3
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Free software Foundation, Inc.
5
Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6
of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7
copyright notice and permission notice are preserved,
8
and that the distributor grants the recipient permission
9
for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.
11
Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
12
of this document, or of portions of it,
13
under the above conditions, provided also that they
14
carry prominent notices stating who last changed them,
15
and that any new or changed statements about the activities
16
of the Free Software Foundation are approved by the Foundation.
19
What to Hack =========================================================
21
You can hack whatever you want, thank GNU.
23
However, to see what others have indicated as their interest (and avoid
24
potential wasteful duplication of effort), see file TODO. Note that
25
the version you find may be out of date; a CVS checkout is recommended:
26
see below for details (see also the files ANON-CVS and SNAPSHOTS).
28
It's also a good idea to join the guile-devel@gnu.org mailing list.
29
See http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/mail/mail.html for more info.
32
Hacking It Yourself ==================================================
34
When Guile is obtained from CVS, a few extra steps must be taken
35
before the usual configure, make, make install. You will need to have
36
up-to-date versions of the tools listed below, correctly installed.
37
i.e., they must be found in the current PATH and not shadowed or
38
otherwise broken by files left behind from other versions.
40
"up-to-date" means the latest released versions at the time that Guile
41
was obtained from CVS. Sometimes older or newer versions will work.
42
(See below for versions to avoid.)
44
Then you must run the autogen.sh script, as described below.
46
In case of problems, it may be worth getting a fresh copy of Guile
47
from CVS: synchronisation problems have been known to occur
50
The same procedure can be used to regenerate the files in released
51
versions of Guile. In that case the headers of the original generated
52
files (e.g., configure, Makefile.in, ltmain.sh) can be used to
53
identify which tool versions may be required.
55
Autoconf --- a system for automatically generating `configure'
56
scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a
57
program would like to use. Available in
58
"ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf"
60
Automake --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that
61
conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards. The
62
nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make
63
dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates
64
Makefile dependencies. Automake is available in
65
"ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/automake"
67
libtool --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed
68
on various systems to produce shared libraries. Available in
69
"ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/libtool"
71
gettext --- a system for rigging a program so that it can output its
72
messages in the local tongue. Guile presently only exports
73
the gettext functionality to Scheme, it does not use it
76
flex --- a scanner generator. It's probably not essential to have the
79
One false move and you will be lost in a little maze of automatically
80
generated files, all different.
82
Here is the authoritative list of tool/version/platform tuples that
83
have been known to cause problems, and a short description of the problem.
85
- automake 1.4 adds extraneous rules to the top-level Makefile if
86
you specify specific Makefiles to rebuild on the command line.
88
- automake 1.4-p4 (debian "1:1.4-p4-1.1") all platforms
89
automake "include" facility does not recognize filenames w/ "-".
91
- libtool 1.4 uses acconfig.h, which is deprecated by newest autoconf
92
(which constructs the equivalent through 3rd arg of AC_DEFINE forms).
94
- autoreconf from autoconf prior to 2.59 will run gettextize, which
95
will mess up the Guile tree.
100
Sample GDB Initialization File=========================================
102
Here is a sample .gdbinit posted by Bill Schottstaedt (modified to
103
use `set' instead of `call' in some places):
110
Executes (object->string arg)
115
call gdb_eval(gdb_result)
116
set gdb_print(gdb_result)
120
Executes (print (eval (read arg))): ge "(+ 1 2)" => 3
124
call g_help(scm_str2symbol($arg0), 20)
129
Prints help string for arg: gh "enved-target"
134
so in gdb if you see something useless like:
136
#32 0x081ae8f4 in scm_primitive_load (filename=1112137128) at load.c:129
138
You can get the file name with gp:
141
$1 = 0x40853fac "\"/home/bil/test/share/guile/1.5.0/ice-9/session.scm\""
144
Contributing Your Changes ============================================
146
- If you have put together a change that meets the coding standards
147
described below, we encourage you to submit it to Guile. The best
148
place to post it is guile-devel@gnu.org. Please don't send it
149
directly to me; I often don't have time to look things over. If you
150
have tested your change, then you don't need to be shy.
152
- Please submit patches using either context or unified diffs (diff -c
153
or diff -u). Don't include a patch for ChangeLog; such patches don't
154
apply cleanly, since we've probably changed the top of ChangeLog too.
155
Instead, provide the unaltered text at the top of your patch.
