README

   1 This is not a Guile release; it is a source tree retrieved via
   2 anonymous CVS at some random time after the Guile 1.3.4 release.
   3
   4 This is version 1.3.5 of Guile, Project GNU's extension language
   5 library.  Guile is an interpreter for Scheme, packaged as a library
   6 that you can link into your applications to give them their own
   7 scripting language.  Guile will eventually support other languages as
   8 well, giving users of Guile-based applications a choice of languages.
   9
  10 Please send bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
  11
  12 Guile Documentation ==================================================
  13
  14 There is some preliminary documentation for Guile under the directory
  15 doc.  The real Guile manual is incomplete, and is currently being
  16 revised.  A development snapshot of the manual is available at
  17 ftp.red-bean.com as /pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz.
  18
  19
  20 About This Distribution ==============================================
  21
  22 Interesting files include:
  23 - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile.
  24 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
  25 - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute
  26   Guile, and explains that there is no warranty.
  27
  28 Building and installing this distribution gives you:
  29 guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in
  30         /usr/local/bin.  With no arguments, this is a simple
  31         interactive Scheme interpreter.  It can also be used as an
  32         interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
  33 guile-config --- a Guile script which provides the information necessary
  34         to link your programs against the Guile library.
  35 guile-snarf --- a script to parse declarations in your C code for
  36         Scheme-visible C functions, Scheme objects to be used by C code, etc.
  37 libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
  38         usually installed in /usr/local/lib.  You can use Guile in
  39         your own programs by linking against this.
  40 libqthreads.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads
  41         primitives.  If you enabled thread support when you configured
  42         Guile, you will need to link your code against this too.
  43 libguilereadline.a --- an object library containing glue code for the
  44         GNU readline library.  See NEWS for instructions on how to enable
  45         readline for your personal use.
  46 <libguile.h>, <guile/gh.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for
  47         libguile.a, usually installed in /usr/local/include.
  48 ice-9, ice-9/*.scm --- run-time support for Guile: the module
  49         system, read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other
  50         infrastructure.  Usually installed in
  51         /usr/local/share/guile/<version>.
  52 data-rep.info --- An essay on how to write C code that works with
  53         Guile Scheme values.
  54
  55 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
  56
  57 libguile:
  58         The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
  59         for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
  60 ice-9:  Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
  61 guile-config:
  62         Source for the guile-config script.
  63 qt:     A cooperative threads package from the University of Washington,
  64         which Guile can use.  If you configure Guile with the
  65         --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt
  66         library, found in this directory.  Qt is under a separate
  67         copyright; see `qt/README' for more details.
  68 guile-readline:
  69         The glue code for using GNU readline with Guile.  This
  70         will be build when configure can find a recent enough readline
  71         library on your system.
  72 doc:    Some preliminary documentation for Guile.  The real Guile
  73         manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.
  74         A development snapshot of the manual is available at
  75         ftp.red-bean.com as /pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz.
  76 doc/example-smob: Sample code, discussed in the preliminary
  77         documentation above, for a program that extends Guile with a
  78         new data type, and functions that operate on it.
  79
  80
  81 Anonymous CVS Access and FTP snapshots ===============================
  82
  83 We make the developers' working Guile sources available via anonymous
  84 CVS, and by nightly snapshots, accessible via FTP.  See the files
  85 `ANON-CVS' and `SNAPSHOTS' for details.
  86
  87 If you would like to receive mail when people commit changes to the
  88 Guile CVS repository, you can subscribe to guile-cvs@sourceware.cygnus.com
  89 by sending a message to guile-cvs-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.  Even
  90 better, you can get daily digests of these commit messages by sending
  91 a message to guile-cvs-digest-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.
  92
  93 If you want to subscribe an e-mail address other than the one that
  94 appears in your From: header, say foo@bar.com, send a mail note to
  95 guile-cvs-subscribe-foo=bar.com@sourceware.cygnus.com.
  96
  97
  98 Hacking It Yourself ==================================================
  99
 100 As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system
 101 to compile.  However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a
 102 few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand.  If
 103 you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will
 104 find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile.  They
 105 are the following:
 106
 107 Autoconf 2.13 --- a system for automatically generating `configure'
 108         scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a
 109         program would like to use.  Available in
 110         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf"
 111
 112 Automake 1.4 --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that
 113         conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards.  The
 114         nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make
 115         dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates
 116         Makefile dependencies.  Automake is available in
 117         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/automake"
 118
 119         Before using automake, you may need to copy `threads.m4' and
 120         `guile.m4' from the top directory of the Guile core disty to
 121         `/usr/local/share/aclocal.
 122
 123 libtool 1.3.3 --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed
 124         on various systems to produce shared libraries.  Available in
 125         "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/libtool"
 126
 127 You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all
 128 different.
 129 >
 130
 131
 132 Obtaining Guile ======================================================
 133
 134 The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from
 135 ftp.gnu.org, as /pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz.
 136
 137 Via the web, that's:  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz
 138 For getit, that's:    ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu/guile/guile-1.3.4.tar.gz
 139
 140 The mailing list `guile@sourceware.cygnus.com' carries discussions,
 141 questions, and often answers, about Guile.  To subscribe, send mail to
 142 guile-subscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com.  Of course, please send bug
 143 reports (and fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org.  Note that one address is
 144 @sourceware.cygnus.com, and the other is at @gnu.org.