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1Embryo
2
3******************************************************************************
4
5 FOR ANY ISSUES PLEASE EMAIL:
6 enlightenment-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
7
8******************************************************************************
9
10Requirements:
11-------------
12
13Must:
14 eina
15 libc
16 libm
17
18WARNING: gcc compatibility!!!
19There seems to be some bug (or disagreement) between embryo and gcc 3.2.x
20where IEEE floating point format encoding does not "agree" with embryo's own
21hand-made tests. embryo_cc may not work if you compile using gcc 3.2.x. gcc
223.3.x is known to work fine. we are not 100% sure whose fault this is yet, so
23we won't be jumping up and down, but be warned - gcc 3.2.x does not agree
24with embryo.
25
26To view the API docs, run ./gendoc and view doc/html/index.html.
27
28OK a lot of people ask this. What is Embryo?
29
30Embryo is primarily a shared library that gives you an API to load and control
31interpreted programs compiled into an abstract machine bytecode that it
32understands. This abstract (or virtual) machine is similar to a real machine
33with a CPU, but it is emulated in software. The architecture is simple and is
34the same as the abstract machine (AMX) in the
35<a href=http://www.compuphase.com/pawn>PAWN</a> language (formerly called
36SMALL) as it is based on exactly the same code. Embryo has modified the code
37for the AMX extensively and has made it smaller and more portable. It is VERY
38small. The total size of the virtual machine code AND header files is less
39than 2500 lines of code. It includes the floating point library support by
40default as well. This makes it one of the smallest interpreters around, and
41thus makes is very efficient to use in code.
42
43Embryo also uses the PAWN compiler from the same code base. This code has
44barely been touched and so suffers from lots of portability issues. It has
45been partially fixed and now works on both big and little endian but the code
46still need to be gone over and really cleaned up . It does work, but it's only
47just working. It has been called embryo_cc and compiled a subset of PAWN
48binary outputs. It does not support packed strings, variable alignment, or
49debugging output. It does not support many features of the full PAWN
50compiler because the Embryo AMX does not support these either. You will find
51the Embryo codebase to work much better on Linux (and BSD and MacOS X) and
52other UNIX operating systems as it has been developed and tested on them. IT
53is known to work on:
54 gcc Linux (x86-32)
55 gcc Linux (PPC)
56 gcc MacOS X (PPC)
57
58And will likely work on more combinations. IT currently has problems on 64bit
59SPARC CPUs. Other 64bit systems are untested. It is the aim to fix the code
60so it works on all commonly used architectures (32, 64bit, big and little
61endian, alignment forgiving/unforgiving). So far 64bit support is the major
62issue.
63
64For more documentation please see the Language guide here:
65
66<a href=http://www.compuphase.com/pawn>Pawn Language Booklet</a>
67
68This documents the PAWN language and is 100% relevant for Embryo and the
69syntax of files it can compile (.sma files).
70
71Any help is appreciated in helping clean and port this code, so feel free to
72send patches to the Enlightenment development lists.
73
74The main aim of Embryo is to provide an easy to use library for running
75compiled PAWN programs and giving them access to the calling program and
76any API it exports to the PAWN script. PAWN programs/scripts are completely
77sand-boxed. They cannot access any system or function calls other than the
78ones provided by the calling application to the Embryo API. This means a
79PAWN script cannot open or write to, delete or load files. It is fairly
80harmless and this also keeps Embryo small.
81
82This is a work in progress, so please be patient if things don't work for you
83- and patches and help in fixing it is very much appreciated.
84
85------------------------------------------------------------------------------
86COMPILING AND INSTALLING:
87
88 ./configure
89 make
90(as root unless you are installing in your users directories):
91 make install