README

   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 1.4 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. 1.5.* 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 can use a number of external packages such as `readline' when
  31 they are available.  Guile expects to be able to find these packages
  32 in the default compiler setup, it does not try to make any special
  33 arrangements itself.  For example, for the `readline' package, Guile
  34 expects to be able to find the include file <readline/readline.h>,
  35 without passing any special `-I' options to the compiler.
  36
  37 If you installed an external package, and you used the --prefix
  38 installation option to install it somewhere else than /usr/local, you
  39 must arrange for your compiler to find it by default.  If that
  40 compiler is gcc, one convenient way of making such arrangements is to
  41 use the --with-local-prefix option during installation, naming the
  42 same directory as you used in the --prefix option of the package.  In
  43 particular, it is not good enough to use the same --prefix option when
  44 you install gcc and the package; you need to use the
  45 --with-local-prefix option as well.  See the gcc documentation for
  46 more details.
  47
  48
  49 Special Instructions For Some Systems =====================================
  50
  51 We would like Guile to build on all systems using the simple
  52 instructions above, but it seems that a few systems still need special
  53 treatment.  If you can send us fixes for these problems, we'd be
  54 grateful.
  55
  56 SunOS 4.1: Guile's shared library support seems to be confused, but
  57     hey; shared libraries are confusing.  You may need to configure
  58     Guile with a command like:
  59         ./configure --disable-shared
  60     For more information on `--disable-shared', see below, "Flags
  61     Accepted by Configure".
  62
  63 HP/UX: GCC 2.7.2 (and maybe other versions) have trouble creating
  64     shared libraries if they depend on any non-shared libraries.  GCC
  65     seems to have other problems as well.  To work around this, we
  66     suggest you configure Guile to use the system's C compiler:
  67         CC=cc ./configure
  68
  69 NetBSD: Perry Metzger says, "Guile will build under NetBSD only using
  70     gmake -- the native make will not work.  (gmake is in our package
  71     system, so this will not be a problem when we packagize 1.3.)"
  72
  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 cooperative
  83   threading.  If you use this switch, Guile will also build and
  84   install the QuickThreads non-preemptive threading library,
  85   libqthreads, which you will need to link into your programs after
  86   libguile.  When you use `guile-config', you will pick up all
  87   neccessary linker flags automatically.
  88
  89   Cooperative threads are not yet thoroughly tested; once they are,
  90   they will be enabled by default.  The interaction with blocking I/O
  91   is pretty ad hoc at the moment.  In our experience, bugs in the
  92   thread support do not affect you if you don't actually use threads.
  93
  94 --with-modules  ---  Specify statically linked `modules'
  95
  96   Guile can dynamically load `plugin modules' during runtime, using
  97   facilities provided by libtool.  Not all platforms support this,
  98   however.  On these platforms, you can statically link the plugin
  99   modules into libguile when Guile itself is built.  XXX - how does
 100   one specify the modules?
 101
 102 --enable-deprecated=LEVEL
 103
 104   Guile may contain features that are `deprecated'.  When a feature is
 105   deprecated, it means that it is still there and fully functional,
 106   but that there is a better way of achieving the same thing, and we'd
 107   rather have you use this better way.  This allows us to eventually
 108   remove the old implementation and helps to keep Guile reasonably
 109   clean of historic baggage.
 110
 111   See the file NEWS for a list of features that are currently
 112   deprecated.  Each entry will also tell you what you should replace
 113   your code with.
 114
 115   To give you some help with this process, and to encourage (OK,
 116   nudge) people to switch to the newer methods, Guile can emit
 117   warnings or errors when you use a deprecated feature.  There is
 118   quite a range of possibilities, from being completely silent to
 119   giving errors at link time.  What exactly happens is determined both
 120   by the value of the `--enable-deprecated' configuration option when
 121   Guile was built, and by the GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED environment
 122   variable.
 123
 124   It works like this:
 125
 126     When Guile has been configured with `--enable-deprecated=no' (or,
 127     equivalently, with `--disable-deprecated') then all deprecated
 128     features are omitted from Guile.  You will get "undefined
 129     reference", "variable unbound" or similar errors when you try to
 130     use them.
 131
 132     When `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' has been specified (for LEVEL not
 133     "no"), LEVEL will be used as the default value of the environment
 134     variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED.  A value of "yes" is changed to
 135     "summary" and "shutup" is changed to "no", however.
 136
 137     When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "no", nothing special
 138     will happen when a deprecated feature is used.
 139
 140     When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "summary", and a
 141     deprecated feature has been used, Guile will print this message at
 142     exit:
 143
 144       Some deprecated features have been used.  Set the environment
 145       variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED to "detailed" and rerun the
 146       program to get more information.  Set it to "no" to suppress
 147       this message.
