This is the source code distribution for minimal Racket.
If this directory is part of a clone of the Git repository for Racket,
then the clone's root directory includes a makefile to both build
minimal Racket and install packages. See "build.md" in the clone's
root directory.
========================================================================
License and external links
========================================================================
Racket is distributed under the MIT license and the Apache version 2.0
license, at your option. See "LICENSE.txt" for more information.
Compiled executables, documentation, and up-to-date information:
http://racket-lang.org/
Pre-compiled daily snapshots:
http://snapshot.racket-lang.org/
Main development repository:
https://github.com/racket/racket
Report bugs:
https://github.com/racket/racket/issues
========================================================================
Racket CS (Chez Scheme) versus Racket BC (ByteCode / Before Chez)
========================================================================
This source directory contains implementations for two different
versions of Racket: the original BC implementation that is
substantially implemented in C, and the CS implementation that is
implemented in Chez Scheme and Racket (compiled to Chez Scheme).
Racket CS
---------
By default, `configure` and the Windows scripts build the CS
implementation of Racket.
Chez Scheme is included in Racket source distributions and the source
repository.
To build Racket CS on Windows, see See "worksp\README.txt" for
information.
If you need more information specific to Racket CS, see
"cs/README.txt".
Racket BC
---------
To build Racket BC on Unix variants or Mac OS:
* ... in addition Racket CS: supply `--enable-cs --enable-bc` to
`configure`.
The generated Racket BC executables will have a "bc" suffix. A
plain `make` will still build Racket CS; use `make bc` to build and
`make install-bc` to install.
* ... by itself: supply `--enable-bcdefault` to `configure`.
The generated Racket BC executables will *not* have a "bc" suffix.
To build Racket BC on Windows, see See "worksp\README.txt" for
information.
If you need more information specific to Racket BC, see
"bc/README.txt".
========================================================================
Compiling for supported Unix variants (including Linux)
========================================================================
Quick instructions:
From this directory (where the `configure` file is), run the following
commands:
mkdir build
cd build
../configure
make
make install
Those commands will create an in-place installation of Racket and
store the results of intermediate compilation in a separate "build"
subdirectory, which is useful if you need to update your sources,
delete the build, and start from scratch.
You can also run the typical `./configure && make && make install` if
you don't anticipate updating/rebuilding, but it will be harder to
restart from scratch should you need to.
Some build modes may require GNU Make. For example, when building the
Racket CS implementation, GNU Make is required. When building the
Racket BC implementation, the content of the "foreign" subdirectory
requires GNU Make if no installed "libffi" is detected. If the build
fails with another variant of `make`, please try using GNU Make.
Detailed instructions:
0. If you have an old Racket installation in the target directory,
remove it (unless you are using an "in-place" build from a
repository as described below).
On Unix variants other than Mac OS, to run `racket/draw` and
`racket/gui` programs, you will not only need the packages that
supply those libraries, you'll need Cairo, Pango, and GTk
installed. These libraries are not distributed with Racket, and
they are not needed for compilation, except for building
documentation that uses `racket/draw`. More info about required
libs is available at http://docs.racket-lang.org/draw/libs.html
and http://docs.racket-lang.org/gui/libs.html.
1. Select (or create) a build directory.
It's better to run the build in a directory other than the one
containing `configure`, especially if you're getting sources via
git. A common way to start a git-based build is:
cd [here]
mkdir build
cd build
where "[here]" is the directory containing this "README.txt" file
and the `configure` script. The Git repository is configured to
support this convention by ignoring `build` in this directory.
A separate build directory is better in case the makefile
organization changes, or in case the makefiles lack some
dependencies. In those cases, when using a "build" subdirectory,
you can just delete and re-create "build" without mangling your
source tree.
2. From your build directory, run the script `configure` (which is in
the same directory as this README), with optional command-line
arguments like `--prefix=TARGETDIR`.
For example, if you want to install into "/usr/local/racket", then
run:
[here]configure --prefix=/usr/local/racket
Again, "[here]" is the directory path containing the `configure`
script. If you follow the convention of running from a "build"
subdirectory, "[here]" is just "../". If you build from the
current directory, "[here]" is possibly unnecessary, or possibly
just "./", depending on your shell and PATH setting.
