1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
10 * New modules (see the manual for details)
12 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', multithreading support
13 ** The `(ice-9 i18n)' module provides internationalization support
15 * Changes to the distribution
17 ** Guile now uses Gnulib as a portability aid
19 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
20 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
22 ** A new 'memoize-symbol evaluator trap has been added. This trap can
23 be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code coverage.
25 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
26 This slightly improves program startup times.
28 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
29 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
31 * Changes to the C interface
33 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
35 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
37 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
40 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
41 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
45 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
47 * New features (see the manual for details)
49 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
51 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
53 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
54 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
55 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
57 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
59 * Changes to the distribution
61 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
63 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
64 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
66 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
68 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
69 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
74 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
75 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
76 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
77 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
78 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
79 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
80 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
81 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
82 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
83 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
84 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
85 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
86 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
87 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
89 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
90 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
91 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
92 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
93 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
96 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
98 * Infrastructure changes
100 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
102 The new repository can be accessed using
103 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
104 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
106 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
108 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
110 * New modules (see the manual for details)
114 * New features (see the manual for details)
116 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
117 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
118 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
120 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
121 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
122 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
123 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
125 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
127 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
128 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
129 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
133 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
134 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
136 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
137 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
139 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
140 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
142 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
143 lead to a stack overflow.
145 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
146 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
147 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
148 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
149 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
150 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
151 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
152 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
153 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
154 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
155 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
156 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
157 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
158 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
159 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
160 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
162 * Changes to the distribution
166 We've started collecting Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), and will
167 distribute these (with answers!) in future Guile releases.
170 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
174 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
175 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
176 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
177 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
178 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
179 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
180 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
181 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
182 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
183 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
184 system and library calls.
185 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
186 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
187 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
188 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
189 uniform vectors on AIX.
190 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
191 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
192 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
193 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
194 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
196 * New modules (see the manual for details)
200 * Documentation fixes and improvements
202 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
204 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
205 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
207 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
209 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
211 * Changes to the distribution
213 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
215 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
216 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
217 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
219 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
221 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
224 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
226 * New modules (see the manual for details)
233 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
234 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
235 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
236 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
237 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
238 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
239 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
241 * Implementation improvements
243 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
244 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
247 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
249 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
251 ** set-program-arguments
254 * Incompatible changes
256 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
258 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
259 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
260 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
261 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
266 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
267 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
268 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
269 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
270 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
271 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
273 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
274 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
275 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
276 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
277 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
278 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
279 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
280 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
281 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
282 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
283 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
284 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
285 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
286 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
287 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
288 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
291 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
293 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
295 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
297 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
298 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
299 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
300 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
301 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
302 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
310 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
312 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
314 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
316 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
318 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
320 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
322 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
323 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
324 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
326 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
328 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
330 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
331 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
333 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
335 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
336 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
338 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
340 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
342 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
344 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
346 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
348 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
350 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
352 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
354 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
356 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
357 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
358 file was on a different device.
361 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
363 * Changes to the distribution
365 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
367 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
369 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
371 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
373 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
375 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
378 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
380 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
381 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
382 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
383 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
384 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
385 items like the versioned share directory name
386 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
388 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
389 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
390 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
391 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
392 with each micro release during a stable series.
394 ** Thread implementation has changed.
396 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
397 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
398 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
399 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
400 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
403 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
404 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
405 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
406 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
409 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
410 in which case "null" threads are used.
412 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
413 "Blocking", and others.
415 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
417 This is a milder form of deprecation.
419 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
420 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
421 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
422 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
423 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
425 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
426 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
428 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
430 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
431 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
433 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
436 This SRFI is always available.
438 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
440 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
441 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
442 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
443 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
446 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
448 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
449 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
450 parameters without currying.
452 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
454 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
455 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
457 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
458 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
461 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
462 with a renaming import, for example.
464 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
466 The official version is good enough now.
468 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
470 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
471 provided. Use 'make html'.
473 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
475 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
476 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
477 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
478 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
480 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
482 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
485 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
487 ** New command line option `-L'.