157
- For proper credit, also make sure you update the AUTHORS file
158
(for new files for which you've assigned copyright to the FSF), or
159
the THANKS file (for everything else).
161
Please don't include patches for generated files like configure,
162
aclocal.m4, or any Makefile.in. Such patches are often large, and
163
we're just going to regenerate those files anyway.
166
CVS conventions ======================================================
168
- We use CVS to manage the Guile sources. The repository lives on
169
subversions.gnu.org, in /cvs; you will need an
170
account on that machine to access the repository. Also, for security
171
reasons, subversions presently only supports CVS connections via the SSH
172
protocol, so you must first install the SSH client. Then, you should
173
set your CVS_RSH environment variable to ssh, and use the following as
176
:ext:USER@subversions.gnu.org:/cvs
178
Either set your CVSROOT environment variable to that, or give it as
179
the value of the global -d option to CVS when you check out a working
182
For more information on SSH, see http://www.openssh.com.
184
The Guile sources live in several modules:
186
- guile-core --- the interpreter, QuickThreads, and ice-9
187
- guile-tcltk --- the Guile/Tk interface
188
- guile-tk --- the new Guile/Tk interface, based on STk's modified Tk
189
- guile-rgx-ctax --- the Guile/Rx interface, and the ctax implementation
190
- guile-scsh --- the port of SCSH to guile, talk to Gary Houston
191
- guile-www --- A Guile module for making HTTP requests.
192
- guile-statprof --- an experimental statistical profiler.
194
There is a mailing list for CVS commit messages; see README for details.
196
- The guile-core tree is now versioned similarly to the Linux kernel.
197
Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
198
i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
199
second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
200
5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
201
indicate major changes in Guile.
203
Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
204
minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
205
unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
206
a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
208
- A default CVS checkout will get the current unstable development
209
tree. However, for each stable release, a CVS branch is created so
210
that release (and ongoing maintenance) of the stable version can
211
proceed independent of the development of the next unstable version.
212
To check out a particular stable branch, you just need to specify "-r
213
branch_release-X-Y" to your CVS checkout command (or to any update).
214
For example, if you wanted to check out the 1.6 stable branch, you
215
would specify "-r branch_release-1-6".
217
So, for example, during a normal development cycle, work will proceed
218
on an unstable version, say 1.5.X, until it is decided that it's time
219
for a stable release. At that point, a branch named
220
branch_release-1-6 will be created, and the version numbers on the
221
HEAD of the CVS tree (the trunk, i.e. what you get by default), will
222
be changed to reflect the new unstable version 1.7.X. Then unstable
223
development will proceed on the unstable version, while the stable
224
1.5.X branch is fixed up for the eventual 1.6.0 release.
226
Anytime you want to yank an existing checked out tree to the stable
227
branch, you can run a command like this:
229
cvs -z3 update -r branch_release-1-6 -Pd
231
This will yank the working directory over on to the stable release
232
branch. Note that this directory will track that branch from then on
233
unless you do something to yank it back to the main (unstable) trunk.
235
To go back to the unstable branch, you can use
237
cvs -z3 update -A -Pd
239
Note that in either case, you should probably make sure you've
240
commited or removed all local changes before running the commands or
241
you're likely to have some unexpected results.
243
Finally note that one approach, should you need to work on both
244
branches, is to keep two trees checked out, one stable, the other
245
unstable and you can work in whichever is appropriate.
247
To save some initial bandwidth, you can check out either the stable
248
tree or the unstable tree, and then do something like this:
250
cp -a core-unstable core-1.5
252
cvs -z3 update -r branch_release-1-6 -Pd
254
- The stable and unstable CVS trees are distinct, and no changes will
255
automatically propagate between them. If you make changes that need
256
to show up both places, you'll need to apply the changes both places.
257
You *might* be able to do this with a cvs command, but often you'll
258
probably need to apply the changes by hand or risk migrating
259
superfluous modifications between the two versions. This is
260
particularly important when moving a change from the unstable branch
261
to the stable branch.
263
- In general, please don't be adventurous with the stable branch. We
264
mostly want bugfixes, documentation improvements, build improvements,
265
etc., though exceptions will doubtless exist.
