
***
*** Please note that this is a pre-alpha release intended to
*** garner comments, feed-back, and code.
***
*** There is no guarantee that the API/approach will not change
*** or that this code works, does something useful, or doesn't do
*** anything horrible to your system. Caveat downloader...
***

INTRODUCTION

Inline::SLang -- Write Perl subs in S-Lang.

Inline::SLang lets you write Perl subroutines in S-Lang. It dynamically 
translates the parameters and return values into native data types for 
both languages.

From the S-Lang library home page at http://www.s-lang.org/

S-Lang is a multi-platform programmer's library designed to allow a
developer to create robust multi-platform software. It provides
facilities required by interactive applications such as display/screen
management, keyboard input, keymaps, and so on. The most exciting
feature of the library is the slang interpreter that may be easily
embedded into a program to make it extensible. 

Example:

   use Inline SLang => <<'END';
   define JAxH(x) {
     () = printf( "Just Another %s Hacker", x );
   }
   END
   print JAxH('Inline'), "\n";

When run, this complete program prints:

   Just Another Inline Hacker

==============================================================================

INSTALLATION

This module probably requires Inline.pm version 0.42 or higher to be 
installed. In addition, you need S-Lang library v1.4.0 or greater installed;
the development of this module is being done mainly against 1.4.4 - as
distributed with CIAO 2.3 - and 1.4.7 (will upgrade to 1.4.8 soon).

Currently I assume that S-Lang has been compiled with support for
floating-point and complex numbers.

For the moment I am also making use of the Test::More module for testing.
I believe this is only a part of Perl since version 5.8.0, so you may need 
to download it from CPAN (http://search.cpan.org/).

To install Inline::SLang do this:

$ perl Makefile.PL
$ make
$ make test
$ make install

For configuration options, enter

$ perl Makefile.PL -help

The main options of interest are -slangdir or -slanglib/inc to specify
the location of the library and its include file. The program looks in
/usr, /usr/local, and - if installed - the ots directory within the
CIAO directory structure (http:://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/).

This has only been tested in UNIX (Linux and Solaris) environments.

Note that you have to 'make install' before you can run it successfully.

==============================================================================

INFORMATION

- For more information on Inline::SLang see 'perldoc Inline::SLang'
- For more information about Inline.pm, see 'perldoc Inline'
- For information on SLang visit http://www.s-lang.org/
- For copyright information see the LICENCE file in this distribution

Please send questions and comments to "Doug Burke" <djburke@cpan.org>

Copyright (c) 2003, Doug Burke. All Rights Reserved.
