries mentioned above, as well as Guile's header files and
  36 Scheme libraries.
  37
  38 Make also builds shared libraries, on systems that support them.
  39 Because of the nature of shared libraries, before linking against
  40 them, you should probably install them; `make install' takes care of
  41 this.
  42
  43
  44 Flags Accepted by Configure ===============================================
  45
  46 If you run the configure script with no arguments, it should examine
  47 your system and set things up appropriately.  However, there are a few
  48 switches specific to Guile you may find useful in some circumstances.
  49
  50 --enable-maintainer-mode --- If you have automake, autoconf, and
  51 libtool installed on your system, this switch causes configure to
  52 generate Makefiles which know how to automatically regenerate
  53 configure scripts, makefiles, and headers, when they are out of date.
  54 The README file says which versions of those tools you will need.
  55
  56 --with-threads --- Build a Guile executable and library that supports
  57 cooperative threading.  If you use this switch, Guile will also build
  58 and install the QuickThreads non-preemptive threading library,
  59 libqt.a, which you will need to link into your programs after
  60 libguile.a.  That is, you should pass the switches -lguile -qt to your
  61 linker.
  62
  63 Coop threads are not yet thoroughly tested; once they are, they will
  64 be enabled by default.  The interaction with blocking I/O is pretty ad
  65 hoc at the moment.  In our experience, bugs in the thread support do
  66 not affect you if you don't actually use threads.
  67
  68 At the moment, threads are known not to work with the NetBSD 1.2
  69 assembler.
  70
  71 --enable-dynamic-linking --- Build a Guile executable and library
  72 providing Scheme functions which can load a shared library and
  73 initialize it, perhaps thereby adding new functions to Guile.  This
  74 feature is not yet thoroughly tested; once it is, it will be enabled
  75 by default.  This option has no effect on systems that do not support
  76 shared libraries.
  77
  78 --disable-shared --- Do not build shared libraries.  Normally, Guile
  79 will build shared libraries if your system supports them.  Guile
  80 always builds static libraries.
  81
  82
  83 Using Guile Without Installing It =========================================
  84
  85 If you want to run Guile without installing it, set the environment
  86 variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a colon-separated list of directories,
  87 including the directory containing this INSTALL file.  If you used a
  88 separate build directory, you'll need to include the build directory
  89 in the path as well.
  90
  91 For example, suppose the Guile distribution unpacked into a directory
  92 called `/home/jimb/guile-snap' (so the full name of this file would be
  93 `/home/jimb/guile-snap/INSTALL').  Then you might say:
  94
  95   export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/guile-snap
  96
  97 if you're using Bash or any other Bourne shell variant, or
  98
  99   setenv SCHEME_LOAD_PATH /home/jimb/guile-snap
 100
 101 if you're using CSH or one of its variants.
 102
 103 If you built Guile in a separate directory from the source tree, then
 104 you'll need to include your build directory in the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH as
 105 well.  For example, if you built in a subdirectory of the source tree
 106 called `pentium', you might say:
 107
 108   export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/guile-snap:/home/jimb/guile-snap/pentium
 109
 110
 111 Building a Statically Linked Guile ========================================
 112
 113 Sometimes it's useful to build a statically-linked version of the
 114 Guile executable.  It's helpful in debugging, and for producing
 115 stand-alone executables for distribution to machines you don't
 116 control.
 117
 118 To do this, set the LDFLAGS environment variable to `-static' before
 119 you configure, or before you run the `make' command to build the
 120 executable.
 121
 122
 123 Generic Instructions for Building Auto-Configured Packages ================
 124
 125 To compile this package:
 126
 127 1.  Configure the package for your system.  In the directory that this
 128 file is in, type `./configure'.  If you're using `csh' on an old
 129 version of System V, you might need to type `sh configure' instead to
 130 prevent `csh' from trying to execute `configure' itself.
 131
 132 The `configure' shell script attempts to guess correct values for
 133 various system-dependent variables used during compilation, and
 134 creates the Makefile(s) (one in each subdirectory of the source
 135 directory).  In some packages it creates a C header file containing
 136 system-dependent definitions.  It also creates a file `config.status'
 137 that you can run in the future to recreate the current configuration.
 138 Running `configure' takes a minute or two.
 139
 140 To compile the package in a different directory from the one
 141 containing the source code, you must use GNU make.  `cd' to the
 142 directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
 143 run `configure' with the option `--srcdir=DIR', where DIR is the
 144 directory that contains the source code.  Using this option is
 145 actually unnecessary if the source code is in the parent directory of
 146 the one in which you are compiling; `configure' automatically checks
 147 for the source code in `..' if it does not find it in the current
 148 directory.
 149
 150 By default, `make install' will install the package's files in
 151 /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/lib, /usr/local/man, etc.  You can specify
 152 an installation prefix other than /usr/local by giving `configure' the
 153 option `--prefix=PATH'.  Alternately, you can do so by changing the
 154 `prefix' variable in the Makefile that `configure' creates (the
 155 Makefile in the top-level directory, if the package contains
 156 subdirectories).
 157
 158 You can specify separate installation prefixes for machine-specific
 159 files and machine-independent files.  If you give `configure' the
 160 option `--exec_prefix=PATH', the package will use PATH as the prefix
 161 for installing programs and libraries.  Normally, all files are
 162 installed using the same prefix.
 163
 164 `configure' ignores any other arguments that you give it.
 165
 166 If your system requires unusual options for compilation or linking
 167 that `configure' doesn't know about, you can give `configure' initial
 168 values for some variables by setting them in the environment.  In
 169 Bourne-compatible shells, you can do that on the command line like
 170 this:
 171         CC='gcc -traditional' DEFS=-D_POSIX_SOURCE ./configure
 172
 173 The `make' variables that you might want to override with environment
 174 variables when running `configure' are:
 175
 176 (For these variables, any value given in the environment overrides the
 177 value that `configure' would choose:)
 178 CC              C compiler program.
 179                 Default is `cc', or `gcc' if `gcc' is in your PATH.
 180 INSTALL         Program to use to install files.
 181                 Default is `install' if you have it, `cp' otherwise.
 182 INCLUDEDIR      Directory for `configure' to search for include files.
 183                 Default is /usr/include.
 184
 185 (For these variables, any value given in the environment is added to
 186 the value that `configure' chooses:)
 187 DEFS            Configuration options, in the form '-Dfoo -Dbar ...'
 188 LIBS            Libraries to link with, in the form '-lfoo -lbar ...'
 189
 190 If you need to do unusual things to compile the package, we encourage
 191 you to teach `configure' how to do them and mail the diffs to the
 192 address given in the README so we can include them in the next
 193 release.
 194
 195 2.  Type `make' to compile the package.
 196
 197 3.  Type `make install' to install programs, data files, and
 198 documentation.
 199
 200 4.  You can remove the program binaries and object files from the
 201 source directory by typing `make clean'.  To also remove the
 202 Makefile(s), the header file containing system-dependent definitions
 203 (if the package uses one), and `config.status' (all the files that
 204 `configure' created), type `make distclean'.
 205
 206 The file `configure.in' is used as a template to create `configure' by
 207 a program called `autoconf'.  You will only need it if you want to
 208 regenerate `configure' using a newer version of `autoconf'.