489 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
491 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
493 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
494 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
496 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
498 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
499 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
501 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
503 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
504 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
507 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
510 (define-module (demo)
514 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
517 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
519 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
521 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
522 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
523 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
525 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
527 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
528 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
530 ** New function hashx-remove!
532 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
534 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
535 barriers and dynamic states.
537 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
538 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
539 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
542 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
543 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
544 Barriers" in the manual.
546 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
547 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
549 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
551 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
552 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
553 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
556 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
558 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
559 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
561 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
562 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
563 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
565 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
566 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
568 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
569 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
570 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
572 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
573 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
574 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
577 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
578 substrings and read-only strings.
580 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
581 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
584 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
586 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
595 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
596 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
597 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
599 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
600 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
601 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
604 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
605 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
608 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
610 See the manual for details.
612 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
614 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
617 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
619 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
620 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
621 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
622 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
624 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
625 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
626 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
629 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
631 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
632 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
643 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
647 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
652 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
656 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
660 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
663 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
664 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
665 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
666 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
668 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
669 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
672 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
675 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
679 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
681 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
682 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
683 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
686 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
689 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
691 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
694 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
695 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
703 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
704 has been detected is to
706 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
707 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
708 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
711 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
714 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
716 to your .guile init file.
718 ** New define-module option: :replace
720 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
723 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
724 for the core binding `format'.
726 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
728 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
729 a prefix to all imported bindings.
732 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
734 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
737 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
739 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
740 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
741 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
743 ** New function: effective-version
745 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
746 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
747 to the distribution" above.
749 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
751 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
752 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
754 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
756 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
757 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
759 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
761 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
762 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
765 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
767 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
769 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
771 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
772 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
773 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
776 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
777 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
778 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
781 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
782 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
784 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
785 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
786 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
789 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
791 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
792 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
795 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
796 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
798 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
799 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
800 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
801 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
802 level for the current thread.
804 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
806 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
808 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
809 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
812 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
814 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
816 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
819 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
821 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
824 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
825 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
826 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
828 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
829 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
830 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
831 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
842 ERROR: Numerical overflow
844 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
847 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
849 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
850 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
851 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
862 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
864 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
865 them is also done exactly, of course:
870 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
873 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
874 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
876 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
878 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
879 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
880 equal to a floating point number. For example:
882 (inexact->exact 1.234)
883 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
885 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
887 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
890 ** New function 'rationalize'.
892 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
893 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
895 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
898 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
899 result when both its arguments are exact.
901 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
903 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
904 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
905 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
907 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
909 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
910 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
911 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
913 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
916 ** pretty-print has more options.
918 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
919 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
920 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
922 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
924 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
925 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
926 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
928 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
930 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
931 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
933 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
935 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
936 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
939 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
941 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
942 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
943 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
944 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
945 without the soft port blocking.
947 ** Deprecated: undefine
949 There is no replacement for undefine.
951 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
952 have been discouraged.
954 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
955 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
956 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
959 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
961 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
963 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
964 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
965 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
966 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
969 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
970 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
971 be removed in the next major Guile release.
973 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
975 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
976 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
977 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
978 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
979 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
980 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
982 * Changes to the C interface
984 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
985 take a 'delete' function argument.
987 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
988 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
990 This is an incompatible change.
992 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
994 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
995 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
996 --disable-deprecated.
998 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
1000 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
1001 Scheme values has been added.
1003 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
1004 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
1007 - int scm_is_* (...)
1009 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
1010 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
1012 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
1014 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
1015 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
1018 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
1020 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
1021 scm_from_int for ints.
1023 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
1024 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
1025 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
1027 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
1029 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
1030 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
1031 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
1034 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
1036 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
1038 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
1040 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
1041 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
1042 following alternatives.
1044 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
1045 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
1046 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
1047 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
1049 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
1050 do the validating for you.
1052 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
1053 have been discouraged.
1055 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
1056 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
1059 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
1061 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
1062 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
1065 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
1067 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
1070 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
1073 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
1075 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
1076 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
1078 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
1079 scm_truncate_number should have.
