Avail is a multi-paradigmatic general purpose programming language whose feature set emphasizes support for articulate programming. Avail is an open-source project that comprises a language virtual machine and a standard library. Both are released under the 3-clause BSD license.
- Before Getting Started
- Before Obtaining Avail
- Obtaining Avail
- Before Installing
- Building Avail
- After Building Avail
- Running Avail
- Developing Avail
- Staying Current
- Publishing Avail
- Reporting Problems
- Avail Gradle Plugin
- Avail Sample Project
If you would simply like to use Avail in a JVM project, you can import a prebuilt version of Avail as a dependency. See the Avail Gradle Plugin for more details on how to accomplish this. You can also refer to our sample project to see how Avail can be incorporated into a JVM project.
This document describes the entire process of obtaining, installing, configuring, and running the Avail development workbench. Depending on how you obtained Avail, whether it is a first time installation, and what utilities are already installed on your system, you may be able to skip some of the sections of this document.
In order to obtain Avail, you will need to make sure that you have obtained and installed the prerequisite software:
- Git: This is the version control software used by the Avail team to develop and deliver Avail. The Avail team can say with certainty that version 1.7.10.2 will work, but you will probably want to go with something later unless you already have Git installed.
To see if you have Git installed, try this:
$ git version
If Git is installed and available on your path, then it will respond with a version string like:
git version 2.31.1
The latest version of Git can be obtained at:
http://git-scm.com/
Please follow any installation directions provided by the Git website or included with the Git product.
The main command is called "git". Please make sure that "git" is available on your path.
The preferred method of acquiring Avail is from The Avail Foundation's official public repository. This repository is located at:
https://github.com/AvailLang/Avail.git
Choose the directory where you would like the local copy of the Avail repository to reside (the path to which is hereafter denoted as $PROJ). Clone the official public repository into it like this:
$ git clone https://github.com/AvailLang/Avail.git $PROJ
Even if you are planning to install Avail for system-wide usage, you will probably want to choose a non-system directory to house the local copy of the Avail repository.
Before installing Avail, you will need to make sure that you have obtained and installed the prerequisite software:
-
Java: You will need version 16 of the Java Development Kit (JDK) Standard Edition (SE), NOT an earlier version. Many modern systems already have some version of the JDK, so you should check your JDK version before obtaining and installing it from OpenJDK (or some other vendor). You can do so like this:
$ javac -version
And hopefully you get back something like this:
javac 11.0.2
Otherwise, the latest version of the JDK can be obtained at:
https://jdk.java.net/11/index.html
Please follow any installation directions provided by the website or included with the JDK.
The commands of interest are "java" and "javac". Please make sure that these are on your path.
You will need to compile Avail using the provided Gradle wrapper. To build Avail on a Unix-based system, such as Linux, Mac OS X, Minimalist GNU for Windows (MinGW), or Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL):
$ cd $PROJ
$ ./gradlew build
To build Avail on vanilla Windows:
$ cd $PROJ
$ .\gradlew.bat build
You should see output similar to this:
ATTENTION ==========================================================
Be sure to set AVAIL_HOME to:
$PROJ/distro
And update your path to include:
$PROJ/distro/bin
For example, a user of bash might include something like the
following in the appropriate shell config file:
export AVAIL_HOME=$PROJ/distro
export PATH=$PATH:$PROJ/distro/bin
Once your path has been updated, from any directory you can launch
the Avail workbench like this:
avail-dev
Or the Avail server like this:
avail-server
(The server is currently hard-wired to run on port 40000. This will
change at some point.)
To develop Avail code, you will also need to set AVAIL_ROOTS to a
valid module root path. If AVAIL_ROOTS is not set, then avail-dev
temporarily sets it to:
avail=$PROJ/distro/src/avail;\
examples=$PROJ/distro/src/examples
This is convenient for experimenting with Avail, but must be
extended with custom module roots as you develop your own modules.