267
- There are a few CVS tagging conventions which follow the Scheme
268
convention that dashes are used to separate words within a single
269
symbol, and so dashes bind more tightly than underscores. This means
270
that foo-bar_baz-bax indicates that foo-bar is somehow separate from
271
baz-bax. The conventions are as follows:
275
anytime just before you create a branch it's a good
276
idea to create a normal tag so that you can refer to the branch point
277
on the main trunk as well as on the branch. So please use a tag of
280
branch-root-release-1-X
282
or more generally, for other non-release branches:
288
for the branch tag itself please use
292
or more generally, for other non-release branches:
298
Whenever you're merging a branch back into the trunk (or into another
299
branch repeatedly) you need to tag the branch each time you merge. If
300
you don't do that, you won't be able to merge repeatedly without
301
possibly tedious conflicts. For those tags, we suggest:
303
branch-merge_SOME-FOO_to_SOME-BAR_1
304
branch-merge_SOME-FOO_to_SOME-BAR_2
307
As an example, SOME-BAR might be trunk, or even perhaps another branch
308
like branch-mvo-super-fixes :>
310
More mundanely, you might have
312
branch-merge_release-1-6_to_trunk_1
314
(Merging the stable branch to the trunk like this
315
will probably be much more common, when it happens, than the
316
reverse for the reasons mentioned above.
320
When releasing a new version of guile, please use:
328
- If you hack on a stable branch, please apply any relevant patches or
329
fixes to the current unstable version (the main CVS trunk) as well.
330
Similarly, please back-port any important fixes to the unstable CVS
331
tree to the current stable branch.
333
- We check Makefile.am and configure.in files into CVS, but the
334
"autogen.sh" script must be run from the top-level to generate the
335
actual "configure" script that then must be run to create the various
336
Makefile-s to build guile. The general rule is that you should be able
337
to check out a working directory of Guile from CVS, and then type
338
"./autogen.sh", then "configure", and finally "make". No
339
automatically generated files should be checked into the CVS
342
- The .cvsignore file is contained in the repository, to provide a
343
reasonable list of auto-generated files that should not be checked in.
344
This, however, prohibits one from having local additions to the
345
.cvsignore file (yes, you can modify it and never check it in, but
346
that doesn't seem to be a good solution to me). To get around this
347
problem, you might want to patch your cvs program so that it uses a
348
.cvsignore-local file (say) instead of the one from the repository. A
349
patch for this can be found at the very end of this file.
351
- (Automake 1.4 only) Be sure to run automake at the top of the tree
352
with no arguments. Do not use `automake Makefile' to regenerate
353
specific Makefile.in files, and do not trust the Makefile rules to
354
rebuild them when they are out of date. Automake 1.4 will add
355
extraneous rules to the top-level Makefile if you specify specific
356
Makefiles to rebuild on the command line. Running the command
357
`autoreconf --force' should take care of everything correctly.
359
- Make sure your changes compile and work, at least on your own
360
machine, before checking them into the main branch of the Guile
361
repository. A good way for testing this is to run "make distcheck".
362
If you really need to check in untested changes, make a branch.
364
- Include each log entry in both the ChangeLog and in the CVS logs.
365
If you're using Emacs, the pcl-cvs interface to CVS has features to
366
make this easier; it checks the ChangeLog, and generates good default
367
CVS log entries from that.
370
Coding standards =====================================================
372
- Before contributing larger amounts of code to Guile, please read the
373
documents in `guile-core/devel/policy' in the CVS source tree.
375
- As for any part of Project GNU, changes to Guile should follow the
376
GNU coding standards. The standards are available via anonymous FTP
377
from prep.ai.mit.edu, as /pub/gnu/standards/standards.texi and
380
- The Guile tree should compile without warnings under the following
381
GCC switches, which are the default in the current configure script:
383
-O2 -Wall -Wpointer-arith -Wmissing-prototypes
385
To make sure of this, you can use the --enable-error-on-warning option
386
to configure. This option will make GCC fail if it hits a warning.
388
Note that the warnings generated vary from one version of GCC to the
389
next, and from one architecture to the next (apparently). To provide
390
a concrete common standard, Guile should compile without warnings from
391
GCC 2.7.2.3 in a Red Hat 5.2 i386 Linux machine. Furthermore, each
392
developer should pursue any additional warnings noted by on their
393
compiler. This means that people using more stringent compilers will
394
have more work to do, and assures that everyone won't switch to the
395
most lenient compiler they can find. :)
397
Note also that EGCS (as of November 3 1998) doesn't handle the
398
`noreturn' attribute properly, so it doesn't understand that functions
399
like scm_error won't return. This may lead to some silly warnings
400
about uninitialized variables. You should look into these warnings to
401
make sure they are indeed spurious, but you needn't correct warnings
402
caused by this EGCS bug.
