File:  [gforth] / gforth / README
Revision 1.75: download - view: text, annotated - select for diffs
Sat Nov 1 21:03:58 2008 UTC (15 years, 4 months ago) by anton
Branches: MAIN
CVS tags: HEAD
updated tested platforms

    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: alpha-unknown-linux-gnu 
   17:  gcc-2.95.2 19991024 (release)
   18:  gcc-2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease) 
   19:  gcc-3.3.6 (Debian 1:3.3.6-15) 
   20:  gcc-3.4.6 (Debian 3.4.6-5) 
   21:  gcc-4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)
   22: armv5l-unknown-linux-gnu 
   23:  gcc-3.3.6 (Debian 1:3.3.6-15)
   24:  broken: gcc-4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)
   25:            <http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=31152>
   26: i686-pc-linux-gnu 
   27:  gcc-2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease) 
   28:  gcc-3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-13) 
   29:  gcc-3.4.4 20050314 (prerelease) (Debian 3.4.3-13sarge1)
   30: ia64-hp-hpux11.23 
   31:  gcc-4.1.1
   32:  broken: gcc-3.4.3
   33: powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu 
   34:  gcc-2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease) 
   35:  gcc-3.2.3 (Debian) 
   36:  gcc-3.3.6 (Debian 1:3.3.6-15) 
   37:  gcc-3.4.6 (Debian 3.4.6-8) 
   38:  gcc-4.0.3 20060128 (prerelease) (Debian 4.0.2-8) 
   39:  gcc-4.1.3 20080623 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.2-23) 
   40:  gcc-4.3.2
   41: powerpc64-unknown-linux-gnu 
   42:  gcc-3.4.6 (Debian 3.4.6-5) 
   43:  gcc-4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)
   44: sparc-sun-solaris2.10 
   45:  gcc-3.4.3 (csl-sol210-3_4-branch+sol_rpath) 
   46:  gcc-4.0.2
   47: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu 
   48:  gcc-3.3.6 (Debian 1:3.3.6-15) 
   49:  gcc-3.4.6 (Debian 3.4.6-5) 
   50:  gcc-4.0.0
   51:  gcc-4.0.4 20060904 (prerelease) (Debian 4.0.3-7) 
   52:  gcc-4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)
   53:  gcc-4.1.3 20080623 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.2-23) 
   54:  gcc-4.2.0
   55:  gcc-4.2.4 (Debian 4.2.4-3) 
   56:  gcc-4.3.1
   57: i386-apple-darwin9.4.0
   58: x86_64-apple-darwin9.4.0
   59: ppc-apple-darwin9.4.0
   60: i686-pc-cygwin
   61: gforth-ec: r8c, 4stack, misc, 8086
   62: 
   63: Read INSTALL for installation instructions from source, or INSTALL.DOS
   64: for DOS, Windows, and OS/2 from source, or INSTALL.BINDIST if you have
   65: a binary package distributed as .tar.gz or .zip file.  If you received
   66: a self-installing executable, just run it and follow the instructions.
   67: 
   68: To start the system, just say `gforth' (after installing it).
   69: 
   70: You can find new versions of Gforth at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gforth/
   71: and its mirrors or at
   72: 
   73: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth/
   74: or
   75: ftp://ftp.complang.tuwien.ac.at/pub/forth/gforth/
   76: 
   77: The latter site also contains binary distributions of Gforth for some
   78: popular platforms.
   79: 
   80: If you want to work on Gforth, mail me. Tasks to be done can be found
   81: in ToDo; but if you would like to do something not mentioned there,
   82: it's ok, too. In any case, we would like to hear what you are
   83: doing. The most important task IMO is the foreign language interface
   84: for C.
   85: 
   86: On popular request, here are the meanings of unusual file extensions:
   87: 
   88: *.fs	Forth stream source file (include with "include <file>" from within
   89:         gforth, or start with "gforth <file1> <file2> ...")
   90: *.fi	Forth image files (start with "gforth -i <image file>")
   91: *.fb	Forth blocks file (load with "use <block file> 1 load")
   92: *.i	C include files
   93: *.ds	documenation source
   94: *TAGS	etags files
   95: 
   96: A number of Forth source files are included in this package that are
   97: not necessary for building Gforth. Not all of them are mentioned in
   98: the rest of the documentation, so here's a short overview:
   99: 
  100: Add-ons:
  101: code.fs random.fs more.fs ansi.fs colorize.fs
  102: oof.fs oofsampl.fs objects.fs blocked.fb tasker.fs
  103: 
  104: Utilities:
  105: ans-report.fs etags.fs glosgen.fs filedump.fs
  106: 
  107: Games:
  108: tt.fs sokoban.fs
  109: 
  110: Test programs (for testing Forth systems):
  111: test/*.fs
  112: 
  113: Benchmarks:
  114: bubble.fs siev.fs matrix.fs fib.fs
  115: 
  116: ANS Forth implementations of Gforth extensions:
  117: compat/*.fs
  118: 
  119: For discussions about Gforth, use the Usenet newsgroup
  120: comp.lang.forth.  If you prefer not to post on Usenet, there is also a
  121: mailing list: GForth@ChaosSolutions.org.  To subscribe, send a mail to
  122: gforth-subscribe@chaossolutions.org with:
  123: 
  124: subscribe GForth
  125: 
  126: as the first and only line within the message body.  You can also
  127: report bugs through these channels, or you can report them through our
  128: bug database:
  129: 
  130: https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=addbug&group=gforth
  131: 
  132: - anton
  133: anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at
  134: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
  135: -----
  136: Copyright (C) 1995,1996,1997,1998,2000,2003,2004,2006,2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  137: 
  138: This file is part of Gforth.
  139: 
  140: Gforth is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
  141: modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
  142: as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3
  143: of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
  144: 
  145: This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  146: but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  147: MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.#See the
  148: GNU General Public License for more details.
  149: 
  150: You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  151: along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

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