1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Each release reports the NEWS in the following sections:
9 * Changes to the distribution
10 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
11 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
12 * Changes to the C interface
15 Changes since the 1.6.x series:
17 * Changes to the distribution
19 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
21 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
23 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
25 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
27 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
29 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
32 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
34 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
35 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
36 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
37 so the current effective-version is "1.7". The effective version
38 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
39 items like the versioned share directory name
40 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.7.
42 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
43 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
44 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
45 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
46 with each micro release during a stable series.
48 ** Thread implementation has changed.
50 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
51 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
52 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
53 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
54 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
57 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
58 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
59 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
60 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
61 the GC. See the manual for details. [XXX - write this.]
63 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
64 in which case "null" threads are used.
66 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
68 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when
69 you don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but
70 where you have some section(s) of code which you consider can run
71 in parallel to other sections.
73 ### move rest to manual
75 They "flag" (with dynamic extent) sections of code to be of
76 "serial" or "parallel" nature and have the single effect of
77 preventing a serial section from being run in parallel with any
78 serial section (including itself).
80 Both serialize and parallelize can be nested. If so, the
81 inner-most construct is in effect.
83 NOTE 1: A serial section can run in parallel with a parallel
86 NOTE 2: If a serial section S is "interrupted" by a parallel
87 section P in the following manner: S = S1 P S2, S2 is not
88 guaranteed to be resumed by the same thread that previously
91 WARNING: Spawning new threads within a serial section have
92 undefined effects. It is OK, though, to spawn threads in unflagged
93 sections of code where neither serialize or parallelize is in
96 A typical usage is when Guile is used as scripting language in some
97 application doing heavy computations. If each thread is
98 encapsulated with a serialize form, you can then put a parallelize
99 form around the code performing the heavy computations (typically a
100 C code primitive), enabling the computations to run in parallel
101 while the scripting code runs single-threadedly.
103 ** New module (srfi srfi-26)
105 This is an implementation of SRFI-26.
107 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
109 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
110 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
112 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
113 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
116 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
117 with a renaming import, for example.
119 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
121 The official version is good enough now.
123 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
125 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
126 provided. Use 'make html'.
128 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
130 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
133 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
135 ** New command line option `-L'.
137 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
139 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
141 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
142 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
144 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
146 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
147 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
149 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
151 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
152 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
155 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
158 (define-module (demo)
162 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
165 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
167 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
169 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
170 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
171 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
174 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
176 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
177 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
179 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
180 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
181 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform vectors.
182 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
183 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
185 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
186 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
187 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
189 Arrays use generalized vectors their storage, so that you still have
190 arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read! and
191 uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and bitvectors.
193 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
194 substrings and read-only strings.
196 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
197 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
200 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
202 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
211 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
212 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
213 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
215 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
216 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
217 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
220 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
221 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
224 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
226 See the manual for details.
228 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
230 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
233 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
235 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
236 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
237 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
238 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
240 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
241 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
242 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
245 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
247 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
248 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
259 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
263 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
268 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
272 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
276 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
278 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
279 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
280 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
283 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
286 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
288 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
291 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
292 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
300 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
301 has been detected is to
303 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
304 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
305 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
308 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
311 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
313 to your .guile init file.
315 ### move rest to manual
317 The syntax for the :duplicates option is:
319 :duplicates HANDLER-NAME | (HANDLER1-NAME HANDLER2-NAME ...)
321 Specifying multiple handlers is useful since some handlers (such as
322 replace) can defer conflict resolution to others. Each handler is
323 tried until a binding is selected.
325 Currently available duplicates handlers are:
327 check report an error for bindings with a common name
328 warn issue a warning for bindings with a common name
329 replace replace bindings which have an imported replacement
330 warn-override-core issue a warning for imports which override core bindings
331 and accept the override
332 first select the first encountered binding (override)
333 last select the last encountered binding (override)
335 These two are provided by the (oop goops) module:
337 merge-generics merge generic functions with a common name
338 into an <extended-generic>
339 merge-accessors merge accessors with a common name
341 The default duplicates handler is:
343 (replace warn-override-core warn last)
345 A recommended handler (which is likely to correspond to future Guile
346 behavior) can be installed with:
348 (default-duplicate-binding-handler '(replace warn-override-core check))
350 ** New define-module option: :replace
352 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
355 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
356 for the core binding `format'.
358 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
360 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
361 a prefix to all imported bindings.
364 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
366 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
369 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
371 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
372 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
373 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
375 ### move the rest to the manual
377 It is sometimes tempting to use GOOPS accessors with short names.
378 For example, it is tempting to use the name `x' for the x-coordinate
381 Assume that we work with a graphical package which needs to use two
382 independent vector packages for 2D and 3D vectors respectively. If
383 both packages export `x' we will encounter a name collision.
385 This can now be resolved automagically with the duplicates handler
386 `merge-generics' which gives the module system license to merge all
387 generic functions sharing a common name:
389 (define-module (math 2D-vectors)
390 :use-module (oop goops)
393 (define-module (math 3D-vectors)
394 :use-module (oop goops)
397 (define-module (my-module)
398 :use-module (math 2D-vectors)
399 :use-module (math 3D-vectors)
400 :duplicates merge-generics)
402 x in (my-module) will now share methods with x in both imported
405 There will, in fact, now be three distinct generic functions named
406 `x': x in (2D-vectors), x in (3D-vectors), and x in (my-module). The
407 last function will be an <extended-generic>, extending the previous
410 Let's call the imported generic functions the "ancestor functions". x
411 in (my-module) is, in turn, a "descendant function" of the imported
412 functions, extending its ancestors.
414 For any generic function G, the applicable methods are selected from
415 the union of the methods of the descendant functions, the methods of G
416 itself and the methods of the ancestor functions.
418 This, ancestor functions share methods with their descendants and vice
419 versa. This implies that x in (math 2D-vectors) can will share the
420 methods of x in (my-module) and vice versa, while x in (math 2D-vectors)
421 doesn't share the methods of x in (math 3D-vectors), thus preserving
424 Sharing is dynamic, so that adding new methods to a descendant implies
425 adding it to the ancestor.
427 If duplicates checking is desired in the above example, the following
428 form of the :duplicates option can be used instead:
430 :duplicates (merge-generics check)
432 ** New function: effective-version
434 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
435 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
436 to the distribution" above.
438 ** New feature, 'futures': future, make-future, future-ref
440 Futures are like promises, but begin execution immediately in a new
441 thread. See the "Futures" section in the reference manual.
443 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
445 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
446 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
448 ** Fair mutexes and condition variables
450 Fair mutexes and condition variables have been added. The fairness
451 means that scheduling is arranged to give as equal time shares as
452 possible and that threads are awakened in a first-in-first-out
453 manner. This is not guaranteed with standard mutexes and condition
456 In addition, fair mutexes are recursive. Locking a fair mutex that
457 you have already locked will succeed. Every call to lock-mutex must
458 be matched with a call to unlock-mutex. Only the last call to
459 unlock-mutex will actually unlock the mutex.
461 A fair condition variable must be used together with a fair mutex,
462 just as a standard condition variable must be used together with a
465 *** New functions: make-fair-mutex, make-fair-condition-variable'
467 Make a new fair mutex and a new fair condition variable respectively.
469 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
471 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
472 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
474 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
476 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
477 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
480 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
482 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
484 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
486 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
487 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
488 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
491 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
492 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
493 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
496 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
497 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
499 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
501 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
502 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
505 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
506 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
508 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
509 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
510 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
511 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
512 level for the current thread.
514 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
516 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
518 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
519 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
522 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
524 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
526 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
529 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
531 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
534 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
535 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
536 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
538 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
539 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
540 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
541 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
552 ERROR: Numerical overflow
554 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
557 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
559 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
560 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
561 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
572 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
574 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
575 them is also done exactly, of course:
580 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
583 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
584 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
586 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
588 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
589 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
590 equal to a floating point number. For example:
592 (inexact->exact 1.234)
593 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
595 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitely:
597 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
600 ** New function 'rationalize'.