1081 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
1082 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
1084 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
1087 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
1088 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
1089 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
1091 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
1092 easier to use from C.
1094 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
1095 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
1097 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
1098 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
1099 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
1102 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
1103 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
1104 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
1105 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
1108 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
1109 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
1110 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
1111 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
1112 and is thus quite efficient.
1114 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
1116 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
1117 about the character encoding.
1119 Replace according to the following table:
1121 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
1122 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
1123 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
1124 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
1125 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
1126 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
1127 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
1128 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
1129 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
1131 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
1132 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
1134 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
1136 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
1137 now also available to C code.
1139 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
1141 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
1142 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
1143 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
1145 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
1148 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
1150 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
1151 unceremoniously removed.
1153 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
1154 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
1155 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
1157 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
1158 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
1159 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1160 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1161 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
1162 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
1165 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
1167 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
1168 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
1169 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
1170 manual for more details.
1172 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1173 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1175 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
1176 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
1177 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1179 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
1181 Migrate according to the following table:
1183 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
1184 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
1185 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
1186 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
1187 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
1188 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
1189 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
1191 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
1192 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
1193 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
1194 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
1195 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
1196 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
1197 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
1199 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
1201 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
1202 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
1204 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
1205 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
1206 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
1207 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
1209 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
1211 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
1212 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
1213 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
1215 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
1216 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
1218 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
1219 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
1220 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
1221 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
1223 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
1225 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
1226 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
1227 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
1228 prevent a potential memory leak:
1235 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
1237 mem = scm_malloc (100);
1238 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
1240 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
1241 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
1248 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
1249 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
1253 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
1255 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
1257 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
1258 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
1259 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
1261 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1262 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
1264 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
1266 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
1268 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
1269 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
1270 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
1272 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
1273 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
1275 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
1276 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
1277 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
1278 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
1281 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
1283 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
1284 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1285 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
1287 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
1289 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
1290 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
1292 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
1294 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
1295 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
1297 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
1299 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
1300 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
1301 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
1303 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
1305 You should not have used them.
1307 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
1309 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
1310 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
1312 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
1314 This macro is not intended for public use.
1316 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
1318 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
1320 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
1322 Use scm_is_real instead.
1324 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
1326 Use scm_is_complex instead.
1328 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
1330 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
1331 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
1333 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
1334 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
1336 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
1337 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
1339 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
1341 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
1344 ** New function: scm_effective_version
1346 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1347 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1348 to the distribution" above.
1350 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
1352 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
1353 arguments are now passed directly:
1355 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
1357 This is an incompatible change.
1359 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
1361 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
1362 function in the init section.
1364 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
1366 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
1368 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
1369 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
1370 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
1371 stays roughly constant.
1373 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
1374 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
1375 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
1376 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
1377 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
1380 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
1381 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
1382 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
1383 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
1385 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
1386 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
1387 objects for every type.
1390 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
1392 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
1394 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
1396 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
1397 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
1398 initializes a new cell (see below).
1400 ** New functions for memory management
1402 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
1403 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
1404 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
1405 cause aborts in long running programs.
1407 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
1408 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
1410 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
1411 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
1412 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
1413 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
1414 details and for upgrading instructions.
1416 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
1417 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
1418 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
1420 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
1422 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
1423 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
1424 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
1425 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
1426 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
1428 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
1429 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
1430 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
1432 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
1433 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
1435 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
1437 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
1438 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
1439 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
1440 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
1441 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
1443 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
1445 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
1448 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
1450 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
1452 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
1454 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
1455 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
1457 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
1459 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
1460 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
1462 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
1463 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
1465 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
1467 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
1469 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
1470 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
1471 blocking it is not well defined.
1473 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
1475 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
1476 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
1477 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
1478 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
1479 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
1480 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
1481 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
1482 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
1483 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
1484 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
1485 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1486 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
1487 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
1488 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
1489 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
1490 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
1491 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
1492 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1493 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
1494 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
1495 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
1496 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
1497 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
1498 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
1499 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
1500 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
1501 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
1502 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
1503 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
1504 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
1505 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
1507 * Changes to bundled modules
1511 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
1512 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
1513 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
1514 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
1515 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
1518 Changes since Guile 1.4:
1520 * Changes to the distribution
1522 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
1524 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
1526 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
1527 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
1528 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
1529 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
1530 indicate major changes in Guile.
