README

   1 This is release 1.3.4 of Guile, Project GNU's extension language
   2 library.  Guile is an interpreter for Scheme, packaged as a library
   3 that you can link into your applications to give them their own
   4 scripting language.  Guile will eventually support other languages as
   5 well, giving users of Guile-based applications a choice of languages.
   6
   7 Please send bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
   8
   9 Guile Documentation ==================================================
  10
  11 There is some preliminary documentation for Guile under the directory
  12 doc.  The real Guile manual is incomplete, and is currently being
  13 revised.  A development snapshot of the manual is available at
  14 ftp.red-bean.com as /pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz.
  15
  16
  17 About This Distribution ==============================================
  18
  19 Interesting files include:
  20 - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile.
  21 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
  22 - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute
  23   Guile, and explains that there is no warranty.
  24
  25 Building and installing this distribution gives you:
  26 guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in
  27         /usr/local/bin.  With no arguments, this is a simple
  28         interactive Scheme interpreter.  It can also be used as an
  29         interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
  30 guile-config --- a Guile script which provides the information necessary
  31         to link your programs against the Guile library.
  32 guile-snarf --- a script to parse declarations in your C code for
  33         Scheme-visible C functions, Scheme objects to be used by C code, etc.
  34 libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
  35         usually installed in /usr/local/lib.  You can use Guile in
  36         your own programs by linking against this.
  37 libqthreads.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads
  38         primitives.  If you enabled thread support when you configured
  39         Guile, you will need to link your code against this too.
  40 libguilereadline.a --- an object library containing glue code for the
  41         GNU readline library.  See NEWS for instructions on how to enable
  42         readline for your personal use.
  43 <libguile.h>, <guile/gh.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for
  44         libguile.a, usually installed in /usr/local/include.
  45 ice-9, ice-9/*.scm --- run-time support for Guile: the module
  46         system, read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other
  47         infrastructure.  Usually installed in
  48         /usr/local/share/guile/<version>.
  49 data-rep.info --- An essay on how to write C code that works with
  50         Guile Scheme values.
  51
  52 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
  53
  54 libguile:
  55         The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
  56         for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
  57 ice-9:  Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
  58 guile-config:
  59         Source for the guile-config script.
  60 qt:     A cooperative threads package from the University of Washington,
  61         which Guile can use.  If you configure Guile with the
  62         --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt
  63         library, found in this directory.  Qt is under a separate
  64         copyright; see `qt/README' for more details.
  65 guile-readline:
  66         The glue code for using GNU readline with Guile.  This
  67         will be build when configure can find a recent enough readline
  68         library on your system.
  69 doc:    Some preliminary documentation for Guile.  The real Guile
  70         manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.
  71         A development snapshot of the manual is available at
  72         ftp.red-bean.com as /pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz.
  73 doc/example-smob: Sample code, discussed in the preliminary
  74         documentation above, for a program that extends Guile with a
  75         new data type, and functions that operate on it.
  76
  77
  78 Anonymous CVS Access and FTP snapshots ===============================
  79
  80 We make the developers' working Guile sources available via anonymous
  81 CVS, and by nightly snapshots, accessible via FTP.  See the files
  82 `ANON-CVS' and `SNAPSHOTS' for details.
  83
  84 If you would like to receive mail when people commit changes to the
  85 Guile CVS repository, you can subscribe to guile-cvs@sourceware.cygnus.com
  86 by sending a message to guile-cvs-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.  Even
  87 better, you can get daily digests of these commit messages by sending
  88 a message to guile-cvs-digest-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.
  89
  90 If you want to subscribe an e-mail address other than the one that
  91 appears in your From: header, say foo@bar.com, send a mail note to
  92 guile-cvs-subscribe-foo=bar.com@sourceware.cygnus.com.
  93
  94
  95 Hacking It Yourself ==================================================
  96
  97 As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system
  98 to compile.  However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a
  99 few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand.  If
 100 you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will
 101 find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile.  They
 102 are the following:
 103
 104 Autoconf 2.13 --- a system for automatically generating `configure'
 105         scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a
 106         program would like to use.  Available in
 107         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf"
 108
 109 Automake 1.4 --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that
 110         conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards.  The
 111         nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make
 112         dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates
 113         Makefile dependencies.  Automake is available in
 114         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/automake"
 115
 116         Before using automake, you may need to copy `threads.m4' and
 117         `guile.m4' from the top directory of the Guile core disty to
 118         `/usr/local/share/aclocal.
 119
 120 libtool 1.3.3 --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed
 121         on various systems to produce shared libraries.  Available in
 122         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/libtool"
 123
 124 You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all
 125 different.
 126 >
 127
 128
 129 Obtaining Guile ======================================================
 130
 131 The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from
 132 ftp.gnu.org, as /pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz.
 133
 134 Via the web, that's:  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz
 135 For getit, that's:    ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz
 136
 137 The mailing list `guile@sourceware.cygnus.com' carries discussions,
 138 questions, and often answers, about Guile.  To subscribe, send mail to
 139 guile-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.  Of course, please send bug
 140 reports (and fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org.  Note that one address is
 141 @sourceware.cygnus.com, and the other is at @gnu.org.