602 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
603 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
605 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
608 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
609 result when both its arguments are exact.
611 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
613 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
614 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
615 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
617 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
619 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
620 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
621 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
623 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
626 ** pretty-print has more options.
628 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
629 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
630 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
632 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
634 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
635 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
636 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
638 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
640 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
641 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
643 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
645 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
646 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
649 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
651 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
652 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
653 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
654 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
655 without the soft port blocking.
657 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
659 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
660 chapter in the reference manual.
662 ** Deprecated: undefine
664 There is no replacement for undefine.
666 * The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
667 have been discouraged.
669 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
670 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
671 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
674 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
677 * Changes to the C interface
679 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
681 This is a milder form of deprecation.
683 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
684 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
685 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
686 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
687 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
689 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
690 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
692 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
693 Scheme values has been added.
695 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
696 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
701 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
702 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
704 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
706 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
707 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
710 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
712 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
713 scm_from_int for ints.
715 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
716 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
717 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
719 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
721 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
722 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
723 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
726 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
728 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
730 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
732 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
733 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
734 following alternatives.
736 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
737 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
738 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
739 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
741 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
742 do the validating for you.
744 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
745 have been discouraged.
747 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
748 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
751 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
753 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
754 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
757 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
759 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
762 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
765 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
767 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
768 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
770 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
771 scm_truncate_number should have.
773 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
774 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
776 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
779 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
780 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
781 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
783 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
784 easier to use from C.
786 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
787 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
789 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
790 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
791 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
794 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
795 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
796 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
797 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
800 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
801 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
802 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
803 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
804 and is thus quite efficient.
806 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
808 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
809 about the character encoding.
811 Replace according to the following table:
813 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
814 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
815 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
816 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
817 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
818 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
819 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
820 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
821 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
823 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
824 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
826 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
828 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
829 now also available to C code.
831 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
833 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
834 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
835 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
837 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
840 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
842 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
843 unceremoniously removed.
845 This implementation exposed the detailes of the tagging system of
846 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
847 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
849 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
850 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
851 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
852 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
853 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
854 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
857 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
859 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
860 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
861 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
862 manual for more details.
864 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
865 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
867 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
868 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
869 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
871 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
873 Migrate according to the following table:
875 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_aray, scm_make_u8vector etc.
876 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
877 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
878 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
879 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
880 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
881 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
883 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
884 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
885 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
886 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
887 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
888 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
889 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
891 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
893 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
894 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
896 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
897 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
898 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
899 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
901 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
903 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
904 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
905 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
907 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
908 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
910 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
911 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
912 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
913 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
915 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
917 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
918 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
919 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
920 prevent a potential memory leak:
929 mem = scm_malloc (100);
930 scm_frame_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITELY);
932 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
933 SCM_FRAME_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
940 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITELY, MEM will be freed by
941 SCM_FRAME_END as well.
945 For full documentation, see the node "Frames" in the manual.
947 ** New function scm_frame_free
949 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a frame is left.
950 Thus the call to scm_frame_unwind_handler above could be replaced with
951 simply scm_frame_free (mem).
953 ** New way to block and unblock asyncs
955 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
956 scm_frame_block_asyncs in a 'frame' (see above). Likewise for
957 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_frame_unblock_asyncs.
959 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
961 C code can now use scm_frame_current_<foo>_port in a 'frame' (see
962 above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
964 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
966 C code can now use scm_frame_fluid in a 'frame' (see
967 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
969 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
971 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
972 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
973 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
975 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
977 You should not have used them.
979 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
981 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
982 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
984 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
986 This macro is not intended for public use.
988 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
990 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
992 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
994 Use scm_is_real instead.
996 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
998 Use scm_is_complex instead.
1000 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
1002 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
1003 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
1005 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
1006 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
1008 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
1009 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
1011 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
1013 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
1016 ** New function: scm_effective_version
1018 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1019 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1020 to the distribution" above.
1022 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
1024 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
1025 arguments are now passed directly:
1027 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
1029 This is an incompatible change.
1031 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
1033 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
1034 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1035 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
1037 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1038 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
1040 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
1042 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
1044 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
1045 function in the init section.
1047 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
1049 ** New macros SCM_VECTOR_REF and SCM_VECTOR_SET.
1051 Use these in preference to SCM_VELTS.
1053 ** The SCM_VELTS macros now returns a read-only vector. For writing,
1054 use the new macros SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS or SCM_VECTOR_SET. The use of
1055 SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS is discouraged, though.
1057 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
1059 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
1060 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
1061 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
1062 stays roughly constant.
1064 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
1065 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
1066 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
1067 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
1068 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
1071 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
1072 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
1073 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
1074 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
1076 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
1078 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
1080 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
1082 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
1083 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
1084 initializes a new cell (see below).
1086 ** New functions for memory management
1088 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
1089 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
1090 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
1091 cause aborts in long running programs.
1093 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
1094 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
1096 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
1097 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
1098 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
1099 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
1100 details and for upgrading instructions.
1102 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
1103 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
1104 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
1106 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
1108 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
1109 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
1110 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
1111 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
1112 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
1114 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
1115 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
1116 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
1118 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
1119 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
1121 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
1123 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
1124 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
1125 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
1126 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
1127 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
1129 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
1131 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
1134 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
1136 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
1138 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
1140 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
1141 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
1143 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
1145 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
1146 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
1148 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
1150 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
1151 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
1152 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
1153 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
1154 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
1155 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
1156 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
1157 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
1158 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
1159 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
1160 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1161 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
1162 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
1163 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
1164 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
1165 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
1166 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
1167 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1168 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
1169 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
1170 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
1171 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
1172 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
1173 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
1174 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
1175 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
1176 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
1177 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
1178 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
1179 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
1180 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
1183 Changes since Guile 1.4:
1185 * Changes to the distribution
1187 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
1189 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
1191 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
1192 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
1193 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
1194 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
1195 indicate major changes in Guile.
1197 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
1198 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
1199 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
1200 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
1202 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
1203 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
1204 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
1205 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
1206 micro version number.
1208 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
1210 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
1212 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
1213 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
1215 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
1217 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
1218 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
1219 See INSTALL and README for more information.
1221 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
1223 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
1224 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
1225 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
1228 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
1230 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
1233 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
1235 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
1236 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
1238 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
1240 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
1241 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
1244 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
1246 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
1249 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
1252 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
1254 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
1256 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
1257 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
1258 open-output-string, get-output-string.
1260 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
1262 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
1264 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
1267 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
1269 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
1271 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1273 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1274 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1275 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1277 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1279 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1281 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1282 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1291 See README there for more info.
1293 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1294 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1297 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1299 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1301 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1303 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1304 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1305 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1307 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1309 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1310 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1311 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1313 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1314 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1316 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1319 (oop goops describe)
1321 (oop goops active-slot)
1322 (oop goops composite-slot)
1324 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1325 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1326 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1328 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1330 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1331 in the default environment:
1333 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1334 %read-line write-line
1336 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1337 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1339 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1341 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1344 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1345 can be used for similar functionality.
1347 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1349 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1350 it defines two procedures:
1352 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1354 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1355 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1356 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1359 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1361 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1362 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1363 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1364 write large strings.
1366 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1368 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1369 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1371 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1373 for complete documentation.
1375 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1377 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1378 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1379 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1380 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1382 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1383 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1387 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1388 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1389 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1392 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1395 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1396 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1398 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1399 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1402 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1405 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1407 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1409 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1411 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1413 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1414 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1415 Scheme programs easier.
1417 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1418 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1419 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1420 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1421 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1424 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1425 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1427 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1430 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1432 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1433 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1434 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1437 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1439 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1441 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1442 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1443 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1444 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1445 was also ASCII, for example.
