README
1$Id: README,v 1.5 2003/12/29 02:27:55 dfs Exp $
2
3Quick Overview
4--------------
5
6CHANGES - lists recent changes to the source code
7COMPILE - contains quick instructions for building the library
8CONTRIBUTORS - lists people who have contributed to developing the code
9ISSUES - contains a list of known bugs
10KEYS - lists PGP keys used to sign releases
11LICENSE - the license defining the terms of use of the software
12README - this file
13STYLE - a set of guidelines for developers of the code
14TODO - lists planned or possible changes/additions
15
16build/ - directory containing the files necessary to build the software
17src/java - directory containing the library source, example programs, and
18 a utility program for converting old ORO source to Jakarta-ORO
19docs/ - directory where generated documentation is stored
20classes/ - directory created when building the library; contains the class
21 files
22
23Description
24-----------
25
26The Jakarta-ORO Java classes are a set of text-processing Java classes
27that provide Perl5 compatible regular expressions, AWK-like regular
28expressions, glob expressions, and utility classes for performing
29substitutions, splits, filtering filenames, etc. This library is
30the successor to the OROMatcher, AwkTools, PerlTools, and TextTools
31libraries from ORO, Inc. (www.oroinc.com). They have been donated to
32the Jakarta Project by Daniel Savarese (www.savarese.org), the
33copyright holder of the original oroinc.com ORO libraries. Daniel
34will continue to participate in their development under the Jakarta
35Project.
36
37
38Building
39--------
40
41Build instructions are in the COMPILE file. For the impatient, execute
42build.sh in the build directory.
43
44
45Converting Old Code
46-------------------
47
48If you need to migrate old source that uses the com.oroinc package
49prefixes, you can use the provided oroToApache program from the
50src/tools directory to automate the conversion of your source code.
51
52
53Brief History (for the curious)
54------------------------------
55
56ORO, Inc. was a Java tools company that started in 1997 and stopped
57doing business a year and a half later when the tools market didn't
58pan out as well as anticipated. Other tools companies disappeared at
59about the same time included, including JScape. So it goes.
60
61ORO produced several Java class libraries that became very popular
62among Java developers and were licensed by companies such as IBM,
63Compaq, AOL, Netscape, and you get the picture. Daniel Savarese, one
64of ORO's founders, continued maintaining these libraries after ORO
65dissolved but did not have time to provide adequate support and
66feature improvements for developers. Because of licensing
67restrictions with other companies, the source code could not be
68immediately released as an open source project. That is, until now
69(June 2000).
70
71Jakarta-ORO combines all of the former ORO text processing libraries
72into one package under the Apache Software License. The software was
73donated to the Apache Software Foundation because of the great strides
74they have made for server-side Java. The largest group of developers
75using the ORO text processing libraries are servlet developers, so it
76seemed like a perfect fit.
77