If the `--prefix` flag is omitted and if directories like `bindir`
and `libdir` appear to be the default paths or the
`--enable-origtree` flag is specified, then executables are built
for an in-place installation (i.e., the parent of the directory
containing this README will be used directly). Unless
`--enable-shared` is used, the "racket" directory can be moved
later; most system administrators would recommend that you use
`--enable-shared`, but the Racket developers distribute
executables built without `--enable-shared`.
The `configure` script generates the makefiles for building Racket
and/or GRacket. The current directory at the time `configure` is
run will be used as working space for building the executables
(independent of `--prefix`). This build directory does not have to
be in the source tree, even for an in-place build. It's ok to run
`configure` from its own directory (as in the first example
above), but it's better to pick a separate build directory that is
otherwise empty (as in the second example).
The `configure` script accepts many other flags that adjust the
build process. Run `configure --help` for more information. In
addition, a specific compiler can be selected through environment
variables. For example, to select the SGI compilers for Irix
instead of gcc, run configure as
env CC=cc CXX=CC [here]configure
To add an include path, be sure to use CPPFLAGS="-I..." instead of
CFLAGS="-I...". The CPPFLAGS variable controls C pre-processing,
which includes C compilation, and the Racket build normally uses
the C pre-processor directly for some parts of the build.
If you re-run `configure` after running `make`, then products of
the `make` may be incorrect due to changes in the compiler command
line. To be safe, run `make clean' each time after running
`configure`. To be even safer, run `configure` in a fresh build
directory every time.
When building for multiple platforms or configurations out of the
same source directory, beware of cached `configure` information in
"config.cache". Avoid this problem entirely by using a separate
build directory (but the same source) for each platform or
configuration.
3. Run `make`. [As noted above, this might need to be GNU `make`.]
Executables and libraries are placed in subdirectories of the
build directory. For example, the `racketcs` executable appears in
the "cs/c" directory.
You can run executables in-place before `make install`, but if you
haven't yet built ".zo" bytecode files from Racket sources in
"../collects", startup will be very slow.
4. Run `make install`.
This step copies executables and libraries into place within the
target installation. For example, the "racket" executable is
copied into the "bin" directory for an in-place build, or into the
executable directory for a `--prefix` build.
For a `--prefix` build, this step also creates a "config.rktd"
module in an "etc" directory, so that various Racket tools and
libraries can find the installation directories. At this stage, in
case you are packaging an installation instead of installing
directly, you can redirect the installation by setting the
"DESTDIR" environment variable to an absolute path for the
packaging area. For example, `make DESTDIR=/tmp/racket-build
install` places the installation into "/tmp/racket-build" instead
of the location originally specified with `--prefix`. The
resulting installation will not work, however, until it is moved
to the location originally specified with `--prefix`.
Finally, the `make install` step compiles ".zo" bytecode files for
installed Racket source, generates launcher programs like DrRacket
(if it's already installed as a package), and builds documentation
(again, if installed). Use `make plain-install` to install without
compiling ".zo" files, creating launchers, or building
documentation.
If the installation fails because the target directory cannot be
created, or because the target directory is not the one you want,
then you can try repeating step 4 after running `configure` again
with a new `--prefix` value. That is, sometimes it is not necessary
to repeat step 3 (so try it and find out). On other platforms and
configurations, it is necessary to start with a clean build
directory when changing the `--prefix` value, because the path gets
wired into shared objects.
If you build frequently from the Git-based sources, beware that you
may accumulate user- and version-specific information in your
"add-ons" directory, which you can most easily find by evaluating
(find-system-path 'addon-dir)
in Racket. In addition, on Mac OS or if you configure with
`--enabled-shared` for Racket BC, you may accumulate many unused
versions of the dynamic libraries in your installation target.
After an "in-place" install from a source distribution, the
"racket/src" directory is no longer needed, and it can be safely
deleted. Build information is recorded in a "buildinfo" file in the
installation.
For a build without `--prefix` (or with `--enable-origtree`) and
without `--enable-shared`, you can safely move the install tree,
because all file references within the installation are relative.
========================================================================
Compiling for Mac OS
========================================================================
First, install Xcode and command-line tools from Apple.
