guile/module/scripts

Overview and Usage
------------------

This directory contains Scheme programs, some useful in maintaining Guile.
On "make install", these programs are copied to PKGDATADIR/VERSION/scripts.

You can use guile-tools to invoke a program from the shell, or alternatively,
load its file as a Guile Scheme module, and use its exported procedure(s)
from Scheme code. Typically for any PROGRAM:

(use-modules (scripts PROGRAM))
(PROGRAM ARG1 ARG2 ...)

For programs that write to stdout, you might try, instead:

(use-modules (scripts PROGRAM))
(with-output-to-string (lambda () (PROGRAM ARG1 ARG2 ...)))

Note that all args must be strings.

To see PROGRAM's commentary, which may or may not be helpful:

(help (scripts PROGRAM))

If you want to try the programs before installing Guile, you will probably
need to set environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH to be the parent directory.
This can be done in Bourne-compatible shells like so:

GUILE_LOAD_PATH=`(cd .. ; pwd)`
export GUILE_LOAD_PATH

[FIXME: Can someone supply the csh-compatible equivalent?]



How to Contribute
-----------------

See template file PROGRAM for a quick start.

Programs must follow the "guile-tools" convention, documented here:

- The module name must be "(scripts PROGRAM)". A procedure named PROGRAM w/
signature "(PROGRAM . args)" must be exported. Basically, use some variant
of the form:

(define-module (scripts PROGRAM)
:export (PROGRAM))

Feel free to export other definitions useful in the module context.

- There must be the alias:

(define main PROGRAM)

However, `main' must NOT be exported.

Following these conventions allows the program file to be used as module
(scripts PROGRAM) in addition to being invoked by guile-tools. Please also
include a helpful Commentary section w/ some usage info.


[README ends here]