The Isabelle System Distribution
Version information
This is the internal repository version of Isabelle. Starting with
Isabelle98, the current line of Isabelle introduces many new features,
but also some incompatibilities with Isabelle94-XX. See the
NEWS file in the distribution for more details.
System requirements
Isabelle requires a real Unix box with sufficient resources. Fun
starts at about 32MB of main memory (somewhat depending on your ML
system), with several tens of MB disk space and a relatively fast CPU.
Furthermore, it needs the following software, which is not part of the
distribution:
- A full Standard ML Compiler (e.g. SML of New Jersey).
- The GNU bash shell (version 1.x or 2.x).
- Perl 5.x - the Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister (Perl 4.x
is *not* sufficient).
The following ML system and platform combinations are known to work
quite well:
- SML/NJ 110.x on any Unix platform (e.g. Suns, Linux).
- SML/NJ 0.93 on Suns and SGIs. There seem to be several
problems with Linux and HP-UX, though.
- Poly/ML versions 2.x and 3.1 on Suns.
SML/NJ
needs lots of store and disk space, but it is free. The current
official release is 110. We also still support the old 0.93 release.
MLWorks is a
commercial ML programming environment. Isabelle on MLWorks 2.0 works well.
It is about 20% faster than on SML/NJ while using slightly less memory and
disk space. A few minor features (e.g. top-level pretty printing) are not yet
supported, though.
Poly/ML used to be a commercial product by Abstract Hardware Limited
(now Abstract, Inc.). It is no longer available. We're awaiting news
about future availability of Poly/ML.
Installation
See file INSTALL in the Isabelle sources on how to build the
system. Further background information may be found in the
Isabelle System Manual, distributed with the sources (see
directory doc).
Interfaces
The distribution includes only a very primitive interface based on
ordinary terminal sessions.
Isamode by
David Aspinall is a more elaborate interface for Isabelle. It runs
under recent versions of XEmacs and is useful to both novices and
experts.
Other sources of information
Mailing list
The electronic mailing list isabelle-users@cl.cam.ac.uk
provides a forum for Isabelle users to discuss problems and exchange
information. To join, send a message to
isabelle-users-request@cl.cam.ac.uk.
Personal mail
Lawrence C Paulson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge
Pembroke Street
Cambridge CB2 3QG
England
E-mail: lcp@cl.cam.ac.uk
Phone: +44-223-334600
Fax: +44-223-334748
or
Tobias Nipkow
Institut fuer Informatik
T. U. Muenchen
D-80290 Muenchen
Germany
E-mail: nipkow@www.in.tum.de
Phone: +49-89-289-22690
Fax: +49-89-289-28183
Please report any problems you encounter. While we shall try to be
helpful, we can accept no responsibility for the deficiencies of
Isabelle and their consequences.