1 !!! This is not a Guile release; it is a source tree retrieved via
2 Git or as a nightly snapshot at some random time after the
3 Guile 1.8 release. If this were a Guile release, you would not see
4 this message. !!! [fixme: zonk on release]
6 This is a 1.9 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
13 Guile versions with an odd middle number, i.e. 1.9.* are unstable
14 development versions. Even middle numbers indicate stable versions.
15 This has been the case since the 1.3.* series.
17 The next stable release will likely be version 2.0.0.
19 Please send bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
21 See the LICENSE file for the specific terms that apply to Guile.
24 Additional INSTALL instructions ===========================================
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.
30 Guile depends on the following external libraries.
38 It will also use the libreadline library if it is available. For each
39 of these there is a corresponding --with-XXX-prefix option that you
40 can use when invoking ./configure, if you have these libraries
41 installed in a location other than the standard places (/usr and
44 These options are provided by the Gnulib `havelib' module, and details
45 of how they work are documented in `Searching for Libraries' in the
46 Gnulib manual (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual). The extent
47 to which they work on a given OS depends on whether that OS supports
48 encoding full library path names in executables (aka `rpath'). Also
49 note that using these options, and hence hardcoding full library path
50 names (where that is supported), makes it impossible to later move the
51 built executables and libraries to an installation location other than
52 the one that was specified at build time.
54 Another possible approach is to set CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS on the
55 configure command-line, so that they include -I options for all the
56 non-standard places where you have installed header files and -L
57 options for all the non-standard places where you have installed
58 libraries. This will allow configure and make to find those headers
59 and libraries during the build. E.g.:
61 ../configure [...] CPPFLAGS='-I/my/include' LDFLAGS='-L/my/lib'
63 The locations found will not be hardcoded into the build executables and
64 libraries, so with this approach you will probably also need to set
65 LD_LIBRARY_PATH correspondingly, to allow Guile to find the necessary
66 libraries again at runtime.
69 Required External Packages ================================================
71 Guile requires the following external packages:
73 - GNU MP, at least version 4.1
75 GNU MP is used for bignum arithmetic. It is available from
78 - libltdl from GNU Libtool, at least version 1.5.6
80 libltdl is used for loading extensions at run-time. It is
81 available from http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/ .
85 libunistring is used for Unicode string operations, such as the
86 `utf*->string' procedures. It is available from
87 http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/ .
89 - libgc, at least version 7.0
91 libgc (aka. the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector) is the
92 conservative garbage collector used by Guile. It is available
93 from http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/ .
97 libffi provides a "foreign function interface", used by the
98 `(system foreign)' module. It is available from
99 http://sourceware.org/libffi/ .
103 Guile's ./configure script uses pkg-config to discover the correct
104 compile and link options for libgc and libffi. If you don't have
105 pkg-config installed, or you have a version of libgc that doesn't
106 provide a .pc file, you can work around this by setting some
107 variables as part of the configure command-line:
111 - BDW_GC_CFLAGS=<compile flags for picking up libgc headers>
113 - BDW_GC_LIBS=<linker flags for picking up the libgc library>
115 Note that because you're bypassing all pkg-config checks, you will
116 also have to specify libffi flags as well:
118 - LIBFFI_CFLAGS=<compile flags for picking up libffi headers>
120 - LIBFFI_LIBS=<linker flags for picking up the libffi library>
123 Special Instructions For Some Systems =====================================
125 We would like Guile to build on all systems using the simple
126 instructions above, but it seems that a few systems still need special
127 treatment. If you can send us fixes for these problems, we'd be
132 Guile specific flags Accepted by Configure =================================
134 If you run the configure script with no arguments, it should examine
135 your system and set things up appropriately. However, there are a few
136 switches specific to Guile you may find useful in some circumstances.
