This directory contains the source files of Bigloo, a Scheme system
which includes a compiler generating C code and an interpreter. Bigloo
is the tool of choice for the construction of small autonomous applications
in Scheme. Bigloo is conformant to
IEEE Scheme standard with some extensions:
	R5RS support.
        Rgc, a lex facility.
        Match, a pattern-matching compiler.
	Foreign languages interface.
	Module language.
	Extension package system.
	An Lalr facility.
	An Object sytem.
	DSSSL support.
	Unicode characters and strings.
	Process and Pipes management.

To install Bigloo, see the INSTALL file.  An ANSI C compiler is required.
The original version has been developped with GNU CC version 2.7.2
(Copyright (C) 1988, 1989, 1992 Free Software Foundation, Inc). The
Bigloo's boot requires around 25 MegaBytes of disk space. Ones it is booted,
the Bigloo system can be reduced to about 7 MegaBytes.

Recent version of the systems can be downloaded from:
   ftp:://kaolin.unice.fr/pub/bigloo

The compiler distribution consists of several directories:

	bin 		will contain the compiler executable.

	lib		will contain the Bigloo's libraries.

	comptime	contains the sources of the compiler.

	runtime 	contains the sources of the runtime system.

	examples	contains various Bigloo's examples.

	recette		contains compiler and runtime test programs.

	doc     	contains the documentation of the Bigloo system.

	etc		contains a emacs-lisp file, an icon for emacs
			and the orignal package of the garbage collector.

	tools		contains severals tools files required for the boot
			of Bigloo.

	cigloo  	contains the sources of Cigloo, the C headers to 
			Bigloo headers translator.

	xlib		contains an example of connecting Bigloo and the 
                        X library.

	contrib		contains the list of currently available Bigloo
			contributions.

I thank all the people who helped me while writing Bigloo, specialy
Hans J. Boehm (boehm@parc.xerox.com) who wrote the garbage collector,
Jean-Marie Geffroy (Jean-Marie.Geffroy@inria.fr) who found many bugs
and which written `Match', Christan Queinnec
(Christian.Queinnec@inria.fr), Dominique Boucher
(boucherd@IRO.UMontreal.CA) who wrote the Lalr system, Stephen J Bevan
(bevan@computer-science.manchester.ac.uk), Joris Heirbaut
(pheirba@tinf3.vub.ac.be) who ported Bigloo under Solaris, Drew
Whitehouse (Drew.Whitehouse@anu.edu.au) who ported Bigloo under Iris
Indigo, Luc Moreau (moreau@montefiore.ulg.ac.be), Pascal Petit
(petit@litp.ibp.fr), Joel Masset (jmasset@dmi.ens.fr) and Thierry
Saura (Thierry.Saura@inria.fr), Laurent Bloch (bloch@pasteur.fr),
Christopher Oliver (oliver@fritz.co.traverse.com) who pointed me bugs
out, Thomas Neumann (tom@smart.bo.open.de) who ported Bigloo under
NeXT, Olaf Burkart (burkart@zeus.informatik.rwth-aachen.de) for his
comments on Bigloo, John Gerard Malecki (john@vlibs.com) who point me
out bugs and suggested many improvements, David Gurr
(gurr@snap.med.ge.com) who points me out bugs, Rodrigo Vanegas
(rv@cs.brown.edu) who suggested some extensions, Kenneth Dwayne Ray
(xray@owlnet.rice.edu) for all its suggestions, Michael Sperber
(sperber@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de) and Vincent Kieffer
(kieffer@montefiore.ulg.ac.be) for the AIX port, Dave Love
(d.love@dl.ac.uk) which fix many bugs, Jacques Garrigue
(is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp) which helped me, Marcel Turcotte
(turcotte@IRO.UMontreal.CA), Alexandre Frey
(frey@lix.polytechnique.fr), Raj Manandhar
(Raj.Manandhar@msfc.nasa.gov) which points me bugs or documentation
problems and Barrie Stott who widely contribs to the documentation
improvements. I also thanks William Clinger for his expand syntax
implementation.