After installing developer tools, follow the Unix instructions above,
but note the following:
* If you are building from a source distribution (as opposed to a Git
repository checkout), then most likely "racket-lib" is already
included and installed as part of the the distribution, but without
dependencies of "racket-lib" that are specific to Mac OS. In that
case, use
raco pkg update --auto racket-lib
using `raco` as created by `make install` to download and install
the dependencies.
* The Racket build creates a framework, "Racket.framework", which is
installed into "racket/lib". This framework is used by the `racket`
executable that goes into "racket/bin".
* The GRacket build creates a GUI-executable variant of the Racket
executable. The GRacket build process also downloads (from github)
pre-built libraries for Cairo, Pango, etc.
* The `--enable-shared` flag for `configure` must not be used,
because builds create and use frameworks by default. Furthermore,
`--disable-shared` is not supported. (Unless you use
`--enable-xonx`...)
* To build an X11- and Gtk-based GRacket, run `configure` with the
`--enable-xonx` flag. Frameworks are not used for such builds, so
`--enable-shared` is allowed. The `--enable-xonx` flag also affects
the Racket build, so that `system-type` reports 'unix. Pre-built
libraries are not downloaded in this mode; you must have Cairo,
Pango, and GTk installed.
* To use `--prefix` without `--enable-xonx`, you must also supply
`--enable-macprefix`. BEWARE! The directory structure for a
non-xonx build does not fit a typical Unix directory structure. For
example, frameworks are written directly to a "lib" subdirectory,
and executables like "GRacket.app" are written directly to the
prefix directory. (Requiring `--enable-macprefix` with `--prefix`
for a non-xonx build helps prevent accidental installation of a
Mac-style directory structure on top of an existing Unix-style
directory structure.)
* On Mac OS 10.6 and later, to build Racket in 32-bit mode, use
`--disable-mac64`.
========================================================================
Compiling for Windows
========================================================================
To compile with Microsoft Visual C, see the instructions in
"worksp\README.txt".
To compile with MinGW tools, follow the Unix instructions above; do
not use `--enable-shared`, because DLLs will be generated
automatically. The result is a Windows-style build. If you are using a
variant of MinGW without "libdelayimp.a", get the implementation of
"delayimp.c" from MinGW-w64 and compile it to "libdelayimp.a".
========================================================================
Cross-compiling
========================================================================
Cross-compilation requires at least two flags to `configure`:
* `--host=OS`, where OS is something like `i386-gnu-linux` to
indicate the target platform.
The `configure` script uses OS to find suitable compilation tools,
such as `OS-gcc` and `OS-strip`.
* `--enable-racket=RACKET`, where RACKET is a path to a Racket
executable that runs on the build platform; the executable must be
the same version of Racket and the same virtual machine (i.e., CS
or BC) as being built for the target platform.
This flag is needed because building and installing Racket requires
running (an existing build of) Racket.
Use "auto" for RACKET to indicate that Racket should be built
automatically for the current platform. In that case, `make` will
run `configure` again (with no arguments) in a "local" subdirectory
to create a build for the current platform.
An additional flag is needed for building Racket CS, unless the flag
`--enable-racket=auto` is used:
* `--enable-scheme=DIR`, where DIR is a path that has a "ChezScheme"
directory where Chez Scheme is built for the host system.
Some less commonly needed `configure` flags are for Racket BC:
* `--enable-stackup`, if the target platform`s stack grows up.
* `--enable-bigendian`, if target platform is big-endian.
* `--enable-cify` or `--disable-cify` if the JIT availability on the
target platform is different than the build platform; use
`--enable-cify` if the JIT is not abailable on the target
platform.
========================================================================
Cross-compiling for Android
========================================================================
[Currently, cross-compilation for Android works only for the Racket BC
implementation.]
As an example of cross-compiling, to compile for Android on ARM using
the NDK, use (all on one line)
configure --host=arm-linux-androideabi
--enable-sysroot="[ndk]/platforms/android-[N]/arch-arm"
--enable-racket=auto
where [ndk] is the path to the installed NDK, [N] is a target version
of Android (such as 14), and
[ndk]/toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-[comp]/prebuilt/[platform]/bin
is in your PATH (so that a suitable `gcc`, `ar`, etc., are found) for
the [comp] of your choice and the [platform] used to compile.
