Downloads

This release of Amber for Parrot is for Linux (developed and tested under Fedora Core 4).

First, you must install the Parrot Virtual Machine. Then, you can install Amber in one of three ways. For most people, installing Amber from a C package will be the easiest.

Quick Links

• Installing the Parrot Virtual Machine

• Installing Amber from a C package
• Installing Amber from Eiffel source code
• Installing Amber from Bleeding-edge Development Sources

• Completing your installation

• Documentation and assistance

Installing the Parrot Virtual Machine

1. Download » Parrot 0.4.2

2. Unpack the Parrot source code:

   tar xvzf parrot-0.4.*.tar.gz

3. Install Parrot:

   cd parrot perl Configure.pl make cd languages/amber && make pmcs && cd ../..

4. Put the top-level Parrot directory in your search path (or link to the parrot executable from somewhere in your search path)

5. Check your Parrot installation:

   parrot --version

Installing Amber from a C package

You can compile Amber from C-code that was generated by SmartEiffel. You do not need to have SmartEiffel installed:

1. Download the Amber 0.4.2 source code

2. Unpack the Amber source code:

   tar xvzf amber-0.4.2.tar.gz

3. Compile Amber:
   

   cd amber-0.4.2 make

4. Follow the instructions in the section Completing your installation

Installing Amber from Eiffel source code

If you have » SmartEiffel 2.2 (not 2.2rc3) installed, you can compile Amber from Eiffel source code:

1. Download the Amber 0.4.2 source code

2. Unpack the Amber source code:

   tar xvzf amber-0.4.2.tar.gz

3. Compile Amber:
   

   cd amber-0.4.2 make devel

4. Follow the instructions in the section Completing your installation

Installing Amber from Bleeding-edge Development Sources

If you want to keep up with the very latest development version of Amber, you can download the source code from the development repository. You will need » SmartEiffel 2.2 and the » darcs version control client:

1. Download the latest Amber source code:

   darcs get http://xamber.org/repo/amber/

2. Compile Amber:
   

   cd amber make devel

3. Follow the instructions in the section Completing your installation

Darcs is a distributed version control system that is easy-to-learn and easy-to-use. After installing Amber using darcs, you can keep it up-to-date by typing "darcs pull" from the top-level Amber directory, then "make devel".

At times, you will require the latest svn version of Parrot in order to use the latest darcs version of Amber.

Completing your installation

1. Place the amber executable (found in the src directory after a successful compilation) into your system's search path.

2. Amber's kernel classes are found in the lib/kernel directory. Place the full pathname of this directory into an environment variable named AMBER_KERNEL.

   Alternatively, you may specify the kernel directory on the command-line with the '--kernel' option, like this:

   amber --kernel "somepath/lib/kernel"

   Amber will abort with an error message if the kernel directory has not been specified, or if the specified directory does not exist.

3. Confirm that everything is working:

   amber --version amber examples/hello/hello.am amber examples/life/life.am make test-all

Documentation and assistance

See examples/README for more details about the examples.

Other documentation is on the Amber website: http://xamber.org/

I hope you find Amber for Parrot interesting and worthwhile. Feel free to email me with your questions or comments.

Roger Browne
roger@eiffel.demon.co.uk