1447 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1449 tag - no replacement.
1450 fseek - replaced by seek.
1451 list* - replaced by cons*.
1453 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1457 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1458 (define m (make-safe-module))
1459 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1460 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1461 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1463 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1465 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1466 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1467 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1469 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1471 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1472 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1473 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1474 from the issues related to the module system.
1476 *** New function: load-extension
1478 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1480 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1482 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1483 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1484 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1486 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1488 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1489 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1490 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1491 support dynamic linking).
1493 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1495 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1496 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1497 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1498 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1501 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1502 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1503 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1504 library and initialize it explicitely.
1506 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1507 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1509 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1511 (define-module (foo bar))
1513 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1515 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1517 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1518 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1520 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1521 (null-environment 5)
1522 (interaction-environment)
1528 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1530 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1531 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1532 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1533 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1535 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1536 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1537 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1538 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1539 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1540 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1541 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1542 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1543 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1544 one eval to the next.
1546 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1547 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1548 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1549 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1550 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1552 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1553 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1554 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1555 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1556 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1557 used in a lexical environment.
1559 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1560 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1561 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1562 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1563 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1564 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1566 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1568 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1569 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1570 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1571 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1572 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1574 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1575 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1576 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1578 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1579 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1581 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1582 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1583 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1585 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1586 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1588 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1589 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1590 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1591 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1594 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1595 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1596 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1597 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1599 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1600 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1601 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1603 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1604 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1605 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1606 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1607 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1609 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1611 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1612 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1613 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1615 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1616 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1617 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1619 See manual for more info.
1621 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1623 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1624 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1625 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1627 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1629 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1630 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1631 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1633 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1634 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1635 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1636 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1638 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1640 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1641 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1643 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1644 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1645 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1646 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1647 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1650 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1651 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1652 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1653 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1654 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1655 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1657 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1658 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1659 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1660 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1661 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1663 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1664 objects are usually permanent.
1666 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1667 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1669 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1671 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1672 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1675 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1679 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1684 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1686 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1687 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1688 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1689 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1691 ** New function `make-object-property'
1693 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1694 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1698 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1699 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1703 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1704 source properties eventually.
1706 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1708 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1709 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1710 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1712 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1713 will be removed in the next release.
1715 ** New define-module option: pure
1717 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1722 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1725 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1727 Export names NAME1 ...
1729 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1730 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1734 (define-module (foo)
1736 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1739 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1744 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1746 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1748 ** New function: port? X
1750 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1751 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1753 ** New function: file-port?
1755 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1757 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1759 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1760 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1761 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1762 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1763 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1765 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1767 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1768 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1769 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1770 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1771 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1774 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1776 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1777 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1778 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1779 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1782 ** New function: crypt password salt
1784 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1787 ** New function: chroot path
1789 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1791 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1793 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1796 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1798 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1800 ** New function: getpass prompt
1802 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1805 ** New function: flock file operation
1807 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1809 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1811 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1814 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1816 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1817 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1818 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1819 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1820 of the temporary file.
1822 ** New function: open-input-string string
1824 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1825 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1826 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1828 ** New function: open-output-string
1830 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1831 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1833 ** New function: get-output-string
1835 Return the contents of an output string port.
1837 ** New function: identity
1839 Return the argument.
1841 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1842 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1844 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1846 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1847 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1848 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1851 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1852 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1854 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1856 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1857 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1858 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1861 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1862 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1863 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1867 Use `identity' instead.
1873 ** Deprecated: return-it
1877 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1879 Use `string-length' instead.
1881 ** Deprecated: flags
1883 Use `logior' instead.
1885 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1887 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1888 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1889 port-for-each is more flexible.
1891 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1892 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1893 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1895 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1897 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1899 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1901 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1903 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1905 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1906 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1908 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1909 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
1911 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
1912 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
1914 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
1916 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
1917 Removed function: builtin-bindings
1919 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
1920 Use module system operations for all variables.
1922 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
1924 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
1927 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
1929 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
1930 The following bugs have been fixed:
1932 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
1933 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
1936 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
1937 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
1938 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
1940 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
1941 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
1943 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
1944 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
1947 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
1948 The expansion used to be like so:
1950 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
1952 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
1954 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
1956 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
1957 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
1959 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
1961 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
1962 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
1963 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
1967 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
1968 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
1970 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
1975 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
1976 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
1978 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
1979 and `d', other keywords allowed.
1980 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
1982 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
1985 * Changes to the C interface
1987 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
1989 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
1990 with "_t". What a concept.
1992 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
1994 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
1996 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
2000 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
2001 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
2003 *** C Functions removed
2005 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
2006 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
2007 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
2008 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
2009 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
2010 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
2011 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
2013 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
2015 Use scm_mem2string instead.
2017 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
2019 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
2021 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
2022 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
2024 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
2026 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
2029 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
2031 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
2033 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
2035 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
2036 Evaluation" in the manual.
2038 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
2040 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
2041 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
2043 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
2045 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
2046 Constructors" in the manual.
2048 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
2050 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
2051 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
2053 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
2055 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
2057 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
2058 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
2059 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
2061 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2063 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
2065 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
2066 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
2067 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
2070 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2072 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
2074 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
2075 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
2077 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
2079 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
2080 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
2081 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
2082 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
2084 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
2085 scm_primitive_property_ref
2086 scm_primitive_property_set_x
2087 scm_primitive_property_del_x
2089 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
2090 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
2092 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
2094 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
2095 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
2096 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
2097 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
2099 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
2101 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
2102 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
2103 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
2104 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
2105 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
2106 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
2107 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
2109 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
2110 scm_remember_upto_here
2112 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
2114 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
2116 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
2117 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
2119 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
2121 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
2123 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
2125 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
2127 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
2129 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
2130 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
2131 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
2132 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
2133 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
2134 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
2136 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
2138 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2140 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
2141 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2142 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
2144 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
2146 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
2147 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2148 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
2150 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
2152 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
2153 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
2156 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
2159 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
2160 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2163 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2165 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
2167 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
2169 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2171 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
2173 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
2175 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
2176 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
2177 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
2178 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2179 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
2180 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
2181 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
2182 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2183 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
2184 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
2185 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
2186 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
2187 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
2188 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
2189 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
2191 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
2192 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
2193 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
2194 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
2195 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
2196 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
2197 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
2198 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
2199 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2200 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
2201 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
2202 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
2203 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
2204 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
2205 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
2206 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2207 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2208 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
2209 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
2210 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
2211 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
2212 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
2213 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
2214 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
2215 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
2216 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
2217 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
2218 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
2219 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
2221 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
2223 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
2225 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
2226 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
2228 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
2230 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
2232 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
2234 Use scm_string_hash instead.
2236 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
2238 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
2240 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
2242 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
2244 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
2247 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
2248 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
2250 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
2252 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
2254 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
2256 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
2258 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
2260 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
2262 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
2264 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2267 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2269 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2271 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2273 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2274 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2276 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2277 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2279 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2281 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2282 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2283 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2285 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2287 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2289 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2290 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2292 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2293 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2294 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2295 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2297 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2298 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2299 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2301 Use the new ones from above instead.
2303 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2305 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2306 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2307 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2309 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2310 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2312 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2313 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2316 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2317 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2319 Use the new functions instead.
2321 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2324 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2326 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2328 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2331 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2333 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2336 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2338 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2341 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2342 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2343 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2345 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2347 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2348 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2350 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2351 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2352 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2353 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2356 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2358 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2359 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2360 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2361 inexact for an exact.
2363 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2364 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2365 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2368 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2369 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2370 accept an inexact argument.
2372 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2373 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2375 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2378 ** New number validation macros:
2379 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2383 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2385 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2386 scm_unprotect_object.
2388 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2390 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2392 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2395 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2397 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2401 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2403 * Changes to the distribution
2405 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2407 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2408 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2409 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2410 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2411 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2412 obtain these programs.
