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. Note
22 that for any copyright year range specified as YYYY-ZZZZ in this
23 package, the range specifies every single year in that closed interval.
26 Additional INSTALL instructions ===========================================
28 Generic instructions for configuring and compiling Guile can be found
29 in the INSTALL file. Guile specific information and configure options
30 can be found below, including instructions for installing SLIB.
32 Guile depends on the following external libraries.
40 It will also use the libreadline library if it is available.
42 There is a corresponding `--with-XXX-prefix' option for each of these
43 libraries (except for libgc and libffi which use `pkg-config', see
44 below) that you can use when invoking ./configure, if you have these
45 libraries installed in a location other than the standard places (/usr
48 These options are provided by the Gnulib `havelib' module, and details
49 of how they work are documented in `Searching for Libraries' in the
50 Gnulib manual (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual). The extent
51 to which they work on a given OS depends on whether that OS supports
52 encoding full library path names in executables (aka `rpath'). Also
53 note that using these options, and hence hardcoding full library path
54 names (where that is supported), makes it impossible to later move the
55 built executables and libraries to an installation location other than
56 the one that was specified at build time.
58 Another possible approach is to set CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS on the
59 configure command-line, so that they include -I options for all the
60 non-standard places where you have installed header files and -L
61 options for all the non-standard places where you have installed
62 libraries. This will allow configure and make to find those headers
63 and libraries during the build. E.g.:
65 ../configure [...] CPPFLAGS='-I/my/include' LDFLAGS='-L/my/lib'
67 The locations found will not be hardcoded into the build executables and
68 libraries, so with this approach you will probably also need to set
69 LD_LIBRARY_PATH correspondingly, to allow Guile to find the necessary
70 libraries again at runtime.
73 Required External Packages ================================================
75 Guile requires the following external packages:
77 - GNU MP, at least version 4.1
79 GNU MP is used for bignum arithmetic. It is available from
82 - libltdl from GNU Libtool, at least version 1.5.6
84 libltdl is used for loading extensions at run-time. It is
85 available from http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/ .
89 libunistring is used for Unicode string operations, such as the
90 `utf*->string' procedures. It is available from
91 http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/ .
93 - libgc, at least version 7.0
95 libgc (aka. the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector) is the
96 conservative garbage collector used by Guile. It is available
97 from http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/ .
101 libffi provides a "foreign function interface", used by the
102 `(system foreign)' module. It is available from
103 http://sourceware.org/libffi/ .
107 Guile's ./configure script uses pkg-config to discover the correct
108 compile and link options for libgc and libffi. If you don't have
109 pkg-config installed, or you have a version of libgc that doesn't
110 provide a .pc file, you can work around this by setting some
111 variables as part of the configure command-line:
115 - BDW_GC_CFLAGS=<compile flags for picking up libgc headers>
117 - BDW_GC_LIBS=<linker flags for picking up the libgc library>
119 Note that because you're bypassing all pkg-config checks, you will
120 also have to specify libffi flags as well:
122 - LIBFFI_CFLAGS=<compile flags for picking up libffi headers>
124 - LIBFFI_LIBS=<linker flags for picking up the libffi library>
127 Special Instructions For Some Systems =====================================
129 We would like Guile to build on all systems using the simple
130 instructions above, but it seems that a few systems still need special
131 treatment. If you can send us fixes for these problems, we'd be
136 Guile specific flags Accepted by Configure =================================
138 If you run the configure script with no arguments, it should examine
139 your system and set things up appropriately. However, there are a few
140 switches specific to Guile you may find useful in some circumstances.
