swig/README

SWIG (Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator)

Version: 1.3 (alpha)

$Header$

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

This distribution represents work in progress towards building a new
SWIG release.  The guilty parties working on this are:

 Dave Beazley (beazley@cs.uchicago.edu)                 (SWIG core)
 Loic Dachary (loic@ceic.com)                           (Perl5)
 Harco de Hilster (Harco.de.Hilster@ATComputing.nl)     (Java)
 Thien-Thi Nguyen (ttn@glug.org)                        (Testing/Misc)
 Masaki Fukushima (fukusima@goto.info.waseda.ac.jp)     (Ruby)
 Matthias Köppe (mkoeppe@saturn.Math.Uni-Magdeburg.DE)  (Guile)
 Oleg Tolmatcev (o.t@altavista.net)                     (Mzscheme)

Past contributors (currently incomplete):

Dustin Mitchell, Ian Cooke, Catalin Dumitrescu, Baran Kovuk, Gary Holt,
David Fletcher.

***********************************************************************
*****       IMPORTANT NOTICE -- READ THIS NOW (OR ELSE)           *****
***********************************************************************

If you downloaded SWIG as a prepackaged release such as SWIG1.3a4, be
advised that this distribution represents a snapshot of the most
"stable" part of the SWIG CVS repository.  As this is an unstable
release, there is a pretty good chance that a number of features are
broken or under repair.  Currently, SWIG is undergoing a large
redevelopment effort in which it is being converted from C++ to ANSI C
and restructured to be more extensible.  As a result, the source code
is very disorganized at the moment. The SWIG1.3 series of releases
should be viewed as transitional releases leading to the eventual
release of SWIG2.0. First-time users should probably start with
SWIG1.1p5 which is significantly more stable (and includes a wider
range of documentation and examples).

*** WE NEED YOUR HELP! ***

Please report any errors and submit patches (if possible)!  Not only
are we making radical changes to the system, we only have access to a
limited variety of hardware (Linux, Solaris, and Windows). All
contributions help.

*** Backwards Compatibility ***

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.

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).

   - Java module is now included.

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

   - Ruby and mzscheme modules added.

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

   - A lot of minor bug fixes and cleanup.

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.

What's Broken?
==============

   - The Java module is broken and temporarily unavailable (SWIG1.3a4).

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

   - SWIG requires an ANSI C compiler.

   - A number of low-level data structures have been converted
     to C.  Since things haven't yet been fully tested, there's
     a chance that unusual corner cases might cause SWIG to crash.
     If so, please send us a debugger traceback if possible.

   - The CHANGES file describes 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
     % 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 Examples directory contains a few examples of using SWIG.

Notes:

(1) If you checked the code out via CVS, you will have to run autoconf
    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).


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

Documentation
=============
No 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.

Participate!
============
We are looking for people who want to join the effort of getting this
next release off the ground.  Please send me email for details.

-- Dave (beazley@cs.uchicago.edu)


Developer Information
=====================
The primary goal of future development is to make SWIG more modular,
extensible, and easier to maintain.  To this end, the source code has
been consolidated and reorganized with the Source directory.  For more
information, please see Doc/internals.html.