2413 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2414 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2416 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2417 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2418 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2419 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2420 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2422 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2423 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2424 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2425 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2429 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2432 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2433 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2434 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2435 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2437 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2439 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2441 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2442 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2444 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2445 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2447 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2448 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2450 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2451 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2452 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2453 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2455 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2457 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2461 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2462 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2464 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2466 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2467 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2469 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2470 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2471 number of objects of that kind.
2473 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2475 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2476 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2477 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2478 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2479 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2481 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2483 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2485 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2487 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2490 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2492 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2494 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2496 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2498 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2500 ** New command line option --debug
2502 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2504 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2506 ** New help facility
2508 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2509 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2510 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2511 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2512 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2513 (help) gives this text
2515 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2516 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2518 Examples: (help help)
2520 (help "output-string")
2522 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2524 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2526 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2527 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2530 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2531 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2532 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2535 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2536 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2537 use absolute filenames when possible.
2539 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2540 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2541 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2544 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2546 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2547 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2548 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2549 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2551 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2553 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2555 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2556 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2557 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2559 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2560 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2561 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2563 (read-enable 'positions)
2564 (debug-enable 'debug)
2566 ** Backtraces in scripts
2568 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2572 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2574 at the top of the script.
2576 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2577 The second enables backtraces.)
2579 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2581 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2582 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2583 substantially faster than before.
2585 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2586 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2588 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2589 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2591 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2593 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2594 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2595 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2597 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2598 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2599 when this hook is run in the future.
2601 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2602 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2604 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2606 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2607 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2610 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2611 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2612 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2614 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2615 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2617 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2618 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2620 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2621 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2622 in order not to need further allocation.)
2624 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2627 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2628 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2629 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2630 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2632 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2634 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2637 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2639 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2642 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2643 GC in percent of total heap size
2646 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2647 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2649 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2651 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2652 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2654 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2656 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2657 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2659 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2661 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2662 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2666 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2667 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2669 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2671 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2673 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2675 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2677 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2679 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2680 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2682 (simple-format port message . args)
2683 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2684 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2685 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2686 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2687 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2688 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2689 Does not add a trailing newline."
2691 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2693 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2694 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2696 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2697 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2699 ** Deprecated: list*
2701 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2703 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2705 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2706 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2708 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2709 is returned as result.
2711 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2713 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2715 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2717 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2718 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2721 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2723 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2725 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2726 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2728 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2730 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2732 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2734 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2736 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2738 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2740 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2742 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2743 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2744 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2746 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2749 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2751 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2752 the readability of argument checking.
2754 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2756 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2758 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2760 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2761 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2762 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2763 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2764 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2765 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2766 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2768 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2770 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2772 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2773 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2775 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2777 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2778 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2781 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2783 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2784 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2785 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2787 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2788 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2789 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2791 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2792 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2793 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2794 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2795 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2796 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2797 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2799 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2800 scm_end_input (object);
2801 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2802 ptob->flush (object);
2804 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2805 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2808 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2810 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2812 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2813 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2814 removed in a future version.
2816 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2818 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2819 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2820 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2821 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2823 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2824 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2826 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2829 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2831 in your configure.in.
2833 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2838 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2844 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2846 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2850 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2851 (define make-message string-append)
2853 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2855 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2859 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2864 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2868 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2870 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2871 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2873 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2875 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2876 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2877 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2878 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2879 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2880 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2882 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2883 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2884 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2886 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2887 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2888 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2891 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2892 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2893 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2894 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2895 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2897 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2898 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2899 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2900 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2901 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2902 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2903 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2905 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2907 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2908 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2909 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
2911 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
2912 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
2913 KEY in the calling thread.
2915 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
2916 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
2917 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
2918 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
2919 associated with the key.
2921 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
2923 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
2924 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
2926 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
2928 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
2929 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
2930 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
2932 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
2934 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
2935 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
2937 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
2939 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
2941 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
2942 returned is undefined.
2944 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
2945 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
2946 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
2948 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
2949 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
2950 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
2952 ** New C level GC hooks
2954 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
2956 scm_before_gc_c_hook
2959 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
2960 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
2961 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
2963 scm_before_mark_c_hook
2964 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
2965 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
2967 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
2968 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
2971 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
2973 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
2974 allocation parameters
2976 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
2977 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
2978 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
2982 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
2983 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
2984 scm_default_max_segment_size
2986 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
2988 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
2989 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2991 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2993 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2994 object and count on the object being protected until
2995 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2997 The functions also have better time complexity.
2999 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
3000 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
3001 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
3002 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
3003 are no longer needed.
3005 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
3007 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
3008 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
3009 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
3010 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
3012 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
3014 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
3016 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
3018 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
3019 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
3020 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
3021 until this issue has been settled.
3023 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
3025 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
3027 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
3030 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
3032 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3034 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
3035 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
3036 descriptors were checked.
3038 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
3039 atomically written to a pipe.
3041 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
3042 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
3043 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
3044 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
3045 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
3046 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
3047 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
3050 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
3051 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
3052 is changed without calling tzset.
3054 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
3056 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
3057 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
3058 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
3060 (define write-network-long
3061 (lambda (value port)
3062 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3063 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
3064 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
3066 (define read-network-long
3068 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3069 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
3070 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
3072 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
3073 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
3075 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
3076 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
3077 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
3078 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
3080 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
3081 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
3082 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
3083 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
3087 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
3089 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3093 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
3094 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
3095 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
3101 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
3102 for a description of available commands.
3104 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
3105 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
3106 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
3108 (debug-enable 'backwards)
3110 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
3111 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
3113 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
3115 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
3117 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
3118 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
3119 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
3120 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
3121 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
3122 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
3125 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
3127 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
3128 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
3129 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
3130 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
3132 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
3133 the file and should not be affected by this change.
3135 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
3137 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3139 ** Readline support has changed again.
3141 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
3142 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
3143 to activate readline is now
3145 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
3148 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
3150 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
3151 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
3152 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
3155 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
3156 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
3157 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
3160 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
3161 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
3162 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
3163 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
3164 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
3165 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
3167 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
3168 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
3170 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
3172 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
3173 object it receives is the same string passed to
3174 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
3175 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
3176 string, not the suffix.
3178 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
3179 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
3180 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
3182 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
3184 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
3185 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
3186 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
3187 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
3190 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3192 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
3194 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
3195 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
3196 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
3197 appear from left to right.
3199 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
3202 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
3204 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
3205 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
3207 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3211 *** New function: hook? OBJ
3213 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
3215 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
3217 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
3218 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
3219 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
3221 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
3223 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
3225 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
3227 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
3230 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
3232 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
3233 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
3234 mentioning it here anyway.
3236 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
3238 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
3239 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
3240 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
3241 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
3244 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
3246 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
3248 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
3250 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
3251 otherwise return #f.
3253 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
3255 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
3256 returned by `opendir'.
3258 ** New function: using-readline?
3260 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
3262 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3264 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
3265 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3267 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3269 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3271 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3272 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3273 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3275 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3277 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3278 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3280 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3282 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3283 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3284 documentation slots are not yet used.
3286 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3288 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3289 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3290 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3295 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3296 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3297 (string-append x y))
3299 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3300 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3302 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3303 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3304 be made in a clean way.]
3306 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3308 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3310 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3312 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3313 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3315 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3317 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3319 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3321 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3323 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3324 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3325 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3326 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3329 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3331 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3333 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3335 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3337 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3338 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3340 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3342 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3344 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3346 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3348 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3349 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3350 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3351 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3352 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3353 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3355 This should not make any difference for most users.
3357 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3359 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3360 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3362 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3364 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3365 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3366 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3367 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3368 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3370 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3372 It is now replaced by:
3374 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3376 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3377 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3379 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3381 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3382 This might change when we get the new module system.
