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c484bf7f | 1 | This is a nightly snapshot of Guile, a portable, embeddable Scheme |
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2 | implementation written in C. Guile provides a machine independent |
3 | execution platform that can be linked in as a library when building | |
4 | extensible programs. | |
7fcc90c4 | 5 | |
e1b6c710 | 6 | Please send bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org. |
86f40248 | 7 | |
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8 | About This Distribution ============================================== |
9 | ||
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10 | Building and installing this distribution gives you: |
11 | guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in | |
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12 | /usr/local/bin. With no arguments, this is a simple |
13 | interactive Scheme interpreter. It can also be used as an | |
14 | interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details. | |
49becc4d | 15 | libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter, |
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16 | usually installed in /usr/local/lib. You can use Guile in |
17 | your own programs by linking against this. | |
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18 | libqt.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads primitives. |
19 | If you enabled thread support when you configured Guile, you | |
20 | will need to link your code against this too. | |
49becc4d | 21 | <libguile.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for libguile.a, usually |
cf78e9e8 | 22 | installed in /usr/local/include. |
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23 | ice-9, ice-9/*.scm --- run-time support for Guile: the module |
24 | system, read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other | |
25 | infrastructure. Usually installed in | |
26 | /usr/local/share/guile/<version>. | |
0196b30a | 27 | |
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28 | Interesting files include: |
29 | - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile. | |
30 | - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile. | |
31 | - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute | |
32 | Guile, and explains that there is no warranty. | |
33 | ||
34 | The Guile source tree is laid out as follows: | |
35 | ||
1325feea | 36 | libguile: |
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37 | The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library |
38 | for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run. | |
1325feea | 39 | ice-9: Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure. |
0682f7ab | 40 | |
9a3c1149 | 41 | qt: A cooperative threads package from the University of Washington, |
cf78e9e8 | 42 | which Guile can use. If you configure Guile with the |
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43 | --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt |
44 | library, found in this directory. Qt is under a separate | |
45 | copyright; see `qt/README' for more details. | |
ee81f9ca | 46 | |
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47 | (The present release doesn't include any documentation; the Guile |
48 | manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.) | |
49 | ||
4c8980a2 | 50 | |
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51 | Anonymous CVS Access and FTP snapshots =============================== |
52 | ||
53 | We make the developers' working Guile sources available via anonymous | |
54 | CVS, and by nightly snapshots, accessible via FTP. See the files | |
55 | `ANON-CVS' and `SNAPSHOTS' for details. | |
56 | ||
57 | ||
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58 | Hacking It Yourself ================================================== |
59 | ||
60 | As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system | |
61 | to compile. However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a | |
62 | few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand. If | |
63 | you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will | |
64 | find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile. They | |
65 | are the following: | |
66 | ||
dec4cca9 | 67 | Autoconf 2.12 --- a system for automatically generating `configure' |
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68 | scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a |
69 | program would like to use. Available in | |
70 | "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu". | |
3c555f81 | 71 | |
5798fd97 | 72 | Automake 1.3 --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that |
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73 | conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards. The |
74 | nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make | |
75 | dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates | |
2b272b1e | 76 | Makefile dependencies. Automake is available in |
5798fd97 | 77 | "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu". |
3c555f81 | 78 | |
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79 | Before using automake, you may need to copy `threads.m4' and |
80 | `guile.m4' from the top directory of the Guile core disty to | |
81 | `/usr/local/share/aclocal. | |
82 | ||
5798fd97 | 83 | libtool 1.2 --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed |
cf78e9e8 | 84 | on various systems to produce shared libraries. Available in |
5798fd97 | 85 | "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu". |
3c555f81 | 86 | |
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87 | You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all |
88 | different. | |
cf78e9e8 | 89 | > |
05264287 | 90 | |
3c555f81 | 91 | |
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92 | Obtaining Guile ====================================================== |
93 | ||
94 | The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from | |
95 | prep.ai.mit.edu, as /pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz. | |
96 | ||
97 | Via the web, that's: ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz | |
98 | For getit, that's: prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz | |
99 | ||
100 | The mailing list `guile@cygnus.com' carries discussions, questions, | |
101 | and often answers, about Guile. To subscribe, send mail to | |
102 | guile-request@cygnus.com. Of course, please send bug reports (and | |
e1b6c710 | 103 | fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org. |
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104 | |
105 | ||
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106 | Authors And Contributors ============================================= |
107 | ||
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108 | Many people have generously contributed to Guile. However, any errors |
109 | are the responsibility of the primary Guile maintainer, Jim Blandy. | |
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110 | |
111 | Mikael Djurfeldt designed and implemented: | |
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112 | * the source-level debugging support (although the debugger's user |
113 | interface is not yet complete) | |
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114 | * stack overflow detection, |
115 | * the GDB patches to support debugging mixed Scheme/C code, | |
9518bec3 | 116 | * the original implementation of weak hash tables, |
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117 | * enhancements to the `threads' interface (based on Anthony Green's |
118 | work), and | |
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119 | * detection of circular references during printing. |
120 | ||
3a629497 | 121 | Mark Galassi contributed the Guile high-level functions (gh_*), and |
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122 | wrote the guile-programmer and guile-user manuals. (These are in the |
123 | process of revision.) | |
124 | ||
3a629497 | 125 | Anthony Green wrote the original version of `threads', the interface |
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126 | between Guile and qt. |
127 | ||
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128 | Gary Houston wrote much of the Unix system call support, including the |
129 | socket support, and did a lot of work on the error handling code. | |
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130 | |
131 | Tom Lord librarified SCM, yielding Guile. He wrote Guile's operating | |
132 | system, Ice-9, and connected Guile to Tcl/Tk and the `rx' regular | |
133 | expression matcher. | |
134 | ||
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135 | Aubrey Jaffer is the author of SCM upon which Guile is based. Guile |
136 | started from SCM version 4e1 in November -94 and is still largely | |
137 | composed of the original SCM code. | |
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138 | |
139 | George Carrette wrote SIOD, a stand-alone scheme interpreter. | |
140 | Although most of this code as been rewritten or replaced over time, | |
141 | the garbage collector from SIOD is still an important part of Guile. |