Alore ReadMe

What is Alore?

Alore is an object-oriented general-purpose programming language that aims to combine the convenience and ease of Python with an optional static type system and a clean and elegant design.

License

Alore is licensed under the terms of the MIT license. See the file LICENSE.txt in the distribution.

Quick start (Linux, OS X, Unix-like)

To get started in a Unix-like operating system, clone the Alore git repository or download a source tarball and type

./configure make

You need a basic C development tool chain for the build.

You can now run the Alore interpreter as ./alore. To also install Alore under /usr/local:

su root make install

(or "sudo make install", depending on your configuration)

Now you can run an Alore program using the Alore interpreter:

alore program.alo

Quick start (Windows)

The easiest way to use Alore in Windows is to download the Windows installer from http://www.alorelang.org/ and use it to install Alore.

You may also wish to add c:\Alore to your PATH (assuming you used the default target folder when installing). Do it like this in Command prompt:

C:>set path=%path%;c:\alore

Now you can run an Alore program using the Alore interpreter:

C:\Work>alore program.alo

Building from source code (Windows)

Alternatively, you can build Alore from source code:

Install MinGW and MSYS (http://www.mingw.org/). These are free software products that provide the GCC C compiler and a lightweight Unix-like build environment for Windows.
Start MSYS shell.
Change to the source package root directory (that also contains README.txt).
Type "./configure" (without the quotes, and followed by Enter). This builds the Makefile.
Type "make" to build Alore.

You can now run the Alore interpreter as "alore". To also install Alore under c:\Alore:

Type "make install".

Documentation

The documentation for the latest Alore release is available online at http://www.alorelang.org/doc/.

You can build the documentation from sources using make:

make doc

The documentation is generated in directory doc/html.

Syntax highlighting in editors

The Alore Wiki explains how to enable Alore syntax highlighting in several popular text editors:

https://github.com/JukkaL/alore/wiki/Editor-support-for-alore

Release notes

Alore is still pre-beta software. Although Alore developers try to avoid unnecessary changes that break compatibility, this may happen occasionally. Documentation may not always be up-to-date.

See also "Known bugs and limitations" below and the issue tracker.

Software requirements

Alore has been successfully compiled and run on at least the following operating systems:

Linux (several distributions; 32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP (32-bit)
Mac OS X (64-bit)
OpenSolaris (32-bit)
FreeBSD (32-bit)

The following tools are recommended for building Alore under Windows:

MinGW (Minimalist GNU for Windows)
MSYS (shell environment for Windows, part of the MinGW distribution)

On other operating systems, the standard C build environment is supported.

Discussion and feedback

Send any questions or comments about Alore and suggestions for future improvements to the Alore mailing list:

https://groups.google.com/group/alorelang

Reporting bugs

Submit bug reports using the Alore issue tracker:

https://github.com/JukkaL/alore/issues

Credits

Alore was conceived, designed and implemented by Jukka Lehtosalo, with help and useful comments from many people; see the file CREDITS.txt for a list of contributors.

Running tests

To run Alore test cases, first build Alore and then type (in the shell)

make test

Alore compiler

You can package the source files of a program and the Alore interpreter into a single binary using the alorec tool:

alorec program.alo

This creates the executable "program" (or "program.exe"). You need to have a supported C compiler (gcc) installed and in your PATH.

In Windows you can use MinGW (see above); you may have to add C:\MinGW\bin to your PATH (the exact location of MinGW files may differ in your configuration):

C:>set path=%path%;c:\mingw\bin

NOTE: The source code of your program is directly included in the generated executable file.

Known bugs and limitations

A partial list of major bugs and limitations in the current Alore release:

not much testing on some supported operating systems
big-endian architectures not tested
incomplete support for 64-bit operating systems
- 64-bit Windows builds not tested
limited support for non-ASCII paths and file names
file owner information cannot be accessed in Windows

Alore

Install / Use

README