SLIB use: Documentation and ice-9/slib.scm

[Alan Grover]

Kevin Ryde wrote:
> Alan Grover <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>>Summary: The documentation on SLIB use is inadequate and/or out-of-date
>>Guile version 1.6.4, "edition 1.0 of the reference manual, corresponding
>>to Guile version 1.6.4"
> 
> 
> That stuff hasn't been kept up to date, and the slib manual is the
> best place to look for it, so I think I'll remove it, just leaving a
> pointer to slib.

The ice-9/slib.scm module should be removed. It appears to be broken.

The Guile documentation should refer to the SLIB README file (sections
on loading the initialization file, and implementation specific
instructions).


The documentation included with SLIB 3a2 appears to be correct for Guile
1.6.4. The SLIB Changelog indicates that the documentation was updated
for Guile 1.6.4 at 2005-04-15, for SLIB version 3a1.

These instructions could be repeated in the Guile manual since they seem
stable for a while:

To install SLIB:
* Unpack the SLIB distribution as appropriate to RPM/tar/etc.
* Move/link SLIB to one of the %load-path directories. For example,
/usr/share/guile/slib is common.
* Create the catalog ("slibcat"), it is created in the parent directory
of slib [verify behavior when slib is a link].
** With permissions to create slibcat:
% guile -l slib/guile.init
guile> (require 'new-catalog)
guile> quit
** You could verify that slibcat was created and is readable by "other":
% ls -l  /usr/share/guile/slibcat
* Provide ice-9/slib functionality:
** Locate the ice9 directory (see %load-path, typically
/usr/share/guile/ice-9)
** Create a ice-9/guile.scm file (e.g. site/ice-9/guile.scm) with these
contents, readable by other:
(define-module (ice-9 slib))
(load-from-path "slib/guile.init")


To use SLIB:

If the ice-9/slib was conveniently setup:
(use-modules (ice-9 slib))

If the ice-9/slib module was not provided:
(load-from-path "slib/guile.init")

If the slib package is not in the %load-path:
(load "/some/where/slib/guile.init")
; NB: in this case, 'require may not find SLIB modules, see the SLIB
documentation


-- 
Alan Grover
address@hidden
+1.734.476.0969