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 1.3.4 release.
   4
   5 This is version 1.3.5 of Guile, Project GNU's extension language
   6 library.  Guile is an interpreter for Scheme, packaged as a library
   7 that you can link into your applications to give them their own
   8 scripting language.  Guile will eventually support other languages as
   9 well, giving users of Guile-based applications a choice of languages.
  10
  11 Please send bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
  12
  13 Guile Documentation ==================================================
  14
  15 There is some preliminary documentation for Guile under the directory
  16 doc.  The real Guile manual is incomplete, and is currently being
  17 revised.  A development snapshot of the manual is available at
  18 ftp.red-bean.com as /pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz.
  19
  20
  21 About This Distribution ==============================================
  22
  23 Interesting files include:
  24 - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile.
  25 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
  26 - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute
  27   Guile, and explains that there is no warranty.
  28
  29 Building and installing this distribution gives you:
  30 guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in
  31         /usr/local/bin.  With no arguments, this is a simple
  32         interactive Scheme interpreter.  It can also be used as an
  33         interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
  34 guile-config --- a Guile script which provides the information necessary
  35         to link your programs against the Guile library.
  36 guile-snarf --- a script to parse declarations in your C code for
  37         Scheme-visible C functions, Scheme objects to be used by C code, etc.
  38 libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
  39         usually installed in /usr/local/lib.  You can use Guile in
  40         your own programs by linking against this.
  41 libqthreads.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads
  42         primitives.  If you enabled thread support when you configured
  43         Guile, you will need to link your code against this too.
  44 libguilereadline.a --- an object library containing glue code for the
  45         GNU readline library.  See NEWS for instructions on how to enable
  46         readline for your personal use.
  47 <libguile.h>, <guile/gh.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for
  48         libguile.a, usually installed in /usr/local/include.
  49 ice-9, ice-9/*.scm --- run-time support for Guile: the module
  50         system, read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other
  51         infrastructure.  Usually installed in
  52         /usr/local/share/guile/<version>.
  53 data-rep.info --- An essay on how to write C code that works with
  54         Guile Scheme values.
  55
  56 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
  57
  58 libguile:
  59         The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
  60         for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
  61 ice-9:  Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
  62 guile-config:
  63         Source for the guile-config script.
  64 qt:     A cooperative threads package from the University of Washington,
  65         which Guile can use.  If you configure Guile with the
  66         --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt
  67         library, found in this directory.  Qt is under a separate
  68         copyright; see `qt/README' for more details.
  69 guile-readline:
  70         The glue code for using GNU readline with Guile.  This
  71         will be build when configure can find a recent enough readline
  72         library on your system.
  73 doc:    Some preliminary documentation for Guile.  The real Guile
  74         manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.
  75         A development snapshot of the manual is available at
  76         ftp.red-bean.com as /pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz.
  77 doc/example-smob: Sample code, discussed in the preliminary
  78         documentation above, for a program that extends Guile with a
  79         new data type, and functions that operate on it.
  80
  81
  82 Anonymous CVS Access and FTP snapshots ===============================
  83
  84 We make the developers' working Guile sources available via anonymous
  85 CVS, and by nightly snapshots, accessible via FTP.  See the files
  86 `ANON-CVS' and `SNAPSHOTS' for details.
  87
  88 If you would like to receive mail when people commit changes to the
  89 Guile CVS repository, you can subscribe to guile-cvs@sourceware.cygnus.com
  90 by sending a message to guile-cvs-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.  Even
  91 better, you can get daily digests of these commit messages by sending
  92 a message to guile-cvs-digest-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.
  93
  94 If you want to subscribe an e-mail address other than the one that
  95 appears in your From: header, say foo@bar.com, send a mail note to
  96 guile-cvs-subscribe-foo=bar.com@sourceware.cygnus.com.
  97
  98
  99 Hacking It Yourself ==================================================
 100
 101 As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system
 102 to compile.  However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a
 103 few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand.  If
 104 you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will
 105 find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile.  They
 106 are the following:
 107
 108 Autoconf 2.13 --- a system for automatically generating `configure'
 109         scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a
 110         program would like to use.  Available in
 111         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf"
 112
 113 Automake 1.4 --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that
 114         conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards.  The
 115         nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make
 116         dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates
 117         Makefile dependencies.  Automake is available in
 118         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/automake"
 119
 120         Before using automake, you may need to copy `threads.m4' and
 121         `guile.m4' from the top directory of the Guile core disty to
 122         `/usr/local/share/aclocal.
 123
 124 libtool 1.3.3 --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed
 125         on various systems to produce shared libraries.  Available in
 126         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/libtool"
 127
 128 You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all
 129 different.
 130 >
 131
 132
 133 Obtaining Guile ======================================================
 134
 135 The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from
 136 ftp.gnu.org, as /pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz.
 137
 138 Via the web, that's:  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz
 139 For getit, that's:    ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz
 140
 141 The mailing list `guile@sourceware.cygnus.com' carries discussions,
 142 questions, and often answers, about Guile.  To subscribe, send mail to
 143 guile-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.  Of course, please send bug
 144 reports (and fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org.  Note that one address is
 145 @sourceware.cygnus.com, and the other is at @gnu.org.