INSTALL

   1 Brief Installation Instructions ===========================================
   2
   3 To build Guile on unix, there are two basic steps:
   4
   5         1. Type "./configure", to configure the package for your system.
   6         2. Type "make", to build the package.
   7
   8 Generic instructions for configuring and compiling GNU distributions
   9 are included below.
  10
  11
  12 Special Instructions For Some Systems =====================================
  13
  14 We would like Guile to build on all systems using the simple
  15 instructions above, but it seems that a few systems still need special
  16 treatment.  If you can send us fixes for these problems, we'd be
  17 grateful.
  18
  19 SunOS 4.1: Guile's shared library support seems to be confused, but
  20     hey; shared libraries are confusing.  You may need to configure
  21     Guile with a command like:
  22         ./configure --disable-shared
  23     For more information on `--disable-shared', see below, "Flags
  24     Accepted by Configure".
  25
  26 HP/UX: GCC 2.7.2 (and maybe other versions) have trouble creating
  27     shared libraries if they depend on any non-shared libraries.  GCC
  28     seems to have other problems as well.  To work around this, we
  29     suggest you configure Guile to use the system's C compiler:
  30         CC=cc ./configure
  31
  32 NetBSD: Perry Metzger says, "Guile will build under NetBSD only using
  33     gmake -- the native make will not work.  (gmake is in our package
  34     system, so this will not be a problem when we packagize 1.3.)"
  35
  36 Flags Accepted by Configure ===============================================
  37
  38 If you run the configure script with no arguments, it should examine
  39 your system and set things up appropriately.  However, there are a few
  40 switches specific to Guile you may find useful in some circumstances.
  41
  42 --enable-maintainer-mode --- If you have automake, autoconf, and
  43 libtool installed on your system, this switch causes configure to
  44 generate Makefiles which know how to automatically regenerate
  45 configure scripts, makefiles, and headers, when they are out of date.
  46 The README file says which versions of those tools you will need.
  47
  48 --with-threads --- Build a Guile executable and library that supports
  49 cooperative threading.  If you use this switch, Guile will also build
  50 and install the QuickThreads non-preemptive threading library,
  51 libqthreads, which you will need to link into your programs after
  52 libguile.  When you use `guile-config', you will pick up all
  53 neccessary linker flags automatically.
  54
  55 Cooperative threads are not yet thoroughly tested; once they are, they
  56 will be enabled by default.  The interaction with blocking I/O is
  57 pretty ad hoc at the moment.  In our experience, bugs in the thread
  58 support do not affect you if you don't actually use threads.
  59
  60 --with-modules --- Guile can dynamically load `plugin modules' during
  61 runtime, using facilities provided by libtool.  Not all platforms
  62 support this, however.  On these platforms, you can statically link
  63 the plugin modules into libguile when Guile itself is build.  XXX -
  64 how does one specify the modules?
  65
  66 --disable-shared --- Do not build shared libraries.  Normally, Guile
  67 will build shared libraries if your system supports them.  Guile
  68 always builds static libraries.
  69
  70 --enable-debug-freelist --- Enable freelist debugging.
  71
  72 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
  73 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
  74
  75 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
  76 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
  77
  78 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t)  # turn on checking of the freelist
  79 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f)  # turn off checking
  80
  81 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
  82 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell.  This can
  83 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
  84 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
  85
  86 --enable-debug-malloc --- Enable malloc debugging.
  87
  88 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
  89
  90 Checks that
  91
  92 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
  93 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
  94    scm_must_malloc
  95 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
  96
  97 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
  98 each kind.  This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
  99
 100 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
 101 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
 102 number of objects of that kind.
 103
 104 --disable-arrays     --- omit array and uniform array support
 105 --disable-posix      --- omit posix interfaces
 106 --disable-networking --- omit networking interfaces
 107 --disable-regex      --- omit regular expression interfaces
 108
 109 Using Guile Without Installing It =========================================
 110
 111 If you want to run Guile without installing it, set the environment
 112 variable `GUILE_LOAD_PATH' to a colon-separated list of directories,
 113 including the directory containing this INSTALL file.  If you used a
 114 separate build directory, you'll need to include the build directory
 115 in the path as well.