142 --without-threads --- Build without thread support
144 Build a Guile executable and library that supports multi-threading.
146 The default is to enable threading support when your operating
147 system offsers 'POSIX threads'. When you do not want threading, use
150 --enable-deprecated=LEVEL
152 Guile may contain features that are `deprecated'. When a feature is
153 deprecated, it means that it is still there, but that there is a
154 better way of achieving the same thing, and we'd rather have you use
155 this better way. This allows us to eventually remove the old
156 implementation and helps to keep Guile reasonably clean of historic
159 See the file NEWS for a list of features that are currently
160 deprecated. Each entry will also tell you what you should replace
163 To give you some help with this process, and to encourage (OK,
164 nudge) people to switch to the newer methods, Guile can emit
165 warnings or errors when you use a deprecated feature. There is
166 quite a range of possibilities, from being completely silent to
167 giving errors at link time. What exactly happens is determined both
168 by the value of the `--enable-deprecated' configuration option when
169 Guile was built, and by the GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED environment
174 When Guile has been configured with `--enable-deprecated=no' (or,
175 equivalently, with `--disable-deprecated') then all deprecated
176 features are omitted from Guile. You will get "undefined
177 reference", "variable unbound" or similar errors when you try to
180 When `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' has been specified (for LEVEL not
181 "no"), LEVEL will be used as the default value of the environment
182 variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED. A value of "yes" is changed to
183 "summary" and "shutup" is changed to "no", however.
185 When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "no", nothing special
186 will happen when a deprecated feature is used.
188 When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "summary", and a
189 deprecated feature has been used, Guile will print this message at
192 Some deprecated features have been used. Set the environment
193 variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED to "detailed" and rerun the
194 program to get more information. Set it to "no" to suppress
197 When GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED has the value "detailed", a detailed
198 warning is emitted immediatly for the first use of a deprecated
201 The default is `--enable-deprecated=yes'.
203 In addition to setting GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED in the environment, you
204 can also use (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) and (debug-disable
205 'warn-deprecated) to enable and disable the detailed messaged at run
208 Additionally, if your toolchain is new enough, you will receive
209 warnings at link time if you have a Guile extension that uses
210 deprecated functions provided by Guile.
212 --disable-shared --- Do not build shared libraries.
213 --disable-static --- Do not build static libraries.
215 Normally, both static and shared libraries will be built if your
216 system supports them.
218 --enable-debug-freelist --- Enable freelist debugging.
220 This enables a debugging version of scm_cell and scm_double_cell,
221 and also registers an extra primitive, the setter
222 `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
224 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable the
225 gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
227 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
228 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
230 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and a
231 garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can slow
232 down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
233 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
235 --enable-debug-malloc --- Enable malloc debugging.
237 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_malloc, scm_realloc, etc.
239 It records the number of allocated objects of each kind. This is
240 useful when searching for memory leaks.
242 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
243 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
244 number of objects of that kind.
246 --enable-guile-debug --- Include internal debugging functions
247 --disable-posix --- omit posix interfaces
248 --disable-networking --- omit networking interfaces
249 --disable-regex --- omit regular expression interfaces
252 Cross building Guile =====================================================
254 As of guile-1.5.x, the build process uses compiled C files for
255 snarfing, and (indirectly, through libtool) for linking, and uses the
256 guile executable for generating documentation.
258 When cross building guile, you first need to configure, build and
259 install guile for your build host.
261 Then, you may configure guile for cross building, eg:
263 ./configure --host=i686-pc-cygwin --disable-shared
265 A C compiler for the build system is required. The default is
266 "PATH=/usr/bin:$PATH cc". If that doesn't suit it can be specified
267 with the CC_FOR_BUILD variable in the usual way, for instance
269 ./configure --host=m68k-unknown-linux-gnu CC_FOR_BUILD=/my/local/gcc
271 Guile for the build system can be specified similarly with the
272 GUILE_FOR_BUILD variable, it defaults to just "guile".
275 Using Guile Without Installing It =========================================
277 The "meta/" subdirectory of the Guile sources contains a script called
278 "guile" that can be used to run the Guile that has just been built. Note
279 that this is not the same "guile" as the one that is installed; this
280 "guile" is a wrapper script that sets up the environment appropriately,
281 then invokes the Guile binary.
283 You may also build external packages against an uninstalled Guile build
284 tree. The "uninstalled-env" script in the "meta/" subdirectory will set
285 up an environment with a path including "meta/", a modified dynamic
286 linker path, a modified PKG_CONFIG_PATH, etc.
288 For example, you can enter this environment via invoking
290 meta/uninstalled-env bash
292 Within that shell, other packages should be able to build against
296 Installing SLIB ===========================================================
298 In order to use SLIB from Guile you basically only need to put the
299 `slib' directory _in_ one of the directories on Guile's load path.