1532 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
1533 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
1534 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
1535 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
1537 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
1538 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
1539 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
1540 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
1541 micro version number.
1543 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
1545 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
1547 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
1548 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
1550 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
1552 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
1553 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
1554 See INSTALL and README for more information.
1556 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
1558 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
1559 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
1560 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
1563 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
1565 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
1568 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
1570 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
1571 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
1573 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
1575 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
1576 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
1579 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
1581 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
1584 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
1587 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
1589 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
1591 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
1592 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
1593 open-output-string, get-output-string.
1595 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
1597 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
1599 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
1602 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
1604 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
1606 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1608 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1609 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1610 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1612 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1614 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1616 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1617 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1626 See README there for more info.
1628 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1629 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1632 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1634 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1636 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1638 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1639 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1640 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1642 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1644 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1645 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1646 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1648 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1649 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1651 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1654 (oop goops describe)
1656 (oop goops active-slot)
1657 (oop goops composite-slot)
1659 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1660 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1661 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1663 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1665 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1666 in the default environment:
1668 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1669 %read-line write-line
1671 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1672 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1674 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1676 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1679 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1680 can be used for similar functionality.
1682 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1684 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1685 it defines two procedures:
1687 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1689 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1690 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1691 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1694 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1696 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1697 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1698 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1699 write large strings.
1701 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1703 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1704 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1706 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1708 for complete documentation.
1710 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1712 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1713 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1714 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1715 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1717 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1718 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1722 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1723 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1724 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1727 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1730 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1731 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1733 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1734 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1737 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1740 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1742 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1744 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1746 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1748 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1749 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1750 Scheme programs easier.
1752 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1753 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1754 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1755 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1756 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1759 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1760 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1762 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1765 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1767 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1768 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1769 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1772 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1774 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1776 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1777 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1778 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1779 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1780 was also ASCII, for example.
1782 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1784 tag - no replacement.
1785 fseek - replaced by seek.
1786 list* - replaced by cons*.
1788 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1792 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1793 (define m (make-safe-module))
1794 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1795 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1796 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1798 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1800 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1801 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1802 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1804 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1806 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1807 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1808 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1809 from the issues related to the module system.
1811 *** New function: load-extension
1813 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1815 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1817 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1818 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1819 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1821 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1823 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1824 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1825 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1826 support dynamic linking).
1828 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1830 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1831 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1832 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1833 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1836 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1837 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1838 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1839 library and initialize it explicitly.
1841 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1842 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1844 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1846 (define-module (foo bar))
1848 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1850 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1852 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1853 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1855 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1856 (null-environment 5)
1857 (interaction-environment)
1863 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1865 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1866 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1867 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1868 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1870 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1871 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1872 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1873 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1874 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1875 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1876 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1877 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1878 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1879 one eval to the next.
1881 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1882 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1883 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1884 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1885 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1887 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1888 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1889 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1890 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1891 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1892 used in a lexical environment.
1894 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1895 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1896 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1897 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1898 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1899 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1901 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1903 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1904 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1905 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1906 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1907 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1909 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1910 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1911 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1913 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1914 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1916 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1917 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1918 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1920 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1921 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1923 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1924 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1925 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1926 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1929 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1930 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1931 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1932 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1934 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1935 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1936 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1938 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1939 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1940 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1941 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1942 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1944 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1946 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1947 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1948 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1950 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1951 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1952 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1954 See manual for more info.
1956 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1958 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1959 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1960 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1962 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1964 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1965 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1966 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1968 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1969 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1970 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1971 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1973 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1975 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1976 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1978 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1979 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1980 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1981 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1982 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1985 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1986 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1987 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1988 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1989 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1990 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1992 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1993 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1994 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1995 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1996 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1998 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1999 objects are usually permanent.
