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git-svn-id: https://swig.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/swig/trunk/SWIG@4141 626c5289-ae23-0410-ae9c-e8d60b6d4f22
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196 lines
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>Preface</title>
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</head>
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<body bgcolor="#ffffff">
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<a name="n1"></a><H1>0 Preface</H1>
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<!-- INDEX -->
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#n2">Introduction</a>
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<li><a href="#n3">Special Introduction for Version 1.3</a>
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<li><a href="#n4">SWIG Versions</a>
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<li><a href="#n5">SWIG resources</a>
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<li><a href="#n6">Prerequisites</a>
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<li><a href="#n7">Organization of this manual</a>
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<li><a href="#n8">How to avoid reading the manual</a>
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<li><a href="#n9">Backwards Compatibility</a>
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<li><a href="#n10">Credits</a>
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<li><a href="#n11">Bug reports</a>
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</ul>
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<!-- INDEX -->
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<a name="n2"></a><H2>0.1 Introduction</H2>
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SWIG is a software development tool for building scripting language
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interfaces to C and C++ programs. Originally developed in 1995, SWIG was
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first used by scientists in the Theoretical Physics Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory for
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building user interfaces to simulation codes running on the Connection
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Machine 5 supercomputer. In this environment, scientists needed to
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work with huge amounts of simulation data, complex hardware, and a
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constantly changing code base. The use of a scripting language
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interface provided a simple yet highly flexible foundation for solving these
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types of problems. SWIG simplifies development by largely automating
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the task of scripting language integration--allowing developers and users
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to focus on more important problems.
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<p>
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Although SWIG was originally developed for scientific applications, it
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has since evolved into a general purpose tool that is used in a wide
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variety of applications--in fact almost anything where C/C++ programming
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is involved.
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<p>
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<a name="n3"></a><H2>0.2 Special Introduction for Version 1.3</H2>
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Since SWIG was released in 1996, its user base and applicability has
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continued to grow. Although its rate of development has varied, an
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active development effort has continued to make improvements to the
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system. Today, nearly a dozen developers are working to create
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SWIG-2.0---a system that aims to provide wrapping support for nearly
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all of the ANSI C++ standard and approximately ten target languages
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including Guile, Java, Mzscheme, Ocaml, Perl, Pike, PHP, Python, Ruby,
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and Tcl.
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<p>
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<a name="n4"></a><H2>0.3 SWIG Versions</H2>
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For several years, the most stable version of SWIG has been release
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1.1p5. Starting with version 1.3, a new version numbering scheme has
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been adopted. Odd version numbers (1.3, 1.5, etc.) represent
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development versions of SWIG. Even version numbers (1.4, 1.6, etc.)
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represent stable releases. Currently, developers are working to
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create a stable SWIG-2.0 release (late 2002).
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<a name="n5"></a><H2>0.4 SWIG resources</H2>
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The official location of SWIG related material is<p>
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<blockquote><pre>
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<a href="http://www.swig.org">http://www.swig.org</a>
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</pre></blockquote>
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<p>
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This site contains the latest version of the software, users guide,
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and information regarding bugs, installation problems, and
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implementation tricks.
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<p>
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You can also subscribe to the SWIG mailing list by visiting the page
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<p>
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<blockquote><pre><a href="http://mailman.cs.uchicago.edu/listinfo/swig">http://mailman.cs.uchicago.edu/listinfo/swig</a>
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</pre></blockquote>
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<p>
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The mailing list often discusses some of the more technical aspects of
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SWIG along with information about beta releases and future work.<p>
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<p>
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CVS access to the latest version of SWIG is also available. More information
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about this can be obtained at:
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<p>
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<blockquote><pre><a href="http://www.swig.org/cvs.html">http://www.swig.org/cvs.html</a>
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</pre></blockquote>
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<a name="n6"></a><H2>0.5 Prerequisites</H2>
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This manual assumes that you know how to write C/C++ programs and that you
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have at least heard of scripting languages such as
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Tcl, Python, and Perl. A detailed knowledge of these scripting
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languages is not required although some familiarity won't
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hurt. No prior experience with building C extensions to these
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languages is required---after all, this is what SWIG does automatically.
