File:  [gforth] / gforth / README
Revision 1.72: download - view: text, annotated - select for diffs
Mon Oct 13 20:20:56 2008 UTC (15 years, 5 months ago) by anton
Branches: MAIN
CVS tags: HEAD
updated INSTALL, README
documented some configuration variables in configure.in

    1: Gforth is a fast and portable implementation of the ANS Forth
    2: language. It works nicely with the Emacs editor, offers some nice
    3: features such as input completion and history, backtraces, a
    4: decompiler and a powerful locals facility, and it even has a
    5: manual. Gforth combines traditional implementation techniques with
    6: newer techniques for portability and performance: its inner
    7: interpreter is direct threaded with several optimizations, but you can
    8: also use a traditional-style indirect threaded interpreter.  Gforth is
    9: distributed under the GNU General Public license (see COPYING).
   10: 
   11: Gforth runs under GNU, BSD, and similar systems, MS Windows, MacOS X,
   12: OS/2, and DOS and should not be hard to port to other systems
   13: supported by GCC. This version has been tested successfully on the
   14: following platforms:
   15: 
   16:   i386-unknown-linux-gnu
   17:   x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
   18:   i386-apple-darwin9.4.0
   19:   x86_64-apple-darwin9.4.0
   20:   ppc-apple-darwin9.4.0
   21:   i686-pc-cygwin
   22:   r8c (gforth-ec)
   23: 
   24: Read INSTALL for installation instructions from source, or INSTALL.DOS
   25: for DOS, Windows, and OS/2 from source, or INSTALL.BINDIST if you have
   26: a binary package distributed as .tar.gz or .zip file.  If you received
   27: a self-installing executable, just run it and follow the instructions.
   28: 
   29: To start the system, just say `gforth' (after installing it).
   30: 
   31: You can find new versions of Gforth at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gforth/
   32: and its mirrors or at
   33: 
   34: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth/
   35: or
   36: ftp://ftp.complang.tuwien.ac.at/pub/forth/gforth/
   37: 
   38: The latter site also contains binary distributions of Gforth for some
   39: popular platforms.
   40: 
   41: If you want to work on Gforth, mail me. Tasks to be done can be found
   42: in ToDo; but if you would like to do something not mentioned there,
   43: it's ok, too. In any case, we would like to hear what you are
   44: doing. The most important task IMO is the foreign language interface
   45: for C.
   46: 
   47: On popular request, here are the meanings of unusual file extensions:
   48: 
   49: *.fs	Forth stream source file (include with "include <file>" from within
   50:         gforth, or start with "gforth <file1> <file2> ...")
   51: *.fi	Forth image files (start with "gforth -i <image file>")
   52: *.fb	Forth blocks file (load with "use <block file> 1 load")
   53: *.i	C include files
   54: *.ds	documenation source
   55: *TAGS	etags files
   56: 
   57: A number of Forth source files are included in this package that are
   58: not necessary for building Gforth. Not all of them are mentioned in
   59: the rest of the documentation, so here's a short overview:
   60: 
   61: Add-ons:
   62: code.fs random.fs more.fs ansi.fs colorize.fs
   63: oof.fs oofsampl.fs objects.fs blocked.fb tasker.fs
   64: 
   65: Utilities:
   66: ans-report.fs etags.fs glosgen.fs filedump.fs
   67: 
   68: Games:
   69: tt.fs sokoban.fs
   70: 
   71: Test programs (for testing Forth systems):
   72: test/*.fs
   73: 
   74: Benchmarks:
   75: bubble.fs siev.fs matrix.fs fib.fs
   76: 
   77: ANS Forth implementations of Gforth extensions:
   78: compat/*.fs
   79: 
   80: For discussions about Gforth, use the Usenet newsgroup
   81: comp.lang.forth.  If you prefer not to post on Usenet, there is also a
   82: mailing list: GForth@ChaosSolutions.org.  To subscribe, send a mail to
   83: gforth-subscribe@chaossolutions.org with:
   84: 
   85: subscribe GForth
   86: 
   87: as the first and only line within the message body.  You can also
   88: report bugs through these channels, or you can report them through our
   89: bug database:
   90: 
   91: https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=addbug&group=gforth
   92: 
   93: - anton
   94: anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at
   95: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
   96: -----
   97: Copyright (C) 1995,1996,1997,1998,2000,2003,2004,2006,2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   98: 
   99: This file is part of Gforth.
  100: 
  101: Gforth is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
  102: modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
  103: as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3
  104: of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
  105: 
  106: This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  107: but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  108: MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.#See the
  109: GNU General Public License for more details.
  110: 
  111: You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  112: along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

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