3384 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3388 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3390 * Changes to mailing lists
3392 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3394 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3397 * Changes to the distribution
3399 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3401 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3402 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3403 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3404 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3405 you explicitly specify it.
3407 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3408 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3409 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3410 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3411 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3414 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3415 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3416 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3417 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3419 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3420 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3421 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3424 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3426 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3429 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3431 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3433 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3434 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3435 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3436 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3438 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3439 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3442 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3444 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3445 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3446 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3447 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3448 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3449 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3450 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3451 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3463 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3464 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3465 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3466 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3467 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3472 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3473 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3481 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3486 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3487 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3490 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3491 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3492 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3493 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3495 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3497 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3499 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3500 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3502 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3504 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3506 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3507 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3509 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3512 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3514 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3516 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3518 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3520 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3522 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3524 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3525 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3526 when the hook was created.
3528 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3529 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3530 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3531 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3532 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3533 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3534 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3535 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3536 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3538 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3539 the dlopen family of functions.
3541 ** New function `provided?'
3543 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3544 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3545 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3546 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3548 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3550 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3551 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3552 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3553 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3556 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3557 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3558 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3559 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3561 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3562 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3563 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3566 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3567 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3568 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3569 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3570 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3571 but with the flag set.
3573 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3575 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3576 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3578 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3579 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3580 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3581 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3582 available Scheme format implementations.
3584 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3585 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3586 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3587 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3588 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3589 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3590 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3591 output is to the current error port if available by the
3592 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3595 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3596 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3597 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3598 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3599 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3600 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3601 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3602 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3604 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3605 be executed at a time.
3608 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3610 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3611 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3612 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3614 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3615 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3616 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3617 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3618 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3619 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3620 general form of a directive is:
3622 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3624 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3626 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3628 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3629 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3630 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3633 Any (print as `display' does).
3637 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3641 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3645 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3651 print number sign always.
3654 print comma separated.
3656 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3662 print number sign always.
3665 print comma separated.
3667 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3673 print number sign always.
3676 print comma separated.
3678 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3684 print number sign always.
3687 print comma separated.
3689 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3694 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3698 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3701 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3704 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3707 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3712 prints `y' and `ies'.
3715 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3718 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3723 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3727 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3730 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3731 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3733 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3736 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3737 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3739 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3742 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3744 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3746 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3749 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3751 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3753 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3756 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3759 The sign appears before the padding.
3767 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3769 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3774 print N page separators.
3784 newline is ignored, white space left.
3787 newline is left, white space ignored.
3792 relative tabulation.
3798 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3800 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3803 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3805 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3808 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3811 converts by `string-upcase'.
3814 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3816 jumps N arguments forward.
3819 jumps 1 argument backward.
3822 jumps N arguments backward.
3825 jumps to the 0th argument.
3828 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3830 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3831 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3833 take argument from N.
3836 true test conditional.
3839 if-else-then conditional.
3845 default clause follows.
3848 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3850 at most N iterations.
3853 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3856 args from the rest of arguments.
3859 args from the rest args (lists).
3870 aborts if N <= M <= K
3872 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3875 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3878 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3884 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3886 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3888 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3889 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3890 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3891 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3892 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3893 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3897 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3901 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3907 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3910 Print a `#\space' character
3912 print N `#\space' characters.
3915 Print a `#\tab' character
3917 print N `#\tab' characters.
3920 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
3921 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
3922 must be a positive decimal number.
3925 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3926 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3927 be processed by `read'.
3930 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3931 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3932 be processed by `read'.
3935 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
3938 prints format version.
3941 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
3942 and format it accordingly.
3944 *** Configuration Variables
3946 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
3947 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
3948 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
3949 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
3952 format:symbol-case-conv
3953 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
3954 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
3955 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
3956 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
3957 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
3959 format:iobj-case-conv
3960 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
3961 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
3964 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
3967 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
3973 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
3974 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
3975 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
3976 `format' padding style.
3979 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
3980 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
3981 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
3982 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
3986 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
3987 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
3988 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3991 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3992 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3993 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3994 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3995 parameters or modifiers)).
3998 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
4000 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
4002 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
4003 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
4005 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
4006 string-downcase! functions.
4008 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
4009 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
4011 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
4014 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
4017 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
4018 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
4020 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
4022 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
4023 the symbol had be read by `read'.
4025 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
4026 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
4027 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
4028 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
4029 would if STRING were input.
4031 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
4033 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
4034 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
4035 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
4036 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
4039 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
4041 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
4042 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
4045 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
4047 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
4048 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
4050 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
4051 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
4053 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
4054 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
4055 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
4056 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
4058 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
4059 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
4061 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
4062 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
4063 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
4065 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
4066 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
4068 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
4069 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
4070 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
4071 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
4072 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
4074 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
4075 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
4076 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
4077 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
4078 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
4079 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
4081 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
4082 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
4083 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
4086 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
4087 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
4088 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
4089 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
4090 the following grammar:
4091 ((apples (single-char #\a))
4092 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
4093 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
4094 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
4095 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
4096 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
4097 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
4098 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
4099 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
4100 last option in its combination)
4102 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
4103 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
4104 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
4105 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
4107 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
4108 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
4109 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
4111 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4112 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4113 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
4115 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
4116 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
4117 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
4118 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
4119 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
4120 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
4121 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
4122 ordinary argument strings.
4124 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
4125 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
4126 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
4127 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
4129 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
4130 as a list, associated with the empty list.
4132 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
4133 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
4134 - a required option is omitted
4135 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
4136 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
4137 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
4138 - an option predicate fails
4143 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
4146 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
4147 (verbose (required? #f)
4150 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
4151 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
4152 (predicate ,string?))))
4154 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
4155 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4157 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4158 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
4159 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
4160 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
4163 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
4165 It will be removed in a few releases.
4167 ** New syntax: lambda*
4168 ** New syntax: define*
4169 ** New syntax: define*-public
4170 ** New syntax: defmacro*
4171 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
4172 Guile now supports optional arguments.
4174 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
4175 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
4176 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
4177 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
4178 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
4180 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
4181 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
4182 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
4184 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
4186 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
4187 and examples for `lambda*':
4190 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
4192 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
4193 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
4194 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
4195 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
4196 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
4197 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
4198 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
4199 can be checked with the bound? macro.
4201 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
4203 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
4204 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
4205 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
4206 are given as keywords are bound to values.
4208 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
4209 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
4210 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
4211 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
4212 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
4213 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
4214 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
4215 and until the procedure is called.
4217 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
4219 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
4220 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
4221 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
4222 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
4223 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
4224 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
4225 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
4226 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
4227 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
4228 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
4230 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
4231 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
4232 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
4233 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
4236 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
4238 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
4239 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
4240 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
4241 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
4243 ** New syntax: and-let*
4244 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
4246 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
4247 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
4248 (<variable> <expression>)
4251 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
4252 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
4253 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
4256 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
4257 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
4258 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
4259 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
4260 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
4261 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
4262 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
4264 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
4265 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
4266 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4267 shadow earlier bindings.
4269 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4271 ** New sorting functions
4273 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4274 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4275 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4276 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4278 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4279 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4282 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4283 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4284 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4286 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4287 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4288 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4289 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4291 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4292 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4293 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4294 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4295 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4298 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4299 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4300 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4301 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4302 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4303 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4305 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4306 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4307 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4309 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4310 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4311 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4314 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4315 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4316 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4318 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4319 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4321 ** New built-in random number support
4323 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4324 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4325 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4326 returned have a uniform distribution.
4328 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4329 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4330 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4331 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4332 effect of the `random' operation.
4334 *** New variable: *random-state*
4335 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4336 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4337 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4338 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4339 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4342 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4343 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4344 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4345 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4346 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4348 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4349 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4350 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4351 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4352 initialized using SEED.
4354 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4355 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4356 range between 0 and 1.