138 --without-threads --- Build without thread support
140 Build a Guile executable and library that supports multi-threading.
142 The default is to enable threading support when your operating
143 system offsers 'POSIX threads'. When you do not want threading, use
146 --enable-deprecated=LEVEL
148 Guile may contain features that are `deprecated'. When a feature is
149 deprecated, it means that it is still there, but that there is a
150 better way of achieving the same thing, and we'd rather have you use
151 this better way. This allows us to eventually remove the old
152 implementation and helps to keep Guile reasonably clean of historic
155 See the file NEWS for a list of features that are currently
156 deprecated. Each entry will also tell you what you should replace
159 To give you some help with this process, and to encourage (OK,
160 nudge) people to switch to the newer methods, Guile can emit
161 warnings or errors when you use a deprecated feature. There is
162 quite a range of possibilities, from being completely silent to
163 giving errors at link time. What exactly happens is determined both
164 by the value of the `--enable-deprecated' configuration option when
165 Guile was built, and by the GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED environment
170 When Guile has been configured with `--enable-deprecated=no' (or,
171 equivalently, with `--disable-deprecated') then all deprecated
172 features are omitted from Guile. You will get "undefined
173 reference", "variable unbound" or similar errors when you try to
176 When `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' has been specified (for LEVEL not
177 "no"), LEVEL will be used as the default value of the environment
178 variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED. A value of "yes" is changed to
179 "summary" and "shutup" is changed to "no", however.
181 When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "no", nothing special
182 will happen when a deprecated feature is used.
184 When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "summary", and a
185 deprecated feature has been used, Guile will print this message at
188 Some deprecated features have been used. Set the environment
189 variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED to "detailed" and rerun the
190 program to get more information. Set it to "no" to suppress
193 When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "detailed", a detailed
194 warning is emitted immediatly for the first use of a deprecated
197 The default is `--enable-deprecated=yes'.
199 In addition to setting GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED in the environment, you
200 can also use (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) and (debug-disable
201 'warn-deprecated) to enable and disable the detailed messaged at run
204 Additionally, if your toolchain is new enough, you will receive
205 warnings at link time if you have a Guile extension that uses
206 deprecated functions provided by Guile.
208 --disable-shared --- Do not build shared libraries.
209 --disable-static --- Do not build static libraries.
211 Normally, both static and shared libraries will be built if your
212 system supports them.
214 --enable-debug-freelist --- Enable freelist debugging.
216 This enables a debugging version of scm_cell and scm_double_cell,
217 and also registers an extra primitive, the setter
218 `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
220 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable the
221 gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
223 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
224 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
226 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and a
227 garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can slow
228 down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
229 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
231 --enable-debug-malloc --- Enable malloc debugging.
233 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_malloc, scm_realloc, etc.
235 It records the number of allocated objects of each kind. This is
236 useful when searching for memory leaks.
238 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
239 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
240 number of objects of that kind.
242 --enable-guile-debug --- Include internal debugging functions
243 --disable-posix --- omit posix interfaces
244 --disable-networking --- omit networking interfaces
245 --disable-regex --- omit regular expression interfaces
248 Cross building Guile =====================================================
250 As of guile-1.5.x, the build process uses compiled C files for
251 snarfing, and (indirectly, through libtool) for linking, and uses the
252 guile executable for generating documentation.
254 When cross building guile, you first need to configure, build and
255 install guile for your build host.
257 Then, you may configure guile for cross building, eg:
259 ./configure --host=i686-pc-cygwin --disable-shared
261 A C compiler for the build system is required. The default is
262 "PATH=/usr/bin:$PATH cc". If that doesn't suit it can be specified
263 with the CC_FOR_BUILD variable in the usual way, for instance
265 ./configure --host=m68k-unknown-linux-gnu CC_FOR_BUILD=/my/local/gcc
267 Guile for the build system can be specified similarly with the
268 GUILE_FOR_BUILD variable, it defaults to just "guile".
271 Using Guile Without Installing It =========================================
273 The "meta/" subdirectory of the Guile sources contains a script called
274 "guile" that can be used to run the Guile that has just been built. Note
275 that this is not the same "guile" as the one that is installed; this
276 "guile" is a wrapper script that sets up the environment appropriately,
277 then invokes the Guile binary.
279 You may also build external packages against an uninstalled Guile build
280 tree. The "uninstalled-env" script in the "meta/" subdirectory will set
281 up an environment with a path including "meta/", a modified dynamic
282 linker path, a modified PKG_CONFIG_PATH, etc.
284 For example, you can enter this environment via invoking
286 meta/uninstalled-env bash
288 Within that shell, other packages should be able to build against
292 Installing SLIB ===========================================================
294 In order to use SLIB from Guile you basically only need to put the
295 `slib' directory _in_ one of the directories on Guile's load path.