404
- If you add code which uses functions or other features that are not
405
entirely portable, please make sure the rest of Guile will still
406
function properly on systems where they are missing. This usually
407
entails adding a test to configure.in, and then adding #ifdefs to your
408
code to disable it if the system's features are missing.
410
- The normal way of removing a function, macro or variable is to mark
411
it as "deprecated", keep it for a while, and remove it in a later
412
release. If a function or macro is marked as "deprecated" it
413
indicates that people shouldn't use it in new programs, and should try
414
to remove it in old. Make sure that an alternative exists unless it
415
is our purpose to remove functionality. Don't deprecate definitions
416
if it is unclear when they will be removed. (This is to ensure that a
417
valid way of implementing some functionality always exists.)
419
When deprecating a definition, always follow this procedure:
421
1. Mark the definition using
423
#if (SCM_DEBUG_DEPRECATED == 0)
427
or, for Scheme code, wrap it using
432
2. Make the deprecated code issue a warning when it is used, by using
433
scm_c_issue_deprecation_warning (in C) or issue-deprecation-warning
436
3. Write a comment at the definition explaining how a programmer can
437
manage without the deprecated definition.
439
4. Add an entry that the definition has been deprecated in NEWS and
440
explain what do do instead.
442
5. In file TODO, there is a list of releases with reminders about what
443
to do at each release. Add a reminder about the removal of the
444
deprecated defintion at the appropriate release.
446
- Please write log entries for functions written in C under the
447
functions' C names, and write log entries for functions written in
448
Scheme under the functions' Scheme names. Please don't do this:
450
* procs.c, procs.h (procedure-documentation): Moved from eval.c.
452
Entries like this make it harder to search the ChangeLogs, because you
453
can never tell which name the entry will refer to. Instead, write this:
455
* procs.c, procs.h (scm_procedure_documentation): Moved from eval.c.
457
Changes like adding this line are special:
459
SCM_PROC (s_map_in_order, "map-in-order", 2, 0, 1, scm_map);
461
Since the change here is about the name itself --- we're adding a new
462
alias for scm_map that guarantees the order in which we process list
463
elements, but we're not changing scm_map at all --- it's appropriate
464
to use the Scheme name in the log entry.
466
- There's no need to keep a change log for a ChangeLog file. For any
467
other kind of file (including documentation, since our documentation
468
is indeed precisely engineered -- we surpass GNU standards here), add
469
an appropriate ChangeLog entry when you change it. Simple!
471
- Make sure you have papers from people before integrating their
472
changes or contributions. This is very frustrating, but very
473
important to do right. From maintain.texi, "Information for
474
Maintainers of GNU Software":
476
When incorporating changes from other people, make sure to follow the
477
correct procedures. Doing this ensures that the FSF has the legal
478
right to distribute and defend GNU software.
480
For the sake of registering the copyright on later versions ofthe
481
software you need to keep track of each person who makes significant
482
changes. A change of ten lines or so, or a few such changes, in a
483
large program is not significant.
485
*Before* incorporating significant changes, make sure that the person
486
has signed copyright papers, and that the Free Software Foundation has
489
If you receive contributions you want to use from someone, let me know
490
and I'll take care of the administrivia. Put the contributions aside
491
until we have the necessary papers.
493
Once you accept a contribution, be sure to keep the files AUTHORS and
496
- When you make substantial changes to a file, add the current year to
497
the list of years in the copyright notice at the top of the file.
499
- When you get bug reports or patches from people, be sure to list
503
Naming conventions =================================================
505
We use certain naming conventions to structure the considerable number
506
of global identifiers. All identifiers should be either all lower
507
case or all upper case. Syllables are separated by underscores `_'.
508
All non-static identifiers should start with scm_ or SCM_. Then might
509
follow zero or more syllables giving the category of the identifier.
510
The currently used category identifiers are
514
c,C - something with a interface suited for C use. This is used
515
to name functions that behave like Scheme primitives but
516
have a more C friendly calling convention.
518
i,I - internal to libguile. It is global, but not considered part
521
f - a SCM variable pointing to a Scheme function object.
523
F - a bit mask for a flag.