2001 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
2002 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
2004 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
2006 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
2007 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
2010 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
2014 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
2019 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
2021 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
2022 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
2023 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
2024 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
2026 ** New function `make-object-property'
2028 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
2029 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
2033 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
2034 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
2038 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
2039 source properties eventually.
2041 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
2043 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
2044 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
2045 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
2047 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
2048 will be removed in the next release.
2050 ** New define-module option: pure
2052 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
2057 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
2060 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
2062 Export names NAME1 ...
2064 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
2065 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
2069 (define-module (foo)
2071 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
2074 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
2079 ** New function: object->string OBJ
2081 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
2083 ** New function: port? X
2085 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
2086 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
2088 ** New function: file-port?
2090 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
2092 ** New function: port-for-each proc
2094 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
2095 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
2096 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
2097 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
2098 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
2100 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
2102 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
2103 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
2104 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
2105 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
2106 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
2109 ** New function: close-fdes fd
2111 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
2112 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
2113 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
2114 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
2117 ** New function: crypt password salt
2119 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
2122 ** New function: chroot path
2124 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
2126 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
2128 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
2131 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
2133 Get or set the priority of the running process.
2135 ** New function: getpass prompt
2137 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
2140 ** New function: flock file operation
2142 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
2144 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
2146 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
2149 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
2151 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
2152 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
2153 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
2154 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
2155 of the temporary file.
2157 ** New function: open-input-string string
2159 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
2160 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
2161 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
2163 ** New function: open-output-string
2165 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
2166 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
2168 ** New function: get-output-string
2170 Return the contents of an output string port.
2172 ** New function: identity
2174 Return the argument.
2176 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
2177 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
2179 ** New function: inet-pton family address
2181 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
2182 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
2183 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2186 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
2187 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
2189 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
2191 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
2192 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
2193 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2196 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
2197 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
2198 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
2202 Use `identity' instead.
2208 ** Deprecated: return-it
2212 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
2214 Use `string-length' instead.
2216 ** Deprecated: flags
2218 Use `logior' instead.
2220 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
2222 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
2223 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
2224 port-for-each is more flexible.
2226 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
2227 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
2228 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
2230 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
2232 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
2234 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
2236 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
2238 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
2240 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
2241 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
2243 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
2244 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
2246 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
2247 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
2249 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
2251 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
2252 Removed function: builtin-bindings
2254 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
2255 Use module system operations for all variables.
2257 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
2259 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
2262 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
2264 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
2265 The following bugs have been fixed:
2267 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
2268 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
2271 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
2272 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
2273 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
2275 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
2276 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
2278 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
2279 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
2282 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
2283 The expansion used to be like so:
2285 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
2287 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
2289 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
2291 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
2292 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
2294 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
2296 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
2297 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
2298 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
2302 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
2303 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
2305 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
2310 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
2311 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
2313 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
2314 and `d', other keywords allowed.
2315 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
2317 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
2320 * Changes to the C interface
2322 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
2324 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
2325 with "_t". What a concept.
