source: trunk/j/README @ 11352

GENERAL INFORMATION
===================

Armed Bear Common Lisp is an implementation of ANSI Common Lisp that
runs in a Java virtual machine.


LICENSE
=======

Armed Bear Common Lisp is distributed under the GNU General Public
License (with a special exception described below).

A copy of GNU General Public License (GPL) is included in this
distribution, in the file COPYING.

Linking this software statically or dynamically with other modules is
making a combined work based on this software. Thus, the terms and
conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
combination.

As a special exception, the copyright holders of this software give
you permission to link this software with independent modules to
produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these
independent modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting
executable under terms of your choice, provided that you also meet,
for each linked independent module, the terms and conditions of the
license of that module. An independent module is a module which is not
derived from or based on this software. If you modify this software,
you may extend this exception to your version of the software, but you
are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this
exception statement from your version.


BUILDING
========

To build ABCL, you'll need 

1)  a 1.5 JDK, 

and either 

2.1) a supported Common Lisp implementation (SBCL, CMUCL, OpenMCL,
     Allegro, LispWorks, or CLISP)

or 

2.2) a version of Apache Ant (post 1.7.1)


Lisp-based
----------

Copy the file 'customizations.lisp.in' to customization.lisp', in the
directory containing this README file, editing to suit your situation,
paying attention to the comments in the file.

Start up one of the supported Common Lisp implementations in the
directory containing this README file.

Load build-abcl.lisp:

    (load "build-abcl.lisp")

Then do:

    (build-abcl:build-abcl :clean t :full t)

Wait for the build to finish and exit the host Lisp.

Use abcl.bat on Windows or ./abcl on Unix to start ABCL. (Note that
abcl.bat and abcl contain absolute paths, so you'll need to edit the
relevant file if you move things around after the build.)

If the build fails in the javac stage, you might have better luck with
this:

    (build-abcl:build-abcl :clean t :full t :batch nil)

This invokes javac separately for each .java file, which is
considerably slower but avoids running into limitations on command
line length.

Ant-based
---------

With ant-1.7.1 in your path executing 

    ant -find build.xml abcl.wrapper

from the directory containing this README file will create an
executable wrapper ('abcl' under UNIX, 'abcl.bat' under Windows) which
can use to run ABCL.


BUGS
====

ABCL is a very young implementation. You are certain to encounter
bugs.

ABCL 0.0.9 fails 54 out of 21344 tests in the GCL ANSI test suite.

ABCL's CLOS does not handle on-the-fly redefinition of classes
correctly, and in any event is intolerably slow. There is no support
for the long form of DEFINE-METHOD-COMBINATION, and certain other
required CLOS features are also missing. Enough CLOS is there to run
ASDF and CL-PPCRE, if you're in no hurry.

There is no MOP worth mentioning.

Since this is a very early public release, there might be build
problems as well as runtime bugs.

Please report problems to the j-devel mailing list:

    armedbear-j-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

Have fun!

Peter Graves
October 18, 2005