525
m - a macro transformer procedure
527
n,N - a count of something
529
s - a constant C string
531
k - a SCM variable pointing to a keyword.
533
sym - a SCM variable pointing to a symbol.
535
var - a SCM variable pointing to a variable object.
537
The follwing syllables also have a technical meaning:
539
str - this denotes a zero terminated C string
541
mem - a C string with an explicit count
544
See also the file `devel/names.text'.
547
Helpful hints ========================================================
549
- [From Mikael Djurfeldt] When working on the Guile internals, it is
550
quite often practical to implement a scheme-level procedure which
551
helps you examine the feature you're working on.
553
Examples of such procedures are: pt-size, debug-hand and
556
I've now put #ifdef GUILE_DEBUG around all such procedures, so that
557
they are not compiled into the "normal" Guile library. Please do the
558
same when you add new procedures/C functions for debugging purpose.
560
You can define the GUILE_DEBUG flag by passing --enable-guile-debug to
561
the configure script.
563
- You'll see uses of the macro SCM_P scattered throughout the code;
564
those are vestiges of a time when Guile was meant to compile on
565
pre-ANSI compilers. Guile now requires ANSI C, so when you write new
566
functions, feel free to use ANSI declarations, and please provide
567
prototypes for everything. You don't need to use SCM_P in new code.
570
Jim Blandy, and others
573
Patches ===========================================================
575
This one makes cvs-1.10 consider the file $CVSDOTIGNORE instead of
576
.cvsignore when that environment variable is set.
579
diff -r -u cvs-1.10/src/cvs.h cvs-1.10.ignore-hack/src/cvs.h
580
--- cvs-1.10/src/cvs.h Mon Jul 27 04:54:11 1998
581
+++ cvs-1.10.ignore-hack/src/cvs.h Sun Jan 23 12:58:09 2000
584
extern int ign_name PROTO ((char *name));
585
void ign_add PROTO((char *ign, int hold));
586
-void ign_add_file PROTO((char *file, int hold));
587
+int ign_add_file PROTO((char *file, int hold));
588
void ign_setup PROTO((void));
589
void ign_dir_add PROTO((char *name));
590
int ignore_directory PROTO((char *name));
591
diff -r -u cvs-1.10/src/ignore.c cvs-1.10.ignore-hack/src/ignore.c
592
--- cvs-1.10/src/ignore.c Mon Sep 8 01:04:15 1997
593
+++ cvs-1.10.ignore-hack/src/ignore.c Sun Jan 23 12:57:50 2000
596
* Open a file and read lines, feeding each line to a line parser. Arrange
597
* for keeping a temporary list of wildcards at the end, if the "hold"
599
+ * argument is set. Return true when the file exists and has been handled.
603
ign_add_file (file, hold)
609
if (! existence_error (errno))
610
- error (0, errno, "cannot open %s", file);
612
+ error (0, errno, "cannot open %s", file);
615
while (getline (&line, &line_allocated, fp) >= 0)
616
ign_add (line, hold);
619
error (0, errno, "cannot close %s", file);
624
/* Parse a line of space-separated wildcards and add them to the list. */
629
+ char *cvsdotignore;
631
/* Set SUBDIRS if we have subdirectory information in ENTRIES. */
637
- ign_add_file (CVSDOTIGNORE, 1);
638
+ cvsdotignore = getenv("CVSDOTIGNORE");
639
+ if (cvsdotignore == NULL || !ign_add_file (cvsdotignore, 1))
640
+ ign_add_file (CVSDOTIGNORE, 1);
642
wrap_add_file (CVSDOTWRAPPER, 1);
644
while ((dp = readdir (dirp)) != NULL)
647
This one is for pcl-cvs-2.9.2, so that `i' adds to the local
651
--- pcl-cvs.el~ Mon Nov 1 12:33:46 1999
652
+++ pcl-cvs.el Tue Jan 25 21:46:27 2000
653
@@ -1177,7 +1177,10 @@
654
"Append the file in FILEINFO to the .cvsignore file.
655
Can only be used in the *cvs* buffer."
656
(save-window-excursion
657
- (set-buffer (find-file-noselect (expand-file-name ".cvsignore" dir)))
658
+ (set-buffer (find-file-noselect
659
+ (expand-file-name (or (getenv "CVSDOTIGNORE")
662
(goto-char (point-max))
663
(unless (zerop (current-column)) (insert "\n"))
added
removed
HACKING
