source: branches/0.22.x/abcl/README

Last change on this file was 12900, checked in by Mark Evenson, 14 years ago

Correct README language.

  • Property svn:eol-style set to native
File size: 6.4 KB
Line 
1GENERAL INFORMATION
2===================
3
4Armed Bear Common Lisp is an implementation of ANSI Common Lisp that
5runs in a Java virtual machine.  It compiles its code to Java byte
6code.
7
8
9LICENSE
10=======
11
12Armed Bear Common Lisp is distributed under the GNU General Public
13License with classpath exception (described below).
14
15A copy of GNU General Public License (GPL) is included in this
16distribution, in the file COPYING.
17
18Linking this software statically or dynamically with other modules is
19making a combined work based on this software. Thus, the terms and
20conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
21combination.
22
23As a special exception, the copyright holders of this software give
24you permission to link this software with independent modules to
25produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these
26independent modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting
27executable under terms of your choice, provided that you also meet,
28for each linked independent module, the terms and conditions of the
29license of that module. An independent module is a module which is not
30derived from or based on this software. If you modify this software,
31you may extend this exception to your version of the software, but you
32are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this
33exception statement from your version.
34
35
36RUNNING FROM BINARY RELEASE
37===========================
38
39After you have downloaded a binary release archive unpack it into its
40own directory. To run ABCL directly from this directory, make sure
41Java (version 1.5 or up) is in your shell's path. Then issue following
42command
43
44    cmd$ java -jar abcl.jar
45
46which should result in output like the following
47
48    Armed Bear Common Lisp 0.19.1
49    Java 1.6.0_14 Sun Microsystems Inc.
50    Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM
51    Low-level initialization completed in 0.9 seconds.
52    Startup completed in 2.294 seconds.
53    Type ":help" for a list of available commands.
54    CL-USER(1):
55
56
57BUILDING FROM SOURCE RELEASE
58============================
59
60There are three ways to build ABCL from the source release with the
61preferred (and most tested way) is to being to use the Ant build tool:
62
63* Use the Ant build tool for Java environments. 
64
65* Use the Netbeans 6.x IDE to open ABCL as a project.
66
67* Bootstrap ABCL using a Common Lisp implementation. Supported
68  implementations for this process: SBCL, CMUCL, OpenMCL, Allegro
69  CL, LispWorks or CLISP.
70
71In all cases you need a Java 5 or later JDK (JDK 1.5 and 1.6 have been
72tested).  Just the JRE isn't enough, as you need the Java compiler
73('javac') to compile the Java source of the ABCL implementation.
74
75
76Using Ant
77---------
78
79Download a binary distribution [Ant version 1.7.1 or greater][1].
80Unpack the files somewhere convenient, ensuring that the 'ant' (or
81'ant.bat' under Windows) executable is in your path and executable.
82
83[1]: http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi
84
85Then simply executing
86
87    unix$  ant
88
89or
90    cmd$ ant.bat   
91
92from the directory containing this README file will create an
93executable wrapper ('abcl' under UNIX, 'abcl.bat' under Windows).  Use
94this wrapper to start ABCL.
95
96
97Using NetBeans
98--------------
99
100Obtain and install the [Netbeans IDE][2]. One should be able to open
101the ABCL directory as a project in the Netbeans 6.x application,
102whereupon the usual build, run, and debug targets as invoked in the
103GUI are available.
104
105[2]: http://netbeans.org/downloads/
106
107
108Building from Lisp
109------------------
110
111Building from a Lisp is the most venerable and untested way of
112building ABCL.  It produces a "non-standard" version of the
113distribution that doesn't share build instructions with the previous
114two methods, but it still may be of interest to those who absolutely
115don't want to know anything about Java.
116
117First, copy the file 'customizations.lisp.in' to customization.lisp',
118in the directory containing this README file, editing to suit your
119situation, paying attention to the comments in the file.  The critical
120step is to have Lisp special variable '*JDK*' point to the root of the
121Java Development Kit.  Underneath the directory referenced by the
122value of '*JDK*' there should be an exectuable Java compiler in
123'bin/javac' ('bin/java.exe' under Windows).
124
125Then, one may either use the 'build-from-lisp.sh' shell script or load
126the necessary files into your Lisp image by hand.
127
128** Using the 'build-from-lisp.sh' script
129
130Under UNIX-like systems, you may simply invoke the
131'build-from-lisp.sh' script as './build-from-lisp.sh
132<lisp-of-choice>', e.g.
133
134    unix$ ./build-from-lisp.sh sbcl
135
136After a successful build, you may use 'abcl.bat' on Windows or 'abcl'
137on Unix to start ABCL.  Note that this wrappers contain absolute
138paths, so you'll need to edit them if you move things around after the
139build.
140
141If you're developing on ABCL, you may want to use
142
143    unix$ ./build-from-lisp.sh <implementation> --clean=nil
144
145to not do a full rebuild.
146
147In case of failure in the javac stage, you might try this:
148
149    unix$ ./build-from-lisp.sh <implementation> --full=t --clean=t --batch=nil
150
151This invokes javac separately for each .java file, which avoids running
152into limitations on command line length (but is a lot slower).
153 
154** Building from another Lisp by hand
155
156There is also an ASDF definition in 'abcl.asd' for the BUILD-ABCL
157which can be used to load the necessary Lisp definitions, after which
158
159    CL-USER> (build-abcl:build-abcl :clean t :full t)
160   
161will build ABCL.  If ASDF isn't present, simply LOAD the
162'customizations.lisp' and 'build-abcl.lisp' files to achieve the same
163effect as loading the ASDF definition.
164
165
166BUGS
167====
168
169A lot of (renewed) energy has been spent to make ABCL a compliant
170and practically useable Common Lisp implementation.  Because of this,
171ABCL 0.19.1 now fails only 29 out of 21702 tests in the ANSI CL test
172suite.  Next to that, the fail count of the Maxima test suite has been
173reduced to only 5 - rounding errors.
174
175ABCL's CLOS does not handle on-the-fly redefinition of classes
176correctly. Quite a bit of energy has been spent in versions 0.16.0 and
1770.17.0 to improve CLOS performance. There is no support for the long
178form of DEFINE-METHOD-COMBINATION, and certain other required CLOS
179features are also missing. Enough CLOS is there to run
180ASDF2 and CL-PPCRE.
181
182There is no MOP worth mentioning.
183
184Patches to address any of the issues mentioned above will be gladly
185accepted.
186
187Please report problems to the development mailing list:
188
189    armedbear-devel@common-lisp.net
190
191Have fun!
192
193On behalf of all ABCL development team and contributors,
194Erik Huelsmann
195March 20, 2010
Note: See TracBrowser for help on using the repository browser.