 148
 149     When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "detailed", a detailed
 150     warning is emitted immediatly for the first use of a deprecated
 151     feature.
 152
 153   The default is `--enable-deprecated=yes'.
 154
 155 --disable-shared  ---  Do not build shared libraries.
 156 --disable-static  ---  Do not build static libraries.
 157
 158   Normally, both static and shared libraries will be built if your
 159   system supports them.
 160
 161
 162 --enable-debug-freelist  ---  Enable freelist debugging.
 163
 164   This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also
 165   registers an extra primitive, the setter
 166   `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
 167
 168   Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable the
 169   gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
 170
 171   (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t)  # turn on checking of the freelist
 172   (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f)  # turn off checking
 173
 174   Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and a
 175   garbage collection before each allocation of a cell.  This can slow
 176   down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
 177   turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
 178
 179
 180 --enable-debug-malloc  ---  Enable malloc debugging.
 181
 182   Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
 183
 184   Checks that
 185
 186   1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
 187   2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
 188      scm_must_malloc
 189   3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
 190
 191   But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
 192   each kind.  This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
 193
 194   A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
 195   `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
 196   number of objects of that kind.
 197
 198
 199 --enable-guile-debug  ---  Include internal debugging functions
 200 --disable-arrays      ---  omit array and uniform array support
 201 --disable-posix       ---  omit posix interfaces
 202 --disable-networking  ---  omit networking interfaces
 203 --disable-regex       ---  omit regular expression interfaces
 204
 205
 206 Cross building Guile  =====================================================
 207
 208 As of guile-1.5.x, the build process uses compiled C files for
 209 snarfing, and (indirectly, through libtool) for linking, and uses the
 210 guile executable for generating documentation.
 211
 212 When cross building guile, you first need to configure, build and
 213 install guile for your build host.
 214
 215 Then, you may configure guile for cross building, eg:
 216
 217     ./configure --host=i686-pc-cygwin --disable-shared
 218
 219 Two special options for cross building are available:
 220
 221 --with-cc-for-build      --- native C compiler, to be used during build
 222                              defaults to: `PATH=/usr/bin:$PATH cc'
 223
 224 --with-guile-for-build   --- native Guile executable, to be used during build
 225                              defaults to: `guile', assuming you just
 226                              installed this guile natively.
 227
 228
 229 Using Guile Without Installing It =========================================
 230
 231 If you want to run Guile without installing it, set the environment
 232 variable `GUILE_LOAD_PATH' to a colon-separated list of directories,
 233 including the directory containing this INSTALL file.  If you used a
 234 separate build directory, you'll need to include the build directory
 235 in the path as well.
 236
 237 For example, suppose the Guile distribution unpacked into a directory
 238 called `/home/jimb/guile-snap' (so the full name of this INSTALL file
 239 would be `/home/jimb/guile-snap/INSTALL').  Then you might say, if
 240 you're using Bash or any other Bourne shell variant,
 241
 242   export GUILE_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/guile-snap
 243
 244 or if you're using CSH or one of its variants:
 245
 246   setenv GUILE_LOAD_PATH /home/jimb/guile-snap
 247
 248 You will additionally need to set your `LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH' environment
 249 variable to the directory in which the compiled SRFI support modules
 250 are created if you want to use the modules for SRFI-4, SRFI-13 or
 251 SRFI-14 support.  Similar to the example above, this will be,
 252
 253   export LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/jimb/guile-snap/srfi/.libs
 254
 255 or if you're using CSH or one of its variants:
 256
 257   setenv LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH /home/jimb/guile-snap/srfi/.libs
 258
 259
 260 Installing SLIB ===========================================================
 261
 262 In order to use SLIB from Guile you basically only need to put the
 263 `slib' directory _in_ one of the directories on Guile's load path.
 264
 265 The standard installation is:
 266
 267   1. Obtain slib from http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~jaffer/SLIB.html
 268
 269   2. Put it in Guile's data directory, that is the directory printed when
 270      you type
 271
 272        guile-config info pkgdatadir
 273
 274      at the shell prompt.  This is normally `/usr/local/share/guile', so the
 275      directory will normally have full path `/usr/local/share/guile/slib'.
 276
 277   3. Start guile as a user with write access to the data directory and type
 278
 279        (use-modules (ice-9 slib))
 280
 281      at the Guile prompt.  This will generate the slibcat catalog next to
 282      the slib directory.
 283
 284 SLIB's `require' is provided by the Guile module (ice-9 slib).
 285
 286 Example:
 287
 288   (use-modules (ice-9 slib))
 289   (require 'primes)
 290   (prime? 7)
 291
 292 Guile Documentation ==================================================
 293
 294 The doc directory contains a few articles on specific topics and some
 295 examples, including data-rep.texi which describes the internal
 296 representation of data types in Guile.  The example-smob directory
 297 contains example source code for the "Defining New Types (Smobs)" chapter.