========================================================================
Cross-compiling for iOS
========================================================================
To compile the Racket runtime system as a Framework for iOS, use (all
on one line) for BC
configure --host=[arch]-apple-darwin
--enable-ios="[sdk]"
--enable-racket=racket
where [arch] is one of
- armv7, armv7s, or aarch64: to run on iOS
- i386 or x86_64: to run on the simulator
The [sdk] argument is a path to an iOS SDK, but if it is "iPhoneOS" or
"iPhoneSimulator", then the corresponding SDK is located in the
standard place within the XCode application. For example, "iPhoneOS"
becomes the path (all on one line)
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/
iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneOS.sdk
To cross-compile for CS, you must supply the Chez Scheme compiler that
Racket CS was built with. Assuming you have built Racket CS for your
machine at "/path/to/racket" using the default `make` target, you can
configure the cross build using that Racket binary and a path to the
Chez Scheme build folder as follows (all on one line)
configure --host=[arch]-apple-darwin
--enable-ios="[sdk]"
--enable-racket=/path/to/racket/bin/racket
--enable-scheme=/path/to/racket/src/build/cs/c
Currently, iOS enforces strict W^X protection on memory pages. See the
note about "writes to `space_code` memory" in "ChezScheme/c/segment.c"
for the implications this has on Racket CS. In principle, if you avoid
passing newly-allocated code between threads and avoid `#:blocking?`
foreign callbacks, you should not run into any issues.
========================================================================
Test Suite
========================================================================
Tests for the core Racket implementation are in a "racket-test-core"
package. The tests are developed in the same Git repository as the
core Racket implementation in a "pkgs" directory at the repository
root.
========================================================================
Implementation Organization
========================================================================
Everything in this "src" directory contributes to the implementation
of the `racket` executable (and variants), while "../collects"
contains the additional Racket libraries that are included in a
minimal Racket distribution.
Sources for the Racket CS implementation
----------------------------------------
* "cs" --- `racket` CS executable
* "thread" --- thread scheduler
* "io" --- I/O
This layer uses the "racketio" library to access OS facilties.
* "regexp" --- regexp matcher
See also the shared sources below, which includes rktio, the macro
expander, and schemify.
Sources for the Racket BC implementation
----------------------------------------
* "bc" --- `racket` BC executable
This implementation can build from "scratch" with a C compiler, but
first by building a CGC variant of Racket to transform the C
sourses to build a (normal) 3m variant.
* "mzcom" --- MzCOM executable (for Windows)
* "mysink" --- `ffi/unsafe/com` helper DLL (for Windows)
* "cify" --- a Racket-to-C compiler
This compiler is used only when embedding the expander as C code in
Racket BC, instead of Racket bytecode, which is the default for
platforms where the Racket BC JIT is not supported.
See also the shared sources below, which includes rktio and the macro
expander.
Sources shared by both Racket implementations
---------------------------------------------
* "expander" --- macro expander implementation
This expander is both included in Racket executables and used to
expand itself for inclusion in executables. It's also used to
expand other libraries for inclusion in Racket CS executables, but
already-expanded versions are included with source in
"cs/schemified".
If you change the expander, run `make` in its directory to generate
the "startup.inc" file that holds the expander's implementation for
Racket BC. Also, run `make` in "cs" to rebuild expanded libraries
for Racket CS.
* "rktio" --- portability layer for low-level I/O
If you change "rktio.h", then be sure to regenerate "rktio.rktl"
and "rktio.inc" using an existing Racket implementation that has
the "parser-tools" package installed.
* "schemify" --- a Racket-to-Scheme compiler, used by "cs" and "cify"
Similar to "expander", this layer is applied to itself and other
libraries for inclusion in "cs". If you change it, be sure to run
`make` in "cs".
* "start" --- main-executable wrapper
Startup wrappers used by both the Racket CS and BC implementations.
* "worksp" --- Windows projects and build scripts
* "mac" --- scripts for generating Mac OS ".app"s
* "setup-go.rkt" --- helper script
The "setup-go.rkt" script is a bootstrapping too that is used by
parts of the build that need to run Racket programs in the process
of building Racket.
More shared utilities
---------------------
* "native-libs" --- build scripts for some native-library packages
These script are not used when building Racket, but they are used
to build some separately distributed packages.
* "common" --- Racket libraries used by "thread", "io", etc.
* "ac" --- `autoconf` helpers
* "lt" --- `libtool` and `configure` support
* "utils" --- miscellaneous
