README

   1 This is release 1.3.4 of Guile, Project GNU's extension language
   2 library.  Guile is an interpreter for Scheme, packaged as a library
   3 that you can link into your applications to give them their own
   4 scripting language.  Guile will eventually support other languages as
   5 well, giving users of Guile-based applications a choice of languages.
   6
   7 Please send bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
   8
   9 Guile Documentation ==================================================
  10
  11 There is some preliminary documentation for Guile under the directory
  12 doc.  The real Guile manual is incomplete, and is currently being
  13 revised.  A development snapshot of the manual is available at
  14 ftp.red-bean.com as /pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz.
  15
  16
  17 About This Distribution ==============================================
  18
  19 Interesting files include:
  20 - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile.
  21 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
  22 - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute
  23   Guile, and explains that there is no warranty.
  24
  25 Building and installing this distribution gives you:
  26 guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in
  27         /usr/local/bin.  With no arguments, this is a simple
  28         interactive Scheme interpreter.  It can also be used as an
  29         interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
  30 guile-config --- a Guile script which provides the information necessary
  31         to link your programs against the Guile library.
  32 guile-snarf --- a script to parse declarations in your C code for
  33         Scheme-visible C functions, Scheme objects to be used by C code, etc.
  34 libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
  35         usually installed in /usr/local/lib.  You can use Guile in
  36         your own programs by linking against this.
  37 libqthreads.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads
  38         primitives.  If you enabled thread support when you configured
  39         Guile, you will need to link your code against this too.
  40 <libguile.h>, <guile/gh.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for
  41         libguile.a, usually installed in /usr/local/include.
  42 ice-9, ice-9/*.scm --- run-time support for Guile: the module
  43         system, read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other
  44         infrastructure.  Usually installed in
  45         /usr/local/share/guile/<version>.
  46 data-rep.info --- An essay on how to write C code that works with
  47         Guile Scheme values.
  48
  49 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
  50
  51 libguile:
  52         The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
  53         for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
  54 ice-9:  Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
  55 guile-config:
  56         Source for the guile-config script.
  57 qt:     A cooperative threads package from the University of Washington,
  58         which Guile can use.  If you configure Guile with the
  59         --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt
  60         library, found in this directory.  Qt is under a separate
  61         copyright; see `qt/README' for more details.
  62 doc:    Some preliminary documentation for Guile.  The real Guile
  63         manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.
  64         A development snapshot of the manual is available at
  65         ftp.red-bean.com as /pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz.
  66 doc/example-smob: Sample code, discussed in the preliminary
  67         documentation above, for a program that extends Guile with a
  68         new data type, and functions that operate on it.
  69
  70
  71 Anonymous CVS Access and FTP snapshots ===============================
  72
  73 We make the developers' working Guile sources available via anonymous
  74 CVS, and by nightly snapshots, accessible via FTP.  See the files
  75 `ANON-CVS' and `SNAPSHOTS' for details.
  76
  77 If you would like to receive mail when people commit changes to the
  78 Guile CVS repository, you can subscribe to guile-cvs@sourceware.cygnus.com
  79 by sending a message to guile-cvs-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.  Even
  80 better, you can get daily digests of these commit messages by sending
  81 a message to guile-cvs-digest-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.
  82
  83 If you want to subscribe an e-mail address other than the one that
  84 appears in your From: header, say foo@bar.com, send a mail note to
  85 guile-cvs-subscribe-foo=bar.com@sourceware.cygnus.com.
  86
  87
  88 Hacking It Yourself ==================================================
  89
  90 As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system
  91 to compile.  However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a
  92 few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand.  If
  93 you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will
  94 find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile.  They
  95 are the following:
  96
  97 Autoconf 2.13 --- a system for automatically generating `configure'
  98         scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a
  99         program would like to use.  Available in
 100         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf"
 101
 102 Automake 1.4 --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that
 103         conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards.  The
 104         nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make
 105         dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates
 106         Makefile dependencies.  Automake is available in
 107         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/automake"
 108
 109         Before using automake, you may need to copy `threads.m4' and
 110         `guile.m4' from the top directory of the Guile core disty to
 111         `/usr/local/share/aclocal.
 112
 113 libtool 1.3.3 --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed
 114         on various systems to produce shared libraries.  Available in
 115         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/libtool"
 116
 117 You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all
 118 different.
 119 >
 120
 121
 122 Obtaining Guile ======================================================
 123
 124 The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from
 125 ftp.gnu.org, as /pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz.
 126
 127 Via the web, that's:  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz
 128 For getit, that's:    ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz
 129
 130 The mailing list `guile@sourceware.cygnus.com' carries discussions,
 131 questions, and often answers, about Guile.  To subscribe, send mail to
 132 guile-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.  Of course, please send bug
 133 reports (and fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org.  Note that one address is
 134 @sourceware.cygnus.com, and the other is at @gnu.org.