 298
 299 The incomplete Guile reference manual is available at
 300
 301   ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz
 302
 303 Neil Jerram is working on the new reference manual, which will be
 304 distributed with guile-core.  The new manual will be synchronized with
 305 the docstrings in the sources.  Until then, please be aware that the
 306 docstrings are likely to be more up-to-date than the old reference
 307 manual (use `(help)' or see libguile/guile-procedures.txt which is
 308 generated by the build process).
 309
 310 The Guile WWW page is at
 311
 312   http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html
 313
 314 It contains a link to the Guile FAQ.
 315
 316 About This Distribution ==============================================
 317
 318 Interesting files include:
 319
 320 - LICENSE, which contains the exact terms of the Guile license.
 321 - COPYING, which contains the terms of the GNU General Public License.
 322 - INSTALL, which contains general instructions for building/installing Guile.
 323 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
 324
 325 Files are usually installed according to the prefix specified to
 326 configure, /usr/local by default.  Building and installing gives you:
 327
 328 Executables, in ${prefix}/bin:
 329
 330  guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile.  With no arguments, this
 331         is a simple interactive Scheme interpreter.  It can also be used
 332         as an interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
 333  guile-config --- a Guile script which provides the information necessary
 334         to link your programs against the Guile library.
 335  guile-snarf --- a script to parse declarations in your C code for
 336         Scheme-visible C functions, Scheme objects to be used by C code,
 337         etc.
 338  guile-tools --- a wrapper to invoke the executable modules in
 339         subdirectory `scripts' (also installed).
 340
 341 Libraries, in ${prefix}/lib.  Depending on the platform and options
 342         given to configure, you may get shared libraries in addition
 343         to or instead of these static libraries:
 344
 345  libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
 346         You can use Guile in your own programs by linking against this.
 347  libqthreads.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads
 348         primitives.  If you enabled thread support when you configured
 349         Guile, you will need to link your code against this too.
 350  libguilereadline.a --- an object library containing glue code for the
 351          GNU readline library.  See NEWS for instructions on how to enable
 352         readline for your personal use.
 353  libguile-srfi-*.a --- various SRFI support libraries
 354
 355 Header files, in ${prefix}/include:
 356
 357  libguile.h, guile/gh.h, libguile/*.h --- for libguile.
 358  guile-readline/readline.h --- for guile-readline.
 359
 360 Support files, in ${prefix}/share/guile/<version>:
 361
 362  ice-9/* --- run-time support for Guile: the module system,
 363         read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other infrastructure.
 364  oop/* --- the Guile Object-Oriented Programming System (GOOPS)
 365  scripts/* --- executable modules, i.e., scheme programs that can be both
 366         called as an executable from the shell, and loaded and used as a
 367         module from scheme code.  See scripts/README for more info.
 368  srfi/* --- SRFI support modules.  See srfi/README for more info.
 369
 370 Automake macros, in ${prefix}/share/aclocal:
 371
 372  guile.m4
 373
 374 Documentation in Info format, in ${prefix}/info:
 375
 376  guile --- Guile reference manual.
 377
 378  guile-tut --- Guile tutorial.
 379
 380  GOOPS --- GOOPS reference manual.
 381
 382  r5rs --- Revised(5) Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme.
 383
 384
 385 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
 386
 387 libguile:
 388         The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
 389         for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
 390 ice-9:  Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
 391 guile-config:
 392         Source for the guile-config script.
 393 qt:     A cooperative threads package from the University of Washington,
 394         which Guile can use.  If you configure Guile with the
 395         --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt
 396         library, found in this directory.  Qt is under a separate
 397         copyright; see `qt/README' for more details.
 398 guile-readline:
 399         The glue code for using GNU readline with Guile.  This
 400         will be build when configure can find a recent enough readline
 401         library on your system.
 402 doc:    Documentation (see above).
 403
 404 Anonymous CVS Access and FTP snapshots ===============================
 405
 406 We make the developers' working Guile sources available via anonymous
 407 CVS, and by nightly snapshots, accessible via FTP.  See the files
 408 `ANON-CVS' and `SNAPSHOTS' for details.
 409
 410 If you would like to receive mail when people commit changes to the
 411 Guile CVS repository, you can subscribe to guile-cvs@gnu.org by the
 412 Mailman mailing list interface at
 413
 414   <http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-cvs>
 415
 416
 417 Obtaining Guile ======================================================
 418
 419 The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from
 420
 421 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.4.tar.gz
 422
 423 The mailing list `guile-user@gnu.org' carries discussions, questions,
 424 and often answers, about Guile.  To subscribe, use the Mailman mailing
 425 list interface at <http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-user>
 426 Of course, please send bug reports (and fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org.