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dtrg d6fc2d19f9 Added cpm platform. 17 years ago
bin be7ec5cdd0 Added the appropriate #! magic at the beginning of shell scripts. (Some modern shells don't like scripts to be without it.) 17 years ago
distr 13496800ab Removed bashish. 17 years ago
doc 9aacafbc5a Modified to no longer build LLgen, as it is now distributed separately. 17 years ago
emtest 04a887eee9 Replaced references to /usr/tmp with references to /tmp. 19 years ago
etc 2ac12e3015 em_table is now in /h; new_table is now in util/data. 17 years ago
examples e02179a9fe Updated for the 6.0pre2 release. 17 years ago
fast bf2357624d use stdarg when compiling with ANSI C compiler 29 years ago
fcc efa0bfa27d use stdarg when compiling with ANSI C compiler 29 years ago
first c5e7c60c76 Updated .distr files for the new release. 17 years ago
h f33fd63590 Adapted for ANSI C and our pseudo-Posix syscall interface. 17 years ago
include c5e7c60c76 Updated .distr files for the new release. 17 years ago
lang c710fde0d5 Added the stdint.h header file. 17 years ago
lib 43857acb0b Disabled the K&R C compiler in favour of the ANSI one. 17 years ago
mach d6fc2d19f9 Added cpm platform. 17 years ago
man f26dd7bb01 Header --> Id 30 years ago
modules f2cfcba52e Modified to allow a space between the sign and the first digit of a constant. 17 years ago
plat d6fc2d19f9 Added cpm platform. 17 years ago
util e02179a9fe Updated for the 6.0pre2 release. 17 years ago
.distr e02179a9fe Updated for the 6.0pre2 release. 17 years ago
Action 44f229d88a Modified to no longer build LLgen, as it is now distributed seperately. 17 years ago
CHANGES e02179a9fe Updated for the 6.0pre2 release. 17 years ago
Copyright 65ffc7f057 new copyright notice in repository 19 years ago
DistrAction d21fd37c8d corrected for new TakeAction 36 years ago
Makefile f5b641009b Initial revision 40 years ago
NEW cb09878a1f Added some new readmes at the top level. 19 years ago
README e02179a9fe Updated for the 6.0pre2 release. 17 years ago
TODO cb09878a1f Added some new readmes at the top level. 19 years ago
TakeAction 3ee71dd844 Added the appropriate #! magic at the beginning of shell scripts. (Some modern shells don't like scripts to be without it.) 17 years ago
config.pm 5da1922c4f Adjusted some of the default parameters and their names. 17 years ago
pm 002c49ec2b Applied a patch to support OpenBSD. 17 years ago
pmfile d6fc2d19f9 Added cpm platform. 17 years ago

README

# $Source$
# $State$
# $Revision$

THE AMSTERDAM COMPILER KIT V6.0pre2
===================================

© 1987-2005 Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
2007-04-24


INTRODUCTION
============

The Amsterdam Compiler Kit is a complete compiler toolchain consisting of
front end compilers for a number of different languages, code generators,
support libraries, and all the tools necessary to go from source code to
executable on any of the platforms it supports.

This is an early prerelease of the upcoming version 6.0 release. Not a
lot is supported, the build mechanism needs work, and a lot of things are
probably broken. However, what's there should be sufficient to get things
done and to evaluate how the full 6.0 release should work.


SUPPORT
=======

Languages:

ANSI C, Pascal, Modula 2. K&R is supported via the ANSI C compiler.

Platforms:

pc86 produces bootable floppy disk images for 8086 PCs
linux386 produces ELF executables for PC Linux systems


INSTALLATION
============

The version 6.0 build mechanism has been completely rewritten and is based
around the Prime Mover build tool (see http://primemover.sf.net for more
information). Installation ought to be fairly straightforward.

Requirements:

- an ANSI C compiler. Currently, I'm afraid, it's hard-coded to use gcc.
To change, try changing the variable definitions in first/c.pm. This also
needs to be available as 'cc' from the shell.

- about 20MB free in /tmp (or some other temporary directory).

- about 6MB in the target directory.

Instructions:

- edit config.pm. There's a small section at the top containing some editable
variables. Probably the only one you may want to edit is PREFIX, which
changes where the ACK installs to.

- Run:

./pm configure

...from the command line. This will write out a configuration file.

- Run:

./pm

...from the command line. This will actually do the build. This takes
about two minutes on my 1.6GHz Athlon Linux machine and about 30 on my
166MHz Pentium OpenBSD machine.

- Run:

./pm install

...from the command line (possibly with sudo). This will install the built
ACK into whatever directory you nominated in PREFIX.

The ACK should now be ready to use.


USAGE
=====

Currently I haven't sorted out all the documentation --- it's supplied in the
distribution, but not all of it gets installed yet --- so here is a quickstart
guide.

The main command to use is 'ack'. This invokes the compiler and the linker.
Some useful options include:

-m build for the specified platform
-o specifies the output file
-c produce a .o file
-c.s produce a .s assembly file
-O enable optimisation
-ansi compile ANSI C (when using the C compiler)
build file

ack figures out which language to use from the file extension:

.c C (ANSI or K&R)
.b Basic
.mod Modula-2
.ocm Occam 1
.p Pascal
.o object files
.s assembly files

For further information, see the man page (which actually does get
installed, but is rather out of date).

There are some (known working) example programs in the 'examples' directory.
A sample command line is:

ack -mlinux386 -O examples/paranoia.c


GOTCHAS
=======

There are some things you should be aware of.

- Look at plat/linux386/README and plat/pc86/README for information about the
two supported platforms.

- The library support is fairly limited; for C, it's at roughly the ANSI C
level, and for the other languages it's similar.

- When compiling languages other than C, the ACK will usually look at the
first character of the file. If it's a #, then the file will be run through
the C preprocessor anyway.

- BSD systems may need to up the number of file descriptors (e.g.
'ulimit -n 200') before the ACK will compile.

- The ACK uses its own .o format. You won't be able to mix the ACK's object
files and another compiler's.


DISCLAIMER
==========

The ACK is mature, well-tested software, but the environment in which it was
developed for and tested under is rather different from that available on
today's machines. There will probably be little in the way of logical bugs,
but there may be many compilation and API bugs.

If you wish to use the ACK, *please* join the mailing list. We are interested
in any reports of success and particularly, failure. If it does fail for you,
we would love to know why, in as much detail as possible. Bug fixes are even
more welcome.

The ACK is licensed under a BSD-like license. Please see the 'Copyright' file
for the full text.

You can find the mailing list on the project's web site:

http://tack.sourceforge.net/

Please enjoy.

David Given (dtrg on Sourceforge)
dg@cowlark.com
2007-04-24