 116
 117 For example, suppose the Guile distribution unpacked into a directory
 118 called `/home/jimb/guile-snap' (so the full name of this INSTALL file
 119 would be `/home/jimb/guile-snap/INSTALL').  Then you might say, if
 120 you're using Bash or any other Bourne shell variant,
 121
 122   export GUILE_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/guile-snap
 123
 124 or if you're using CSH or one of its variants:
 125
 126   setenv GUILE_LOAD_PATH /home/jimb/guile-snap
 127
 128
 129 Generic Instructions for Building Auto-Configured Packages ================
 130
 131 To compile this package:
 132
 133 1.  Configure the package for your system.  In the directory that this
 134 file is in, type `./configure'.  If you're using `csh' on an old
 135 version of System V, you might need to type `sh configure' instead to
 136 prevent `csh' from trying to execute `configure' itself.
 137
 138 The `configure' shell script attempts to guess correct values for
 139 various system-dependent variables used during compilation, and
 140 creates the Makefile(s) (one in each subdirectory of the source
 141 directory).  In some packages it creates a C header file containing
 142 system-dependent definitions.  It also creates a file `config.status'
 143 that you can run in the future to recreate the current configuration.
 144 Running `configure' takes a minute or two.
 145
 146 To compile the package in a different directory from the one
 147 containing the source code, you must use GNU make.  `cd' to the
 148 directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
 149 run `configure' with the option `--srcdir=DIR', where DIR is the
 150 directory that contains the source code.  Using this option is
 151 actually unnecessary if the source code is in the parent directory of
 152 the one in which you are compiling; `configure' automatically checks
 153 for the source code in `..' if it does not find it in the current
 154 directory.
 155
 156 By default, `make install' will install the package's files in
 157 /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/lib, /usr/local/man, etc.  You can specify
 158 an installation prefix other than /usr/local by giving `configure' the
 159 option `--prefix=PATH'.  Alternately, you can do so by changing the
 160 `prefix' variable in the Makefile that `configure' creates (the
 161 Makefile in the top-level directory, if the package contains
 162 subdirectories).
 163
 164 You can specify separate installation prefixes for machine-specific
 165 files and machine-independent files.  If you give `configure' the
 166 option `--exec_prefix=PATH', the package will use PATH as the prefix
 167 for installing programs and libraries.  Normally, all files are
 168 installed using the same prefix.
 169
 170 `configure' ignores any other arguments that you give it.
 171
 172 If your system requires unusual options for compilation or linking
 173 that `configure' doesn't know about, you can give `configure' initial
 174 values for some variables by setting them in the environment.  In
 175 Bourne-compatible shells, you can do that on the command line like
 176 this:
 177         CC='gcc -traditional' DEFS=-D_POSIX_SOURCE ./configure
 178
 179 The `make' variables that you might want to override with environment
 180 variables when running `configure' are:
 181
 182 (For these variables, any value given in the environment overrides the
 183 value that `configure' would choose:)
 184 CC              C compiler program.
 185                 Default is `cc', or `gcc' if `gcc' is in your PATH.
 186 INSTALL         Program to use to install files.
 187                 Default is `install' if you have it, `cp' otherwise.
 188 INCLUDEDIR      Directory for `configure' to search for include files.
 189                 Default is /usr/include.
 190
 191 (For these variables, any value given in the environment is added to
 192 the value that `configure' chooses:)
 193 DEFS            Configuration options, in the form '-Dfoo -Dbar ...'
 194 LIBS            Libraries to link with, in the form '-lfoo -lbar ...'
 195
 196 If you need to do unusual things to compile the package, we encourage
 197 you to teach `configure' how to do them and mail the diffs to the
 198 address given in the README so we can include them in the next
 199 release.
 200
 201 2.  Type `make' to compile the package.
 202
 203 3.  Type `make install' to install programs, data files, and
 204 documentation.
 205
 206 4.  You can remove the program binaries and object files from the
 207 source directory by typing `make clean'.  To also remove the
 208 Makefile(s), the header file containing system-dependent definitions
 209 (if the package uses one), and `config.status' (all the files that
 210 `configure' created), type `make distclean'.
 211
 212 The file `configure.in' is used as a template to create `configure' by
 213 a program called `autoconf'.  You will only need it if you want to
 214 regenerate `configure' using a newer version of `autoconf'.