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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. | |
4 | ||
f2a75d81 RB |
5 | This is a 1.5 development version of Guile, Project GNU's extension |
6 | language library. Guile is an interpreter for Scheme, packaged as a | |
7 | library that you can link into your applications to give them their | |
8 | own scripting language. Guile will eventually support other languages | |
9 | as well, giving users of Guile-based applications a choice of | |
10 | languages. | |
11 | ||
12 | Guile versions with an odd middle number, i.e. 1.5.* are unstable | |
13 | development versions. Even middle numbers indicate stable versions. | |
14 | This has been the case since the 1.3.* series. | |
15 | ||
16 | The next stable release will be version 1.6.0. | |
7fcc90c4 | 17 | |
e1b6c710 | 18 | Please send bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org. |
86f40248 | 19 | |
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20 | Guile Documentation ================================================== |
21 | ||
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22 | The doc directory contains a few articles on specific topics and some |
23 | examples, including data-rep.texi which describes the internal | |
24 | representation of data types in Guile. The example-smob directory | |
25 | contains example source code for the "Defining New Types (Smobs)" chapter. | |
394a535e | 26 | |
ae8de16e | 27 | The incomplete Guile reference manual is available at |
ae8de16e | 28 | |
b5074b23 MD |
29 | ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz |
30 | ||
31 | Neil Jerram is working on the new reference manual, which will be | |
32 | distributed with guile-core. The new manual will be synchronized with | |
33 | the docstrings in the sources. Until then, please be aware that the | |
34 | docstrings are likely to be more up-to-date than the old reference | |
35 | manual (use `(help)' or see libguile/guile-procedures.txt which is | |
ae8de16e | 36 | generated by the build process). |
394a535e | 37 | |
b5074b23 MD |
38 | The Guile WWW page is at |
39 | ||
40 | http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html | |
41 | ||
42 | It contains a link to the Guile FAQ. | |
43 | ||
677ac809 MV |
44 | Guile License ================================================== |
45 | ||
46 | The license of Guile consists of the GNU GPL plus a special statement | |
47 | giving blanket permission to link with non-free software. This is the | |
48 | license statement as found in any individual file that it applies to: | |
49 | ||
50 | This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify | |
51 | it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by | |
52 | the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) | |
53 | any later version. | |
54 | ||
55 | This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, | |
56 | but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of | |
57 | MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the | |
58 | GNU General Public License for more details. | |
59 | ||
60 | You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License | |
61 | along with this software; see the file COPYING. If not, write to | |
62 | the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, | |
63 | Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA | |
64 | ||
65 | As a special exception, the Free Software Foundation gives permission | |
66 | for additional uses of the text contained in its release of GUILE. | |
67 | ||
68 | The exception is that, if you link the GUILE library with other files | |
69 | to produce an executable, this does not by itself cause the | |
70 | resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License. | |
71 | Your use of that executable is in no way restricted on account of | |
72 | linking the GUILE library code into it. | |
73 | ||
74 | This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why | |
75 | the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License. | |
76 | ||
77 | This exception applies only to the code released by the | |
78 | Free Software Foundation under the name GUILE. If you copy | |
79 | code from other Free Software Foundation releases into a copy of | |
80 | GUILE, as the General Public License permits, the exception does | |
81 | not apply to the code that you add in this way. To avoid misleading | |
82 | anyone as to the status of such modified files, you must delete | |
83 | this exception notice from them. | |
84 | ||
85 | If you write modifications of your own for GUILE, it is your choice | |
86 | whether to permit this exception to apply to your modifications. | |
87 | If you do not wish that, delete this exception notice. | |
88 | ||
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89 | Handling of Deprecated Features ====================================== |
90 | ||
91 | Guile may contain features that are `deprecated'. When a feature is | |
92 | deprecated, it means that it is still there and fully functional, but | |
93 | that there is a better way of achieving the same thing, and we'd | |
94 | rather have you use this better way. This allows us to eventually | |
95 | remove the old implementation and helps to keep Guile reasonably clean | |
96 | of historic baggage. | |
97 | ||
98 | See the file NEWS for a list of features that are currently | |
99 | deprecated. Each entry will also tell you what you should replace | |
100 | your code with. | |
101 | ||
102 | To give you some help with this process, and to encourage (OK, nudge) | |
103 | people to switch to the newer methods, Guile can emit warnings or | |
104 | errors when you use a deprecated feature. There is quite a range of | |
105 | possibilities, from being completely silent to giving errors at link | |
106 | time. What exactly happens is determined both by the value of the | |
107 | `--enable-deprecated' configuration option when Guile was built, and | |
108 | by the GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED environment variable. | |
109 | ||
110 | It works like this: | |
111 | ||
112 | When Guile has been configured with `--enable-deprecated=no' (or, | |
113 | equivalently, with `--disable-deprecated') then all deprecated | |
114 | features are omitted from Guile. You will get "undefined | |
115 | reference", "variable unbound" or similar errors when you try to use | |
116 | them. | |
117 | ||
118 | When `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' has been specified (for LEVEL not | |
119 | "no"), LEVEL will be used as the default value of the environment | |
