This is the ReadMe for MetaJ, version 1.1  (6 December 2000)


1. Overview
===========

MetaJ is a reflective interpreter for a subset of Java. It is based on a
generic reification technique described in the article

    R. Douence, M. Südholt: "A generic reification technique for
    object-oriented reflective langages", in: "Higher-Order and Symbolic
    Computation", 14(1), Kluwer Academic Publishers, to appear, 2001.

MetaJ is a research prototype for exploration of different semantically-based
metaobject protocols. More detailed information (including references to the
above article) is available at the MetaJ home page :

    http://www.emn.fr/sudholt/research/metaj

MetaJ has been developed using the JDK1.1.6 (it has also been tested with Java
2, jdk 1.2 and 1.3, cf. http://java.sun.com), JavaCC 0.8pre2 and JJTree
0.3pre6 (cf. http://www.metamata.com/JavaCC).


2. Distribution
===============

After having extracted the archive the distribution consists of four
directories, a makefile and the file GPL.txt:

  - src: contains four subdirectories
      src/metaj   : the minimal set of sources necessary to generate the
                    reflective interpreter using javacc, jjtree and javac
      src/metaj-r : the minimal set of sources necessary to generate the
                    reflective interpreter (variant potentially exposing the
                    "referent" field to users) using javacc, jjtree and javac
      src/original: the sources of the original non-reflective Java
                    interpreter (included for reference only).
      src/javacc  : the sources generated by JavaCC and JJTree. MetaJ can be
                    compiled using the sources in src/metaj and src/javacc
		    without installing JavaCC and JJTree.

 - test: contains two test files demonstrating reflective and non-reflective
         programming with MetaJ 

 - work: target directory in which MetaJ is built using the makefile
         (initially empty)

 - makefile: contains seven targets, four compilation targets (all, metaj,
        metaj-r, original) and targets for testing and cleaning up.
      all     : copies the MetaJ sources and builds it using JavaCC, JJTree and
                javac 
      metaj   : copies the MetaJ and the JavaCC sources and builts MetaJ using
                javac only
      metaj-r : copies the MetaJ (variant possibly exposing the "referent"
                field to users) and the JavaCC sources and builts MetaJ using
                javac only
      original: copies the sources of the non-reflective interpreter and the
                JavaCC sources and builds the non-reflective interpreter using
                javac only


 - GPL.txt: GNU General Public License


3. License
==========

MetaJ is "cardware" and licensed under the GNU General Public License
(cf. file GPL.txt).


4. Authors
==========

Remi Douence, Mario Sudholt
{douence,sudholt}@emn.fr
http://www.emn.fr/{douence,sudholt}

Groupe Systemes et Langages a Objets
Departement Informatique
Ecole des Mines de Nantes
France