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However, you should be reasonably familiar with the use of
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compilers, linkers, and makefiles since making
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scripting language extensions is somewhat more complicated than
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writing a normal C program.
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<a name="n7"></a><H2>0.6 Organization of this manual</H2>
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The first few chapters of this manual describe SWIG in general and
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provide an overview of its capabilities. The remaining chapters are
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devoted to specific SWIG language modules and are self
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contained. Thus, if you are using SWIG to build Python interfaces, you
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can probably skip to that chapter and find almost everything you need
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to know. Caveat: we are currently working on a documentation rewrite and many
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of the older language module chapters are still somewhat out of date.
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<a name="n8"></a><H2>0.7 How to avoid reading the manual</H2>
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If you hate reading manuals, glance at the "Introduction" which
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contains a few simple examples. These
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examples contain about 95% of everything you need to know to use
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SWIG. After that, simply use the language-specific chapters as a reference.
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The SWIG distribution also comes with a large directory of
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examples that illustrate different topics.
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<a name="n9"></a><H2>0.8 Backwards Compatibility</H2>
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If you are a previous user of SWIG, don't expect recent versions of
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SWIG to provide backwards compatibility. In fact, backwards
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compatibility issues may arise even between successive 1.3.x releases.
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Although these incompatibilities are regretable, SWIG-1.3 is an active
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development project. The primary goal of this effort is to make SWIG
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better---a process that would simply be impossible if the developers
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are constantly bogged down with backwards compatibility issues.
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<p>
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On a positive note, a few incompatibilities are a small price to pay
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for the large number of new features that have been
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added---namespaces, templates, smart pointers, overloaded methods,
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operators, and more.
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<a name="n10"></a><H2>0.9 Credits</H2>
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SWIG is an unfunded project that would not be possible without the
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contributions of many people. Most recent SWIG development has been
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supported by Matthias Köppe, William Fulton, Lyle Johnson,
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Richard Palmer, Thien-Thi Nguyen, Jason Stewart, Loic Dachary, Masaki
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Fukushima, Luigi Ballabio, Sam Liddicott, Art Yerkes, Marcelo Matus, and Harco de Hilster.
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<p>
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Historically, the following people contributed to early versions of SWIG.
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Peter Lomdahl, Brad Holian, Shujia Zhou, Niels Jensen, and Tim Germann
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at Los Alamos National Laboratory were the first users. Patrick
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Tullmann at the University of Utah suggested the idea of automatic
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documentation generation. John Schmidt and Kurtis Bleeker at the
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University of Utah tested out the early versions. Chris Johnson
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supported SWIG's developed at the University of Utah. John Buckman,
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Larry Virden, and Tom Schwaller provided valuable input on the first
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releases and improving the portability of SWIG. David Fletcher and
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Gary Holt have provided a great deal of input on improving SWIG's
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Perl5 implementation. Kevin Butler contributed the first Windows NT
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port.
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<a name="n11"></a><H2>0.10 Bug reports</H2>
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Although every attempt has been made to make SWIG bug-free, we are also trying
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to make feature improvements that may introduce bugs.
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To report a bug, either send mail to the SWIG developer
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list at <tt>swig-dev@cs.uchicago.edu</tt> or report a bug
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at <tt>http://www.swig.org</tt>. In your report, be as specific as
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possible, including (if applicable), error messages, tracebacks (if a
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core dump occurred), corresponding portions of the SWIG interface file
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used, and any important pieces of the SWIG generated wrapper code. We
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can only fix bugs if we know about them.
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<p><hr>
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<address>SWIG 1.3 - Last Modified : August 10, 2002</address>
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</body>
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