swig/README

SWIG (Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator)

Version: 1.3.6 (July 9, 2001)

$Header$

Tagline: SWIG is a compiler that integrates C and C++ with
         languages including Perl, Python, Tcl, Guile, Mzscheme,
         Java and Ruby.

SWIG reads annotated C/C++ header files and creates wrapper code (glue
code) in order to make the corresponding C/C++ libraries available to
the listed languages, or to extend C/C++ programs with a scripting
language.

This distribution represents the new stable release of SWIG, aiming to
replace versions 1.1p5 and 1.1-883. The guilty parties working on this
are:

 Dave Beazley (beazley@cs.uchicago.edu)                 (SWIG core)
 Loic Dachary (loic@ceic.com)                           (Perl5)
 William Fulton (wfulton1@motorola.com)                 (Java)
 Thien-Thi Nguyen (ttn@glug.org)                        (Testing/Misc)
 Masaki Fukushima (fukusima@goto.info.waseda.ac.jp)     (Ruby)
 Matthias Köppe (mkoeppe@mail.math.uni-magdeburg.de)    (Guile/MzScheme)

Past contributors (see the CHANGES file for a complete list):

Clark McGrew, Dustin Mitchell, Ian Cooke, Catalin Dumitrescu, Baran
Kovuk, Gary Holt, David Fletcher, Oleg Tolmatcev, Harco de Hilster.

Up-to-date SWIG related information can be found at

        http://www.swig.org

What's New?
===========
Here are the most notable changes (so far):

   - SWIG now has a full C preprocessor.

   - Code generation for the Tcl and Python modules has been
     substantially improved both in terms of size and runtime
     efficiency (Perl5 is coming along too).

   - The Guile module is stable. It represents C pointers as smobs and
     supports the Guile module system and exceptions.

   - Java, Ruby, and MzScheme modules added.

   - Testing framework part of the distribution ("make check" support).

   - A lot of minor bug fixes and cleanup.

   - SWIG requires an ANSI C compiler.

Here are a few missing features:

   - The SWIG1.1 documentation system is gone and hasn't been
     replaced yet.  This is on the long-term to-do list.

   - The Tcl7.x and Perl4 modules are deprecated and no longer
     included.

   - A wide variety of old SWIG command-line options and
     obscure features are gone.

   - Objective C support doesn't work right now.  No ETA as to
     when it will return.

Although we are making every attempt preserve backwards compatibility
with interfaces written for SWIG1.1, SWIG1.3 incorporates a number of
very substantial modifications to things such as type handling,
typemaps, and wrapper code generation.  Therefore, if you are making
extensive use of advanced SWIG features, interfaces written for
SWIG1.1 may not work.  We apologize for the inconvenience, but these
changes are needed in order to remove a variety of annoying "features"
of SWIG1.1.

In addition, SWIG1.3 makes no attempt to be compatible with SWIG1.1 at
the C++ API level so language modules written for SWIG1.1 will most
definitely not work with this release.

The files NEW and CHANGES describe in some detail all of the important
changes that have been made to the system.  Experienced users would be
advised to read this.

Installation
============
To build and install SWIG, simply type the following:

     % ./configure
     % make
     % make check	# this step is optional (see note below)
     % make install

In addition, if you need to build the runtime libraries, type
the following before doing the 'make install' step above.

     % make runtime

If you don't know what the runtime libraries are, don't worry
about this step.

The file INSTALL details more about using configure. Also try

     % ./configure --help. 

The configure script will attempt to locate various packages on your 
machine, including Tcl, Perl5, Python and other target languages that SWIG 
uses.  Don't panic if you get 'not found' messages--SWIG does not need these 
packages to compile or run.   The configure script is actually looking for 
these packages so that you can try out the SWIG examples contained
in the 'Examples' directory without having to hack Makefiles.

Notes:

(1) If you checked the code out via CVS, you will have to run ./autogen.sh
    before typing 'configure'.    In addition, a full build of SWIG requires
    the use of bison.

(2) If you are using Windows, the easiest way to install and build
    SWIG is to use the Cygwin package (http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/).
    Note: Even if you build SWIG using Cygwin, the easier way to
    actually use SWIG on Windows is to build your extensions using Visual C++.
    The SWIG1.1p5 distribution also contains a number of examples configured
    to work with Visual C++ (most of which should also work with SWIG1.3).

(3) 'make check' is a new feature that requires at least one of the target
    languages to be installed and which performs compile/link level testing
    of the examples.  If it fails, it may mean that you have an uninstalled
    language module or that the file 'Examples/Makefile' has been
    incorrectly configured.  It may also fail due to compiler issues 
    such as broken C++ compiler.  Even if 'make check' fails, there is a 
    pretty good chance SWIG still works correctly---you will just have
    to mess around with one of the examples and some makefiles first.

Examples
========
The Examples directory contains a variety of examples of using SWIG
and it has some browsable documentation.  Simply point your browser to
the file "Example/index.html".

Documentation
=============
No user documentation is currently included in this release.  However,
most of the documentation for SWIG1.1 still applies.  This can be
obtained on http://www.swig.org.

There is some technical documentation available in the Doc subdirectory.

Participate!
============

Please report any errors and submit patches (if possible)!  We only
have access to a limited variety of hardware (Linux, Solaris, and
Windows). All contributions help.

Contributions of new language modules will also be accepted.

 -- The SWIG Maintainers