4358 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4359 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4360 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4361 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4362 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4363 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4364 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4366 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4367 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4368 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4369 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4370 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4371 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4373 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4374 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4375 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4376 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4378 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4379 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4380 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4381 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4383 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4384 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4385 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4387 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4389 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4392 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4393 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4396 ** New function: make-guardian
4397 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4398 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4399 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4400 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4401 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4403 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4404 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4405 one object if at all.
4407 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4408 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4409 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4411 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4412 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4413 read again in last-in first-out order.
4415 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4416 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4418 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4420 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4421 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4422 file position is used.
4424 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4425 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4426 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4428 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4429 redefined using seek.
4431 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4432 size is not supplied.
4434 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4435 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4437 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4438 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4440 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4442 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4443 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4444 and returns the contents as a single string.
4446 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4447 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4448 lists in serial order.
4450 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4451 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4452 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4454 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4455 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4456 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4457 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4459 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4460 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4461 and #f if an error occured.
4463 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4465 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4466 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4467 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4468 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4470 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4472 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4475 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4477 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4480 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4484 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4485 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4487 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4488 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4492 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4494 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4496 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4497 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4499 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4501 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4502 might change when we get the new module system.
4504 ** The smob interface
4506 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4507 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4509 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4511 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4515 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4516 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4517 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4518 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4519 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4520 will be freed by the default free function.
4522 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4523 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4524 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4525 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4527 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4528 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4529 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4530 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4532 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4534 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4535 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4539 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4540 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4541 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4543 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4544 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4545 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4546 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4548 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4549 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4550 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4552 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4553 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4554 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4555 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4557 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4558 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4559 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4561 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4565 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4567 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4568 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4569 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4571 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4572 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4573 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4575 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4576 a string port's buffer.
4578 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4579 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4580 function pointers which together define the current random number
4581 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4582 number library functions.
4584 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4587 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4588 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4591 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4592 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4594 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4595 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4597 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4598 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4601 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4602 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4603 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4604 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4606 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4607 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4608 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4609 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4610 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4611 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4612 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4614 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4615 by libguile and the application.
4617 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4618 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4619 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4620 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4622 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4623 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4625 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4626 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4627 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4629 ** Random number library functions
4630 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4631 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4632 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4634 The default random state is stored in:
4636 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4637 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4638 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4643 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4645 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4646 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4647 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4648 isn't a random state.
4650 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4651 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4653 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4654 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4655 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4656 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4658 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4659 Return 32 random bits.
4661 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4662 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4664 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4665 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4667 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4668 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4670 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4671 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4673 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4674 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4675 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4679 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4681 * Changes to the distribution
4683 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4684 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4685 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4688 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4689 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4690 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4692 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4693 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4694 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4695 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4698 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4699 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4700 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4702 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4704 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4706 *** Function: batch-mode?
4708 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4711 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4713 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4714 case has not been implemented.
4716 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4717 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4718 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4721 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4722 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4724 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4726 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4728 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4730 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4731 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4734 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4735 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4736 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4737 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4740 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4742 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4743 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4744 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4745 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4746 find those libraries.
4748 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4749 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4752 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4754 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4755 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4756 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4757 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4759 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4760 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4761 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4765 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4767 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4768 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4769 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4772 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4773 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4774 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4775 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4777 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4778 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4781 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4782 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4783 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4784 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4785 compiler where to find the libraries.
4787 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4788 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4789 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4791 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4792 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4793 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4794 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4795 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4799 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4801 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4802 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4803 internationalization support.
4805 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4806 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4807 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4808 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4809 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4811 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4812 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4813 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4814 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4815 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4817 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4818 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4819 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4820 any GNU mirror site.
4822 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4824 ** New function: add-history STRING
4825 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4826 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4827 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4829 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4831 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4832 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4833 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4836 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4837 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4838 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4840 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4842 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4845 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4846 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4849 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4850 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4851 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4852 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4853 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4854 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4856 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4857 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4858 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4859 of the form mentioned above.
4861 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4862 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4863 returned in the special `rest' list.
4865 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4866 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4868 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4870 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4872 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4874 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4875 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4876 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4877 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4878 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4879 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4880 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4881 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4884 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4886 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4888 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4889 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4892 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4893 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4894 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4898 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4899 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4900 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4901 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4902 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4903 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4904 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4905 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4908 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4910 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
4911 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
4912 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
4914 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
4916 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
4917 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
4919 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
4920 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
4921 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
4923 Why do we have this function?
4924 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
4925 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
4926 primitive, and display it differently, and
4927 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
4928 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
4931 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
4932 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
4935 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
4936 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
4937 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
4938 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
4940 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
4941 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
4944 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
4945 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
4947 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
4949 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
4950 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
4951 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
4952 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
4953 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
4954 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
4955 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
4958 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
4960 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
4961 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
4963 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
4964 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
4965 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
4966 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
4967 properly continue the print chain.
4969 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
4970 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
4971 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
4972 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
4973 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
4974 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
4975 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
4976 print-state, it is simply ignored.
4978 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
4979 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
4980 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
4981 safest to not check for these pairs.
4983 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
4984 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
4985 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
4986 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
4988 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
4990 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4991 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4993 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4995 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4997 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4998 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4999 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
5001 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
5002 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
5003 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
5005 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
5006 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
5007 the following functions and macros:
5009 Function: make-fluid
5011 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
5012 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
5013 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
5014 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
5015 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
5017 Function: fluid? OBJ
5019 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
5021 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
5022 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
5024 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
5025 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
5027 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
5029 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
5030 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
5031 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
5032 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
5033 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
5034 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
5035 modified by `with-fluids*'.
5037 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
5039 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
5040 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
5041 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
5042 should evaluate to a fluid.
5044 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
5046 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
5047 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
5048 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
5049 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
5050 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
5052 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
5055 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
5057 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
5059 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
5061 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
5064 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
5065 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
5066 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
5067 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
5068 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
5071 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
5072 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
5073 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
5075 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
5076 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
5077 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
5079 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
5080 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
5081 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5082 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
5084 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
5085 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
5086 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5087 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
5089 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
5090 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
5091 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
5092 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
5094 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
5095 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
5096 their revealed counts set to zero.
5098 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5099 Returns an integer file descriptor.
5101 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5102 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
5104 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5105 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
5107 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5108 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
5109 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
5111 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
5112 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
5113 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
5115 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
5116 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
5117 default environment inherited by child processes.
5119 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
5120 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
5121 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
5123 The return value is unspecified.
5125 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
5126 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
5127 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
5128 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
5129 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
5131 The return value is unspecified.
5133 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
5134 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
5142 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
5143 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
5146 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
5149 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
5150 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
5151 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
5153 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
5154 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
5155 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
5156 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
5159 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
5160 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
5162 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
5163 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
5164 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
5165 the `environ' procedure.
5167 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
5168 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
5171 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
5172 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
5174 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
5175 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
5176 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
5177 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
5179 *** procedure: times
5180 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
5181 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
5182 return a selected component:
5185 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
5189 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
5192 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
5196 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
5197 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
5201 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
5202 terminated child processes.
5204 ** Removed: list-length
5205 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
5206 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
5208 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
5210 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
5212 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
5214 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
5215 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
5216 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
5217 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
5219 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
5220 extra complexity it introduces.
5222 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
5223 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
5225 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
5226 variable to any non-empty value.
5228 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
5229 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
5231 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5233 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
5234 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
5236 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
5238 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
5239 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
5241 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
5243 ** vector handling routines
5245 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
5246 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
5247 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
5248 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
5249 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
5251 ** pair and list routines
5253 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
5256 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
5258 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
5261 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5263 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
5265 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
5266 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5267 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5268 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5269 site-specific initialization code.
5271 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5272 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5273 initialization processes.
5275 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5276 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5277 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5278 initialized properly.