2327 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
2329 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
2331 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
2335 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
2336 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
2338 *** C Functions removed
2340 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
2341 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
2342 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
2343 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
2344 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
2345 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
2346 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
2348 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
2350 Use scm_mem2string instead.
2352 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
2354 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
2356 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
2357 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
2359 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
2361 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
2364 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
2366 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
2368 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
2370 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
2371 Evaluation" in the manual.
2373 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
2375 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
2376 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
2378 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
2380 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
2381 Constructors" in the manual.
2383 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
2385 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
2386 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
2388 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
2390 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
2392 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
2393 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
2394 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
2396 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2398 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
2400 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
2401 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
2402 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
2405 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2407 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
2409 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
2410 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
2412 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
2414 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
2415 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
2416 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
2417 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
2419 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
2420 scm_primitive_property_ref
2421 scm_primitive_property_set_x
2422 scm_primitive_property_del_x
2424 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
2425 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
2427 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
2429 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
2430 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
2431 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
2432 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
2434 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
2436 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
2437 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
2438 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
2439 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
2440 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
2441 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
2442 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
2444 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
2445 scm_remember_upto_here
2447 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
2449 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
2451 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
2452 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
2454 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
2456 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
2458 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
2460 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
2462 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
2464 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
2465 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
2466 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
2467 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
2468 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
2469 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
2471 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
2473 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2475 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
2476 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2477 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
2479 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
2481 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
2482 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2483 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
2485 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
2487 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
2488 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
2491 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
2494 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
2495 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2498 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2500 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
2502 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
2504 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2506 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
2508 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
2510 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
2511 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
2512 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
2513 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2514 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
2515 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
2516 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
2517 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2518 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
2519 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
2520 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
2521 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
2522 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
2523 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
2524 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
2526 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
2527 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
2528 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
2529 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
2530 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
2531 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
2532 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
2533 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
2534 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2535 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
2536 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
2537 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
2538 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
2539 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
2540 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
2541 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2542 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2543 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
2544 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
2545 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
2546 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
2547 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
2548 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
2549 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
2550 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
2551 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
2552 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
2553 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
2554 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
2556 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
2558 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
2560 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
2561 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
2563 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
2565 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
2567 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
2569 Use scm_string_hash instead.
2571 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
2573 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
2575 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
2577 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
2579 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
2582 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
2583 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
2585 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
2587 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
2589 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
2591 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
2593 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
2595 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
2597 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
2599 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2602 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2604 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2606 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2608 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2609 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2611 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2612 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2614 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2616 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2617 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2618 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2620 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2622 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2624 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2625 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2627 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2628 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2629 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2630 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2632 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2633 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2634 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2636 Use the new ones from above instead.
2638 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2640 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2641 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2642 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2644 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2645 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2647 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2648 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2651 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2652 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2654 Use the new functions instead.
2656 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2659 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2661 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2663 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2666 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2668 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2671 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2673 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2676 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2677 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2678 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2680 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2682 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2683 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2685 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2686 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2687 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2688 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2691 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2693 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2694 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2695 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2696 inexact for an exact.
2698 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2699 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2700 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2703 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2704 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2705 accept an inexact argument.
2707 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2708 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2710 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2713 ** New number validation macros:
2714 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2718 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2720 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2721 scm_unprotect_object.
2723 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2725 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2727 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2730 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2732 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2736 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2738 * Changes to the distribution
2740 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2742 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2743 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2744 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2745 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2746 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2747 obtain these programs.
2748 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2749 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2751 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2752 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2753 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2754 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2755 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2757 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2758 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2759 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2760 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2764 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2767 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2768 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2769 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2770 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2772 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2774 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2776 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2777 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2779 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2780 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2782 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2783 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2785 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2786 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2787 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2788 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2790 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2792 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2796 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2797 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2799 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2801 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2802 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2804 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2805 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2806 number of objects of that kind.
2808 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2810 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2811 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2812 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2813 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2814 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2816 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2818 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2820 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2822 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2825 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2827 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2829 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2831 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2833 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2835 ** New command line option --debug
2837 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2839 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2841 ** New help facility
2843 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2844 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2845 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2846 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2847 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2848 (help) gives this text
2850 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2851 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2853 Examples: (help help)
2855 (help "output-string")
2857 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2859 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2861 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2862 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2865 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2866 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2867 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2870 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2871 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2872 use absolute filenames when possible.
2874 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2875 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2876 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2879 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2881 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2882 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2883 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2884 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2886 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2888 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2890 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2891 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2892 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2894 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2895 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2896 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2898 (read-enable 'positions)
2899 (debug-enable 'debug)
2901 ** Backtraces in scripts
2903 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2907 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2909 at the top of the script.
2911 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2912 The second enables backtraces.)
2914 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2916 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2917 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2918 substantially faster than before.
2920 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2921 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2923 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2924 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2926 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2928 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2929 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2930 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2932 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2933 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2934 when this hook is run in the future.
2936 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2937 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2939 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2941 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2942 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2945 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2946 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2947 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2949 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2950 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2952 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2953 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2955 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2956 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2957 in order not to need further allocation.)
