README

   1 This is version 1.4 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 The doc directory contains a few articles on specific topics and some
  12 examples, including data-rep.texi which describes the internal
  13 representation of data types in Guile.  The example-smob directory
  14 contains example source code for the "Defining New Types (Smobs)" chapter.
  15
  16 The incomplete Guile reference manual is available at
  17
  18   ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz
  19
  20 Neil Jerram is working on the new reference manual, which will be
  21 distributed with guile-core.  The new manual will be synchronized with
  22 the docstrings in the sources.  Until then, please be aware that the
  23 docstrings are likely to be more up-to-date than the old reference
  24 manual (use `(help)' or see libguile/guile-procedures.txt which is
  25 generated by the build process).
  26
  27 The Guile WWW page is at
  28
  29   http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html
  30
  31 It contains a link to the Guile FAQ.
  32
  33 Guile License ==================================================
  34
  35 The license of Guile consists of the GNU GPL plus a special statement
  36 giving blanket permission to link with non-free software.  This is the
  37 license statement as found in any individual file that it applies to:
  38
  39  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
  40  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
  41  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
  42  any later version.
  43
  44  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  45  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  46  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  47  GNU General Public License for more details.
  48
  49  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  50  along with this software; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to
  51  the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330,
  52  Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
  53
  54  As a special exception, the Free Software Foundation gives permission
  55  for additional uses of the text contained in its release of GUILE.
  56
  57  The exception is that, if you link the GUILE library with other files
  58  to produce an executable, this does not by itself cause the
  59  resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License.
  60  Your use of that executable is in no way restricted on account of
  61  linking the GUILE library code into it.
  62
  63  This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why
  64  the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.
  65
  66  This exception applies only to the code released by the
  67  Free Software Foundation under the name GUILE.  If you copy
  68  code from other Free Software Foundation releases into a copy of
  69  GUILE, as the General Public License permits, the exception does
  70  not apply to the code that you add in this way.  To avoid misleading
  71  anyone as to the status of such modified files, you must delete
  72  this exception notice from them.
  73
  74  If you write modifications of your own for GUILE, it is your choice
  75  whether to permit this exception to apply to your modifications.
  76  If you do not wish that, delete this exception notice.
  77
  78 About This Distribution ==============================================
  79
  80 Interesting files include:
  81
  82 - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile.
  83 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
  84
  85 Files are usually installed according to the prefix specified to
  86 configure, /usr/local by default.  Building and installing gives you:
  87
  88 Executables, in ${prefix}/bin:
  89
  90 guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile.  With no arguments, this
  91         is a simple interactive Scheme interpreter.  It can also be used
  92         as an interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
  93 guile-config --- a Guile script which provides the information necessary
  94         to link your programs against the Guile library.
  95 guile-snarf --- a script to parse declarations in your C code for
  96         Scheme-visible C functions, Scheme objects to be used by C code,
  97         etc.
  98
  99 Libraries, in ${prefix}/lib.  Depending on the platform and options
 100         given to configure, you may get shared libraries in addition
 101         to or instead of these static libraries:
 102
 103 libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
 104         You can use Guile in your own programs by linking against this.
 105 libqthreads.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads
 106         primitives.  If you enabled thread support when you configured
 107         Guile, you will need to link your code against this too.
 108 libguilereadline.a --- an object library containing glue code for the
 109         GNU readline library.  See NEWS for instructions on how to enable
 110         readline for your personal use.
 111
 112 Header files, in ${prefix}/include:
 113
 114 libguile.h, guile/gh.h, libguile/*.h --- for libguile.
 115 guile-readline/readline.h --- for guile-readline.
 116
 117 Support files, in ${prefix}/share/guile/<version>:
 118
 119 ice-9/* --- run-time support for Guile: the module system,
 120         read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other infrastructure.
 121
 122 Automake macros, in ${prefix}/share/aclocal:
 123
 124 guile.m4
 125
 126 Documentation in Info format, in ${prefix}/info:
 127
 128 data-rep.info --- an essay on how to write C code that works with
 129         Guile Scheme values.
 130
 131 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
 132
 133 libguile:
 134         The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
 135         for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
 136 ice-9:  Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
 137 guile-config:
 138         Source for the guile-config script.
 139 qt:     A cooperative threads package from the University of Washington,
 140         which Guile can use.  If you configure Guile with the
 141         --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt
 142         library, found in this directory.  Qt is under a separate
 143         copyright; see `qt/README' for more details.
 144 guile-readline:
 145         The glue code for using GNU readline with Guile.  This
 146         will be build when configure can find a recent enough readline
 147         library on your system.
 148 doc:    Documentation (see above).
 149
 150 Anonymous CVS Access and FTP snapshots ===============================
 151
 152 We make the developers' working Guile sources available via anonymous
 153 CVS, and by nightly snapshots, accessible via FTP.  See the files
 154 `ANON-CVS' and `SNAPSHOTS' for details.
 155
 156 If you would like to receive mail when people commit changes to the
 157 Guile CVS repository, you can subscribe to guile-cvs@sourceware.cygnus.com
 158 by sending a message to guile-cvs-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.  Even
 159 better, you can get daily digests of these commit messages by sending
 160 a message to guile-cvs-digest-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.
 161
 162 If you want to subscribe an e-mail address other than the one that
 163 appears in your From: header, say foo@bar.com, send a mail note to
 164 guile-cvs-subscribe-foo=bar.com@sourceware.cygnus.com.
 165
 166
 167 Obtaining Guile ======================================================
 168
 169 The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from
 170
 171 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.4.tar.gz
 172
 173 The mailing list `guile@sourceware.cygnus.com' carries discussions,
 174 questions, and often answers, about Guile.  To subscribe, send mail to
 175 guile-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.  Of course, please send bug
 176 reports (and fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org.  Note that one address is
 177 @sourceware.cygnus.com, and the other is at @gnu.org.