301 The standard installation is:
303 1. Obtain slib from http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~jaffer/SLIB.html
305 2. Put it in Guile's data directory, that is the directory printed when
308 guile-config info pkgdatadir
310 at the shell prompt. This is normally `/usr/local/share/guile', so the
311 directory will normally have full path `/usr/local/share/guile/slib'.
313 3. Start guile as a user with write access to the data directory and type
315 (use-modules (ice-9 slib))
317 at the Guile prompt. This will generate the slibcat catalog next to
320 SLIB's `require' is provided by the Guile module (ice-9 slib).
324 (use-modules (ice-9 slib))
329 Guile Documentation ==================================================
331 The Guile Reference Manual (guile.info) is the primary documentation for
332 Guile. A copy of the R5RS Scheme specification is included too
335 Info format versions of this documentation are installed as part of
336 the normal build process. The texinfo sources are under the doc
337 directory, and other formats like Postscript, PDF, DVI or HTML can be
338 generated from them with Tex and Texinfo tools.
340 The doc directory also includes an example-smob subdirectory which has
341 the example code from the "Defining New Types (Smobs)" chapter of the
344 The Guile WWW page is at
346 http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html
348 It contains a link to the Guile FAQ.
350 About This Distribution ==============================================
352 Interesting files include:
354 - LICENSE, which contains the exact terms of the Guile license.
355 - COPYING.LESSER, which contains the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License.
356 - COPYING, which contains the terms of the GNU General Public License.
357 - INSTALL, which contains general instructions for building/installing Guile.
358 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
360 Files are usually installed according to the prefix specified to
361 configure, /usr/local by default. Building and installing gives you:
363 Executables, in ${prefix}/bin:
365 guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile. With no arguments, this
366 is a simple interactive Scheme interpreter. It can also be used
367 as an interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
368 guile-config --- a Guile script which provides the information necessary
369 to link your programs against the Guile library.
370 guile-snarf --- a script to parse declarations in your C code for
371 Scheme-visible C functions, Scheme objects to be used by C code,
374 Libraries, in ${prefix}/lib. Depending on the platform and options
375 given to configure, you may get shared libraries in addition
376 to or instead of these static libraries:
378 libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
379 You can use Guile in your own programs by linking against this.
380 libguilereadline.a --- an object library containing glue code for the
381 GNU readline library.
383 libguile-srfi-*.a --- various SRFI support libraries
385 Header files, in ${prefix}/include:
387 libguile.h, guile/gh.h, libguile/*.h --- for libguile.
388 guile-readline/readline.h --- for guile-readline.
390 Support files, in ${prefix}/share/guile/<version>:
392 ice-9/* --- run-time support for Guile: the module system,
393 read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other infrastructure.
394 oop/* --- the Guile Object-Oriented Programming System (GOOPS)
395 scripts/* --- executable modules, i.e., scheme programs that can be both
396 called as an executable from the shell, and loaded and used as a
397 module from scheme code. See scripts/README for more info.
398 srfi/* --- SRFI support modules. See srfi/README for more info.
400 Automake macros, in ${prefix}/share/aclocal:
404 Documentation in Info format, in ${prefix}/info:
406 guile --- Guile reference manual.
408 guile-tut --- Guile tutorial.
410 GOOPS --- GOOPS reference manual.
412 r5rs --- Revised(5) Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme.
415 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
418 The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
419 for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
420 ice-9: Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
422 Source for the guile-config script.
424 The glue code for using GNU readline with Guile. This
425 will be build when configure can find a recent enough readline
426 library on your system.
427 doc: Documentation (see above).
429 Git Repository Access ================================================
431 Guile's source code is stored in a Git repository at Savannah. Anyone
432 can access it using `git-clone' from one of the following URLs:
434 git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git
435 http://git.sv.gnu.org/r/guile.git
437 Developers with a Savannah SSH account can also access it from:
439 ssh://git.sv.gnu.org/srv/git/guile.git
441 The repository can also be browsed on-line at the following address:
443 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git
445 For more information on Git, please see:
449 Please send problem reports to <bug-guile@gnu.org>.