297 The standard installation is:
299 1. Obtain slib from http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~jaffer/SLIB.html
301 2. Put it in Guile's data directory, that is the directory printed when
304 guile-config info pkgdatadir
306 at the shell prompt. This is normally `/usr/local/share/guile', so the
307 directory will normally have full path `/usr/local/share/guile/slib'.
309 3. Start guile as a user with write access to the data directory and type
311 (use-modules (ice-9 slib))
313 at the Guile prompt. This will generate the slibcat catalog next to
316 SLIB's `require' is provided by the Guile module (ice-9 slib).
320 (use-modules (ice-9 slib))
325 Guile Documentation ==================================================
327 If you've never used Scheme before, then the Guile Tutorial
328 (guile-tut.info) is a good starting point. The Guile Reference Manual
329 (guile.info) is the primary documentation for Guile. A copy of the
330 R5RS Scheme specification is included too (r5rs.info).
332 Info format versions of this documentation are installed as part of
333 the normal build process. The texinfo sources are under the doc
334 directory, and other formats like Postscript, PDF, DVI or HTML can be
335 generated from them with Tex and Texinfo tools.
337 The doc directory also includes an example-smob subdirectory which has
338 the example code from the "Defining New Types (Smobs)" chapter of the
341 The Guile WWW page is at
343 http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html
345 It contains a link to the Guile FAQ.
347 About This Distribution ==============================================
349 Interesting files include:
351 - LICENSE, which contains the exact terms of the Guile license.
352 - COPYING.LESSER, which contains the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License.
353 - COPYING, which contains the terms of the GNU General Public License.
354 - INSTALL, which contains general instructions for building/installing Guile.
355 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
357 Files are usually installed according to the prefix specified to
358 configure, /usr/local by default. Building and installing gives you:
360 Executables, in ${prefix}/bin:
362 guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile. With no arguments, this
363 is a simple interactive Scheme interpreter. It can also be used
364 as an interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
365 guile-config --- a Guile script which provides the information necessary
366 to link your programs against the Guile library.
367 guile-snarf --- a script to parse declarations in your C code for
368 Scheme-visible C functions, Scheme objects to be used by C code,
371 Libraries, in ${prefix}/lib. Depending on the platform and options
372 given to configure, you may get shared libraries in addition
373 to or instead of these static libraries:
375 libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
376 You can use Guile in your own programs by linking against this.
377 libguilereadline.a --- an object library containing glue code for the
378 GNU readline library.
380 libguile-srfi-*.a --- various SRFI support libraries
382 Header files, in ${prefix}/include:
384 libguile.h, guile/gh.h, libguile/*.h --- for libguile.
385 guile-readline/readline.h --- for guile-readline.
387 Support files, in ${prefix}/share/guile/<version>:
389 ice-9/* --- run-time support for Guile: the module system,
390 read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other infrastructure.
391 oop/* --- the Guile Object-Oriented Programming System (GOOPS)
392 scripts/* --- executable modules, i.e., scheme programs that can be both
393 called as an executable from the shell, and loaded and used as a
394 module from scheme code. See scripts/README for more info.
395 srfi/* --- SRFI support modules. See srfi/README for more info.
397 Automake macros, in ${prefix}/share/aclocal:
401 Documentation in Info format, in ${prefix}/info:
403 guile --- Guile reference manual.
405 guile-tut --- Guile tutorial.
407 GOOPS --- GOOPS reference manual.
409 r5rs --- Revised(5) Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme.
412 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
415 The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
416 for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
417 ice-9: Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
419 Source for the guile-config script.
421 The glue code for using GNU readline with Guile. This
422 will be build when configure can find a recent enough readline
423 library on your system.
424 doc: Documentation (see above).
426 Git Repository Access ================================================
428 Guile's source code is stored in a Git repository at Savannah. Anyone
429 can access it using `git-clone' from one of the following URLs:
431 git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git
432 http://git.sv.gnu.org/r/guile.git
434 Developers with a Savannah SSH account can also access it from:
436 ssh://git.sv.gnu.org/srv/git/guile.git
438 The repository can also be browsed on-line at the following address:
440 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git
442 For more information on Git, please see:
446 Please send problem reports to <bug-guile@gnu.org>.