5280 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5281 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5282 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5284 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5285 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5286 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5287 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5288 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5290 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5292 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5293 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5294 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5295 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5296 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5298 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5299 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5300 which look like this:
5303 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5305 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5306 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5309 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5310 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5313 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5315 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5316 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5317 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5319 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5320 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5321 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5322 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5323 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5325 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5326 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5328 int (*free) (SCM port);
5329 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5330 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5331 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5335 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5336 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5337 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5339 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5342 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5343 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5344 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5346 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5347 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5348 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5351 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5355 struct timeval *timeout);
5357 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5358 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5359 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5360 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5361 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5362 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5364 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5365 scm_catch_body_t body,
5367 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5370 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5371 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5372 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5373 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5374 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5375 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5377 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5379 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5382 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5383 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5384 spawning threads from application C code.
5386 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5387 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5388 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5389 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5390 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5391 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5393 ** Removed functions:
5395 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5396 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5398 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5400 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5401 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5403 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5405 ** mbstrings are now removed
5407 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5408 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5410 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5412 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5413 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5414 their new names and arguments:
5416 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5417 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5418 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5419 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5422 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5424 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5426 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5429 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5431 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5432 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5433 pass a #f arg to catch.
5435 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5437 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5438 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5441 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5442 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5443 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5444 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5445 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5446 reclaim its storage.
5448 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5449 worrying that some other function you call will call
5450 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5451 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5452 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5453 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5456 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5458 * Changes to the distribution
5460 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5461 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5464 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5465 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5467 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5468 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5470 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5472 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5473 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5474 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5476 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5478 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5479 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5480 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5481 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5482 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5483 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5485 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5486 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5487 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5490 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5491 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5492 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5493 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5495 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5496 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5497 libraries to your link command:
5499 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5500 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5501 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5502 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5504 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5505 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5506 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5508 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5510 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5511 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5514 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5516 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5517 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5518 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5519 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5520 searched is system dependent.
5522 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5524 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5526 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5528 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5529 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5531 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5533 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5534 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5535 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5536 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5537 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5540 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5542 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5543 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5544 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5545 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5546 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5548 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5550 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5551 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5553 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5555 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5556 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5557 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5560 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5562 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5563 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5564 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5565 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5567 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5568 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5570 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5572 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5573 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5575 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5577 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5578 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5586 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5588 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5589 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5590 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5591 a more informative way.
5593 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5594 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5595 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5596 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5597 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5598 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5600 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5601 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5604 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5605 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5606 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5609 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5610 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5611 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5612 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5613 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5614 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5616 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5617 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5618 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5619 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5622 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5623 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5624 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5625 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5626 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5627 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5629 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5630 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5631 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5632 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5633 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5635 *** regexp functions
5637 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5638 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5639 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5641 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5642 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5643 with SCSH regular expressions.
5645 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5646 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5647 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5648 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5650 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5651 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5652 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5653 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5655 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5656 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5657 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5658 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5659 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5660 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5662 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5663 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5664 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5665 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5666 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5668 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5670 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5671 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5672 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5673 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5675 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5676 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5677 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5679 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5680 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5682 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5685 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5686 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5687 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5689 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5690 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5691 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5693 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5694 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5695 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5696 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5697 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5700 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5702 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5703 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5704 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5705 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5706 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5707 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5709 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5710 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5711 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5713 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5714 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5717 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5718 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5720 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5721 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5722 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5723 may be one of the following arguments:
5725 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5727 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5729 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5730 the regexp match is written.
5732 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5733 following the regexp match is written.
5735 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5736 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5739 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5740 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5741 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5742 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5743 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5744 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5746 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5749 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5750 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5751 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5752 written out to PORT.
5754 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5755 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5756 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5757 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5758 will return after processing a single match.
5760 *** Match Structures
5762 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5763 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5764 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5765 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5766 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5767 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5770 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5771 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5772 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5773 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5774 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5776 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5777 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5778 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5780 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5781 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5782 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5783 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5784 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5786 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5787 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5789 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5790 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5792 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5793 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5795 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5796 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5798 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5799 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5800 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5801 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5803 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5804 Return the original TARGET string.
5806 *** Backslash Escapes
5808 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5809 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5810 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5811 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5812 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5813 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5815 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5816 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5817 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5818 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5819 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5820 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5821 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5822 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5824 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5825 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5826 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5827 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5828 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5829 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5830 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5832 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5833 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5834 return the resulting string.
5836 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5837 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5838 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5839 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5840 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5841 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5842 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5843 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5844 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5845 translated to the single character `*'.
5847 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5848 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5849 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5850 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5851 consecutive backslashes:
5853 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5855 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5856 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5857 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5859 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5860 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5861 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5862 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5863 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5864 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5866 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5868 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5869 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5870 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5871 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5872 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5873 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5874 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5875 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5876 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5877 cumbersome escape syntax.
5879 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5881 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5883 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5885 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5888 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5890 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5892 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5895 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5896 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5897 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5898 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5899 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5901 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5902 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5903 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5904 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5905 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5906 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5907 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5910 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
5911 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
5912 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
5915 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
5916 `force-output' on every port open for output.
5918 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
5919 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
5920 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
5921 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
5922 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
5923 installed, you can say:
5925 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
5928 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5930 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
5931 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
5932 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
5933 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
5934 new dynamic roots and threads.
5937 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
5939 * Changes to the distribution.
5941 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
5943 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
5944 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
5945 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
5946 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
5947 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
5948 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
5949 programming language. These are packaged together because the
5950 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
5952 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
5955 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
5956 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
5961 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5963 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
5964 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
5966 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
5967 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
5968 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
5969 the (command-line) function.
5970 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
5971 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
5972 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
5974 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
5975 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
5976 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
5977 command line arguments
5978 -ds do -s script at this point
5979 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
5980 -h, --help display this help and exit
5981 -v, --version display version information and exit
5982 \ read arguments from following script lines
5984 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
5985 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
5987 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5990 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5994 (main (command-line))
5996 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5998 ekko a speckled gecko
6000 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
6001 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
6002 following list of command-line arguments:
6004 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
6006 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
6007 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
6008 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
6009 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
6010 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6012 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
6014 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
6016 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
6017 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
6020 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
6021 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
6022 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
6023 SCSH) for circumventing them.
6025 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
6026 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
6027 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
6028 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
6030 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
6034 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6038 If the user invokes this script as follows:
6040 ekko a speckled gecko
6042 Unix expands this into
6044 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
6046 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
6047 read from the second line of the script, producing:
6049 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6051 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
6052 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6054 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
6055 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
6056 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
6057 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
6058 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
6059 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
6060 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
6061 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
6062 it only terminates the argument list.)
6063 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
6064 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
6065 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
6066 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
6067 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
6068 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
6069 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
6070 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
6072 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6074 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
6075 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
6076 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
6077 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
6078 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
6080 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
6081 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
6082 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
6084 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
6086 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
6087 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
6088 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
6089 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
6092 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
6093 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6094 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6096 * Changes to Scheme functions
6098 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
6099 and disabled by default.
6101 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
6102 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
6103 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
6104 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
6106 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
6108 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
6110 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
6111 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
6113 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
6114 (read-set! keywords #f)
6116 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
6117 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
6118 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
6121 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
6122 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
6123 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
6126 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
6127 support for Scheme functions.
6129 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6130 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
6131 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
6132 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
6135 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6136 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
6137 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
6140 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
6141 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
6142 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
6145 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
6146 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
6147 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
6148 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
6149 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
6150 display the result as a prompt.
6151 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
6153 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
6154 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
6155 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
6158 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
6159 procedure of zero arguments.
6161 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
6162 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
6163 argument is bound in the current module.
6165 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
6166 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
6167 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
6168 public bindings into the current module.
