$Id: README,v 1.78 2013/08/28 00:23:52 phil Exp $ 1.5 release of ``The Macro Implementation of SNOBOL4 in C'' (CSNOBOL4) This is a free port of the original SIL (SNOBOL4 Implementation Language) "macro" version of SNOBOL4 (developed at Bell Labs) with the `C' language as a target. SNOBOL4, while known primarily as a string language excels at any task involving symbolic manipulations. It provides dynamic typing, garbage collection, user data types, on the fly compilation. It's primary weakness is it's simple syntax, and lack of "structured programming" and "object oriented" constructs. However some consider the spareness of SNOBOL4 syntax a strength when compared to some "modern" agglomerations such as Perl. The latest release can be found at http://www.regressive.org/snobol4/csnobol4 **************************************************************** Copyright (c) 1993-2013, Philip L. Budne All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. **************************************************************** Documentation; For a good SNOBOL4 tutorial look at the Catspaw SNOBOL4 tutorial; http://www.regressive.org/snobol4/doc/burks/tutorial/contents.htm Also useful are the Catspaw Vanilla SNOBOL4 manual; http://www.regressive.org/snobol4/doc/burks/manual/contents.htm and the Catspaw SPITBOL manual ftp://ftp.snobol4.com/spitman.pdf INSTALL Information on building and installing CSNOBOL4 README This file CHANGES Important changes since last release doc/snobol4.0 text man page for SNOBOL4. describes changes from the SNOBOL4 reference ("green book"). doc/sdb.0 text man page for SNOBOL4 debugger. doc/snobol4dbm.0 text man page for SNOBOL4 DBM library routines doc/snobol4random.0 text man page for SNOBOL4 random number support doc/snobol4readline.0 text man page for SNOBOL4 readline support doc/snobol4tcl.0 text man page for SNOBOL4 Tcl/Tk support doc/snobol4time.0 text man page for SNOBOL4 time support doc/snolib.3 man page for SNOBOL4 library routines doc/porting.txt information on porting to a new system, particularly the usage of Makefile variables and m4 macros. TODO.soon current top priority tasks (hopefully small in any release) TODO older identified tasks / wish list. Mark Emmer has made his old 16-bit DOS Macro SNOBOL4 based product "SNOBOL4+" available for free. See http://www.snobol4.com and ftp://ftp.snobol4.com for it, many demo programs, SNOBOL4 language documentation, and ordering information for books & products from Catspaw! There is a mailing list for SNOBOL4 on Yahoo Groups: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/snobol/ Acknowledgments; First and foremost, I would like to thank Ralph Griswold, for all his invaluable help and time digging up old documentation! (as well as his work of 30 years ago, designing and implementing the language)! I would also never have succeeded without the help of Mark Emmer of Catspaw and his excellent SPARC SPITBOL product!! The contributions of source code by Mark Emmer (SNOBOL4+) and Viktors Berstis (Minnesota SNOBOL4) have allowed me to advance the state of CSNOBOL4 in ways that would have been otherwise impossible. The following have also provided help, encouragement, support, input, historical background, testing, fixes, testing, money, etc (in chronological order); Bill Henneman Andrew Koenig Doug McIlroy Robert Dewar Alan Martin Jerry Leichter Scott Marovich Jonathan Chandross Randolph J. Herber Jules Gilbert Phillip Lee Thomas Martin D. Waller Burkhard Meissner John McHugh Chrystopher Nehaniv Arne Larsson Rik Faith Keith Waclena Steve Kibler Peter-Arno Coppen David J. Birnbaum Yuli Barcohen Stephen Del Rea David Feustel Laurence Battin John Refling Greg White Russ Urquhart Jan Bernard Chris Anderson Rafal M. Sulejman Ed Quillen Robin H. Johnson Guido Milanese David Stodolsky Robin Kay Sudarshan Gaikaiwari Bruce Axtens Dani Richard Meir Livneh Mark Laster Michael Richter James McKelvey Chap Harrison Robert Shanley Howard Modell Ron Hochsprung Steven Brenton Fred Weigel Anonymous If you are interested in getting mailings about new releases, send me a timing report. I'm always interested in knowing what people are using SNOBOL4 for! Phil Budne