Numerics behind splineDesign

Hi all,

I find myself needing to be able to reproduce the spline bases that R
computes when using ns() and bs() -- but without using R. Before I go
diving headfirst into the C code in
./src/library/splines/src/splines.c, are there any simpler references
anyone might recommend? I notice that the help pages for these
functions don't seem to have any citations.

Thanks,
- Nathaniel