6170 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
6171 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
6173 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
6174 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
6176 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
6177 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
6179 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
6180 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
6182 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
6183 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
6185 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
6186 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
6187 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
6188 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
6189 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
6191 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
6192 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
6193 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
6194 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
6196 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
6199 ** Changes to I/O functions
6201 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
6202 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
6203 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
6205 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
6206 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
6207 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
6209 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
6210 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
6212 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
6213 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
6214 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
6215 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
6217 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
6219 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
6220 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
6222 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
6223 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
6224 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
6225 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
6226 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
6229 'trim omit delimiter from result
6230 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
6231 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
6232 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
6234 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
6236 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
6237 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
6239 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
6240 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
6241 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
6242 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
6243 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
6245 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
6246 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
6247 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
6249 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
6250 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
6251 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
6252 above, and defaults to 'peek.
6254 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
6255 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6257 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
6258 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
6260 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
6262 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
6263 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
6264 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
6265 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
6266 a delimiting character.
6267 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6269 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6270 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6271 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6272 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6273 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6274 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6276 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6277 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6279 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6280 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6281 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6283 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6284 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6285 the array to read and write.
6287 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6288 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6291 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6293 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6296 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6297 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6298 Values for COMMAND are:
6300 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6301 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6302 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6303 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6304 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6305 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6306 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6307 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6309 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6311 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6312 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6313 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6314 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6315 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6316 corresponding return set will be the same.
6318 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6321 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6322 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6323 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6324 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6325 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6326 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6327 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6328 special file being created.
6330 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6331 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6333 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6334 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6335 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6336 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6337 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6338 and originating address.
6340 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6341 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6342 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6344 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6347 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6348 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6351 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6352 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6353 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6354 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6355 this function returns #f.
6357 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6358 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6359 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6362 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6363 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6364 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6367 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6368 a valid STATUS value.
6370 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6372 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6373 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6375 Component Accessor Setter
6376 ========================= ============ ============
6377 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6378 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6379 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6380 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6381 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6382 year tm:year set-tm:year
6383 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6384 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6385 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6386 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6387 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6389 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6390 describing the host system:
6393 ============================================== ================
6394 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6395 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6396 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6397 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6398 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6400 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6401 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6402 system's user database:
6405 ====================== =================
6406 user name passwd:name
6407 user password passwd:passwd
6410 real name passwd:gecos
6411 home directory passwd:dir
6412 shell program passwd:shell
6414 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6415 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6416 system's group database:
6419 ======================= ============
6420 group name group:name
6421 group password group:passwd
6423 group members group:mem
6425 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6426 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6430 ========================= ===============
6431 official name of host hostent:name
6432 alias list hostent:aliases
6433 host address type hostent:addrtype
6434 length of address hostent:length
6435 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6437 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6438 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6442 ========================= ===============
6443 official name of net netent:name
6444 alias list netent:aliases
6445 net number type netent:addrtype
6446 net number netent:net
6448 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6449 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6453 ========================= ===============
6454 official protocol name protoent:name
6455 alias list protoent:aliases
6456 protocol number protoent:proto
6458 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6459 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6463 ========================= ===============
6464 official service name servent:name
6465 alias list servent:aliases
6466 port number servent:port
6467 protocol to use servent:proto
6469 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6470 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6473 ======================================== ===============
6474 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6475 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6476 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6477 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6479 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6480 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6481 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6483 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6484 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6486 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6487 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6489 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6490 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6492 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6494 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6496 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6497 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6498 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6500 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6501 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6502 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6503 return the remaining characters as a string.
6505 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6506 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6507 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6509 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6511 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6513 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6516 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6519 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6520 and returns the array
6522 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6523 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6524 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6526 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6528 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6529 symbol's value from C code:
6531 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6532 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6533 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6534 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6536 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6537 without assigning them a value.
6539 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6540 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6541 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6543 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6544 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6545 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6547 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6548 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6550 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6551 doesn't actually care about that.
6553 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6554 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6555 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6557 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6558 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6559 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6560 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6561 which we have just created and initialized.
6563 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6564 should one occur. We call it like this:
6565 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6567 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6568 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6569 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6570 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6571 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6572 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6575 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6576 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6577 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6578 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6579 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6580 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6581 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6584 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6585 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6586 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6587 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6588 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6591 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6592 scm_internal_catch, except:
6594 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6595 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6596 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6597 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6600 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6601 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6602 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6604 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6605 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6606 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6607 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6610 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6611 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6612 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6614 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6615 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6616 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6617 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6618 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6620 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6621 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6622 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6624 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6625 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6626 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6628 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6629 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6631 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6632 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6633 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6636 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6637 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6638 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6639 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6640 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6641 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6642 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6645 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6646 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6648 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6649 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6650 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6651 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6652 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6655 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6656 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6658 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6659 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6662 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6663 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6665 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6668 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6669 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6670 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6671 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6672 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6673 given the following arguments:
6675 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6677 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6679 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6681 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6684 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6685 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6686 command-line arguments.
6688 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6689 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6690 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6691 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6692 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6693 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6696 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6699 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6700 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6702 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6703 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6705 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6706 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6707 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6708 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6710 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6711 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6713 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6714 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6715 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6716 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6718 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6719 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6721 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6722 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6724 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6726 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6727 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6728 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6731 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6732 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6734 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6735 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6740 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6743 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6745 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6746 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6747 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6748 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6750 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6752 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6754 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6755 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6756 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6757 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6758 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6759 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6760 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6761 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6762 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6763 for more information.
6765 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6766 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6768 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6769 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6770 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6771 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6772 following two lines at the top of the file:
6774 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6777 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6778 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6779 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6781 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6783 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6785 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6788 (display (car args))
6789 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6791 (loop (cdr args)))))
6794 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6795 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6796 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6797 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6798 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6799 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6803 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6806 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6809 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6811 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6812 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6813 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6814 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6815 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6818 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6819 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6820 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6821 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6822 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6825 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6828 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6829 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6830 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6833 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6834 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6835 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6837 to see a backtrace, and
6838 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6839 to see them by default.
6843 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6845 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6847 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6848 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6851 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6852 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6853 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6854 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6857 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6858 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6859 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6860 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6861 functions which inspired them.
6863 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6864 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6868 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6870 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6872 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6873 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6876 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6877 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6878 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6880 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6881 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6882 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6883 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6884 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6886 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6888 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6889 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6890 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6893 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6896 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6898 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6899 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6900 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6901 above should serve their purposes.
6903 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6904 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6905 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6906 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6908 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
6911 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
6912 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
6913 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
6914 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
6916 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
6917 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
6918 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
6919 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
6921 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
6922 for the `read' function.
6925 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
6926 to that of `integer?'.
6928 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
6929 use the R4RS names for these functions.
6931 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
6932 it simply returns the object's property list.
6934 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
6935 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
6936 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
6937 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
6939 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
6941 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
6944 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
6946 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
6947 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
6949 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
6951 void (*main_func) (),
6954 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
6955 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
6956 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
6957 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
6958 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
6960 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
6961 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
6962 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
6963 know which arguments have been processed.
6965 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
6966 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
6967 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
6968 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
6969 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
6971 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
6972 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
6973 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
6974 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
6975 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
6976 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
6977 people from making that mistake.
6979 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
6980 convenient ways to override these when desired.
6982 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
6984 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
6988 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6991 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6992 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6993 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6994 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6997 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6998 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6999 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
7000 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
7003 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
7004 have been added to the Guile library.
7006 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
7007 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
7008 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
7011 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
7012 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
7013 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
7015 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
7016 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
7017 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
7018 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
7019 argument from the list.
7022 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
7025 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
7026 null-terminated string, and returns it.
7028 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
7029 to a Scheme port object.
7031 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
7032 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
7037 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
7039 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
7040 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
7041 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
7042 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
7043 code as a special datatype.
7045 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
7046 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
7047 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
7048 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
7049 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
7052 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
7053 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
7054 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
7055 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
7056 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
7058 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
7061 Copyright information:
7063 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7065 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7066 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7067 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7068 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7070 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7071 of this document, or of portions of it,
7072 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7073 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7078 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"