Andrew I. Schein wrote:
Hi -
I recently downloaded the source for gambit v4.2.8 with the idea of looking at how it fits together. I am a little bit baffled... there are quite a few (~33) files with a "_" prefix that seem to be generated C code as well as 9 normal looking C files.
Can someone provide pointers on the tool that generates the C
The tool is the Gambit compiler, gsc; when bootstrapping (make bootstrap), a gsc binary is generated and placed as "gsc-comp" binary in the toplevel directory of the sources.
or more generally about where to start in looking at the source?
For those autogenerated C files, there is a corresponding .scm file from which it has been compiled. Look at the .scm file.
Check the wiki for a few insights into the system, as well as a few papers from Marc (check his homepage and/or the mailing list archives, for example "Paper on the compiler"; there's a search form for the mailing list on http://scheme.mine.nu/gambit/). You should try to get a general understanding of Gambit, first, like how namespaces are being handled, what define-type does (it's the same as define-structure, but not all features which are being used by the Gambit sources are documented in the manual).
Christian.