====================================================================
BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 23s
19 actionable tasks: 19 executed
If your transcript ends with "BUILD SUCCESSFUL", then your build is ready for use. You may, of course, move the "distro" subdirectory to another user-specific or even system-wide location, and then update your AVAIL_HOME and PATH variables accordingly. Hereinafter we use $INSTALL to refer to the final destination of the "distro" directory.
In order to develop Avail libraries and programs, you will need to configure your environment appropriately. On Unix systems, this is best accomplished by updating your shell configuration file. On Windows, you can use the Control Panel to adjust the environment variables.
The following steps should be taken to prepare your environment for Avail development:
-
Set the AVAIL_HOME environment variable to $INSTALL. The Avail workbench, "avail-dev" on Unix and "avail-dev.bat" on vanilla Windows, uses this information to locate Avail, and will not run correctly without AVAIL_HOME being set.
-
Update your path to include $INSTALL/bin. This is where "avail-dev" and "avail-dev.bat" are located. This enables your shell to find the command without the user needing to prefix its exact path or change the working directory.
-
Set the AVAIL_ROOTS environment variable to a valid module roots path so that Avail can find its modules, or …
-
… alternatively, you may start the Avail workbench without specifying AVAIL_HOME and use the "Preferences…" menu item to enter the module roots path, one module root at a time. Upon exiting the Avail workbench, this information is persisted for future sessions.
A "module roots path" is a specification of locations that contain Avail code, in either binary or source form. A module roots path comprises several "module root specifications" separated by semicolons (";"). (On Unix systems, you will need to quote each semicolon, in order to hide it from the shell's command parser.)
Each module root specification comprises a "module root name", which is just a unique logical identifier, and a module root path. A module root name usually denotes a vendor or a project, and does not need to have any relationship to the file system. By convention, the module root name of the Avail standard library is "avail", and the official collection of examples supported by The Avail Foundation is called "examples". The Avail Foundation advises Avail developers to follow a reverse DNS name convention, like "com.acme.super-neato-project", to prevent collision between module root names among several vendors and projects.
A "module root path" can actually be represented by a URI (Uniform Resource
Locator). By default, Avail only supports local file system URIs. For
the default case, a module root path can be represented by explicitly using
the URI file scheme:
avail=file:///User/Home/Some/Directory/src/avail
For convenience the file scheme may be excluded from the root path when
linking a module root path to the local file system:
avail=/User/Home/Some/Directory/src/avail
Avail's module root resolution system allows for extension to support additional URI schemes. See doc/extensions/Module Resolution.md for details.
If AVAIL_ROOTS is not defined and the Avail workbench has not been used to define module roots, then "avail-dev" will use the following module roots path by default:
avail=$INSTALL/src/avail;
examples=$INSTALL/src/examples
(There is not really a line feed after the semicolon; the line feed was inserted as a formatting conceit only.)
This default is suitable for interacting with the Avail system as shipped by The Avail Foundation, but not for developing your own Avail modules. To develop your own Avail modules, your AVAIL_ROOTS environment variable must at least include a module root specification for the Avail standard library, and it must also include module root specifications for your own Avail projects.
Avail caches compiled avail modules in the user's home directory in .avail /repositories in .repo files. There is a repository file for each module
root loaded into Avail, named after the module root (e.g. avail.repo for
module root avail). If the repositories directory does not exist, it will be
created.
Note that "avail-dev.bat" makes no effort to configure the environment. You must preconfigure the environment yourself, customize "avail-dev.bat" to suit your own needs, or use the Avail workbench to establish the module roots. (A lack of Windows expertise on the part of The Avail Foundation is responsible for this minimality; hopefully "avail-dev.bat" will be richer in a future release.)