120 | variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED. A value of "yes" is changed to | |
c10ecc4c | 121 | "summary" and "shutup" is changed to "no", however. |
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122 | |
123 | When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION has the value "no", nothing special will | |
124 | happen when a deprecated feature is used. | |
125 | ||
126 | When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION has the value "summary", and a deprecated | |
127 | feature has been used, Guile will print this message at exit: | |
128 | ||
129 | Some deprecated features have been used. Set the environment | |
130 | variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED to "detailed" and rerun the program | |
131 | to get more information. Set it to "no" to suppress this message. | |
132 | ||
133 | When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION has the value "detailed", a detailed | |
134 | warning is emitted immediatly for the first use of a deprecated | |
135 | feature. | |
136 | ||
c10ecc4c | 137 | The default is `--enable-deprecated=yes'. |
6b3ccfcc | 138 | |
cf78e9e8 JB |
139 | About This Distribution ============================================== |
140 | ||
f89a27fa | 141 | Interesting files include: |
ae8de16e | 142 | |
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143 | - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile. |
144 | - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile. | |
f89a27fa | 145 | |
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146 | Files are usually installed according to the prefix specified to |
147 | configure, /usr/local by default. Building and installing gives you: | |
148 | ||
149 | Executables, in ${prefix}/bin: | |
150 | ||
151 | guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile. With no arguments, this | |
152 | is a simple interactive Scheme interpreter. It can also be used | |
153 | as an interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details. | |
17f8d40c JB |
154 | guile-config --- a Guile script which provides the information necessary |
155 | to link your programs against the Guile library. | |
14725cbb | 156 | guile-snarf --- a script to parse declarations in your C code for |
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157 | Scheme-visible C functions, Scheme objects to be used by C code, |
158 | etc. | |
159 | ||
160 | Libraries, in ${prefix}/lib. Depending on the platform and options | |
161 | given to configure, you may get shared libraries in addition | |
162 | to or instead of these static libraries: | |
163 | ||
49becc4d | 164 | libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter, |
ae8de16e | 165 | You can use Guile in your own programs by linking against this. |
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166 | libqthreads.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads |
167 | primitives. If you enabled thread support when you configured | |
168 | Guile, you will need to link your code against this too. | |
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169 | libguilereadline.a --- an object library containing glue code for the |
170 | GNU readline library. See NEWS for instructions on how to enable | |
171 | readline for your personal use. | |
ae8de16e GH |
172 | |
173 | Header files, in ${prefix}/include: | |
174 | ||
175 | libguile.h, guile/gh.h, libguile/*.h --- for libguile. | |
176 | guile-readline/readline.h --- for guile-readline. | |
177 | ||
178 | Support files, in ${prefix}/share/guile/<version>: | |
179 | ||
180 | ice-9/* --- run-time support for Guile: the module system, | |
181 | read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other infrastructure. | |
182 | ||
183 | Automake macros, in ${prefix}/share/aclocal: | |
184 | ||
185 | guile.m4 | |
186 | ||
187 | Documentation in Info format, in ${prefix}/info: | |
188 | ||
189 | data-rep.info --- an essay on how to write C code that works with | |
14725cbb | 190 | Guile Scheme values. |
0196b30a | 191 | |
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192 | The Guile source tree is laid out as follows: |
193 | ||
1325feea | 194 | libguile: |
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195 | The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library |
196 | for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run. | |
1325feea | 197 | ice-9: Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure. |
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198 | guile-config: |
199 | Source for the guile-config script. | |
9a3c1149 | 200 | qt: A cooperative threads package from the University of Washington, |
cf78e9e8 | 201 | which Guile can use. If you configure Guile with the |
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202 | --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt |
203 | library, found in this directory. Qt is under a separate | |
204 | copyright; see `qt/README' for more details. | |
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205 | guile-readline: |
206 | The glue code for using GNU readline with Guile. This | |
207 | will be build when configure can find a recent enough readline | |
208 | library on your system. | |
ae8de16e | 209 | doc: Documentation (see above). |
4c8980a2 | 210 | |
c11f9405 JB |
211 | Anonymous CVS Access and FTP snapshots =============================== |
212 | ||
213 | We make the developers' working Guile sources available via anonymous | |
214 | CVS, and by nightly snapshots, accessible via FTP. See the files | |
215 | `ANON-CVS' and `SNAPSHOTS' for details. | |
216 | ||
349d9c1f | 217 | If you would like to receive mail when people commit changes to the |
ee2bf8b8 MV |
218 | Guile CVS repository, you can subscribe to guile-cvs@gnu.org by the |
219 | Mailman mailing list interface at | |
349d9c1f | 220 | |
ee2bf8b8 | 221 | <http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-cvs> |
349d9c1f | 222 | |
c11f9405 | 223 | |
c484bf7f JB |
224 | Obtaining Guile ====================================================== |
225 | ||
226 | The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from | |
c484bf7f | 227 | |
b5074b23 | 228 | ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.4.tar.gz |
c484bf7f | 229 | |
ee2bf8b8 MV |
230 | The mailing list `guile-user@gnu.org' carries discussions, questions, |
231 | and often answers, about Guile. To subscribe, use the Mailman mailing | |
232 | list interface at <http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-user> | |
233 | Of course, please send bug reports (and fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org. |