For more information on this topic, please visit this webpage:
http://www.availlang.org/about-avail/documentation/modules/module-discovery.html
To run an Avail program, launch the Avail development workbench. On Unix:
$ avail-dev
On Windows:
$ avail-dev.bat
This will open a graphical user interface (GUI) whose window bar is titled "Avail Workbench". Using the workbench is beyond the scope of this document. For information about using the workbench to load Avail modules and issue Avail commands, please visit:
http://www.availlang.org/about-avail/learn/tutorials/workbench.html
At the time of writing, there is not an integrated development environment (IDE) that specifically targets Avail. To develop Avail, The Avail Foundation recommends that you obtain a full-featured programmer's text editor that has good support for Unicode and user templates.
For those who wish to contribute source code to Avail itself, please use the latest version of IntelliJ IDEA. This practice assists the Avail team in maintaining consistency in coding, documentation, and formatting practices. You should also strive to imitate the existing stylistic conventions, just as you would for any other established code base.
The Avail Workbench is an Avail development tool for developing, building, and running Avail applications. It:
- Compiles Avail Modules
- Runs Avail Entry Points
- Provides Development Utilities
To keep up-to-date with the latest Avail development, you will want to refresh the Avail project directory from Git every once in a while:
$ cd $PROJ
$ git pull
On Unix, then build:
$ ./gradlew build
On vanilla Windows, then build:
$ .\gradlew.bat build
For more elaborate instructions, please refer back to the BUILDING and INSTALLATION sections of this document.
Following a rebuild, if you should encounter any problems while running "avail-dev", especially an unhandled java.lang.NoClassDefinitionError, then please try a clean rebuild before reporting the problem.
On Unix:
$ ./gradlew clean
$ ./gradlew build
On vanilla Windows:
$ .\gradlew.bat clean
$ .\gradlew.bat build
Be sure to visit the official Avail website for updates and news:
http://www.availlang.org
With some shame, I am forced to confess that the website does not undergo much maintenance. Our active team has shrunk in recent years, and the website suffers for it. Development of Avail itself is quite active, however, so GitHub might be your best source of Avail news.
At the time of writing, Avail provides two distinct publishable libraries.
The Avail Foundation is in the process of working towards making the Avail Gradle plugin available in Gradle's plugin repository as well as making the other four libraries available on Maven Central:
- Avail JSON
- Avail Storage
- Avail
- Avail Standard Library
In the meantime, all of these libraries/utilities can be published to a local
Maven repository using the Avail top level Gradle task, publishToLocalMaven.
Publishing Avail to local Maven will publish five jars:
avail- The core Avail language including the Avail Workbench (see Avail)avail-stdlib- The Avail standard library (see Standard Library)
To report a problem with the Avail virtual machine or standard library, please take the following steps:
-
Please verify, to the best of your ability, that the problem does not result from a bug in your own code. We all write buggy code, including the developers at The Avail Foundation, so please make sure that the problem is ours and not yours – so that we can concentrate our efforts on fixing our own bugs!
-
Once you are certain that the bug's provenance makes it our problem, please verify that the bug has not already been reported. You can do this by searching for the bug using our issue tracking system:
If you do locate the bug, then please feel free to add any information not already reported in the history of the existing issue. If this bug is mission-critical for you, then please let us know this so that we can assess our current priorities and adjust them accordingly.
-
If you could not locate the bug in our database, then please create a new ticket in our issue system:
Please try to find the minimal test case that reproduces the problem, and attach any relevant source files, resources, and screenshots to the new issue.
- You are certainly welcome to stop at #3; at this point, you have definitely done your duty as a responsible and considerate user of open-source software. If you are feeling especially ambitious, however, you may wish to tackle the bug yourself! This may be a trivial matter or a serious ordeal, depending on the nature of the bug, and providing advice to the ambitious is beyond the scope of this humble document. If you do decide to attempt a resolution yourself, then please include a statement of your intentions in the issue report. Should your efforts prove successful, then please create a new pull request for your fix. If you start but give up before achieving a resolution, then simply update the issue to let us know that you are no longer working on the problem.
================================================================================
Thank you for using Avail!
Todd L Smith <todd@availlang.org>
Leslie Schultz <leslie@availlang.org>
Richard Arriaga <rich@availlang.org>
on behalf of The Avail Foundation