2959 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2962 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2963 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2964 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2965 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2967 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2969 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2972 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2974 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2977 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2978 GC in percent of total heap size
2981 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2982 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2984 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2986 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2987 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2989 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2991 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2992 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2994 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2996 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2997 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
3001 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
3002 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
3004 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
3006 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3008 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
3010 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
3012 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
3014 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
3015 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
3017 (simple-format port message . args)
3018 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
3019 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
3020 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
3021 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
3022 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
3023 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
3024 Does not add a trailing newline."
3026 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
3028 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
3029 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
3031 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
3032 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
3034 ** Deprecated: list*
3036 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
3038 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
3040 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
3041 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
3043 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
3044 is returned as result.
3046 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
3048 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
3050 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
3052 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
3053 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
3056 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
3058 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
3060 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
3061 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
3063 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3065 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
3067 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
3069 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3071 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
3073 Thanks to Greg Badros!
3075 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3077 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3078 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
3079 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
3081 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
3084 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
3086 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
3087 the readability of argument checking.
3089 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
3091 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
3093 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
3095 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
3096 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
3097 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
3098 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
3099 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
3100 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
3101 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
3103 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
3105 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
3107 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
3108 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
3110 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
3112 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
3113 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
3116 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
3118 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
3119 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
3120 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
3122 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
3123 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
3124 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
3126 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
3127 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
3128 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
3129 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
3130 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
3131 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
3132 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
3134 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
3135 scm_end_input (object);
3136 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
3137 ptob->flush (object);
3139 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
3140 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
3143 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
3145 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
3147 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
3148 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
3149 removed in a future version.
3151 ** The format of error message strings has changed
3153 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
3154 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
3155 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
3156 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
3158 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
3159 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
3161 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
3164 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
3166 in your configure.in.
3168 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
3173 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
3179 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
3181 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
3185 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
3186 (define make-message string-append)
3188 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
3190 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
3194 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
3199 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
3203 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
3205 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
3206 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
3208 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
3210 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
3211 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
3212 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
3213 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
3214 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
3215 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
3217 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
3218 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
3219 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
3221 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
3222 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
3223 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
3226 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
3227 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
3228 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
3229 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
3230 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
3232 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
3233 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
3234 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
3235 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
3236 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
3237 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
3238 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
3240 Destructors are not yet implemented.
3242 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
3243 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
3244 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
3246 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
3247 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
3248 KEY in the calling thread.
3250 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
3251 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
3252 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
3253 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
3254 associated with the key.
3256 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
3258 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
3259 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
3261 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
3263 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
3264 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
3265 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
3267 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
3269 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
3270 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
3272 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
3274 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
3276 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
3277 returned is undefined.
3279 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
3280 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
3281 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
3283 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
3284 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
3285 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
3287 ** New C level GC hooks
3289 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
3291 scm_before_gc_c_hook
3294 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
3295 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
3296 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
3298 scm_before_mark_c_hook
3299 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
3300 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
3302 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
3303 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
3306 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
3308 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
3309 allocation parameters
3311 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
3312 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
3313 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
3317 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
3318 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
3319 scm_default_max_segment_size
3321 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
3323 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
3324 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
3326 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
3328 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
3329 object and count on the object being protected until
3330 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
3332 The functions also have better time complexity.
3334 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
3335 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
3336 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
3337 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
3338 are no longer needed.
3340 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
3342 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
3343 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
3344 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
3345 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
3347 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
3349 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
3351 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
3353 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
3354 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
3355 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
3356 until this issue has been settled.
3358 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
3360 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
3362 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
3365 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
3367 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3369 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
3370 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
3371 descriptors were checked.
3373 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
3374 atomically written to a pipe.
3376 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
3377 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
3378 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
3379 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
3380 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
3381 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
3382 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
3385 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
3386 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
3387 is changed without calling tzset.
3389 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
3391 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
3392 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
3393 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
3395 (define write-network-long
3396 (lambda (value port)
3397 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3398 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
3399 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
3401 (define read-network-long
3403 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3404 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
3405 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
3407 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
3408 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
3410 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
3411 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
3412 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
3413 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
3415 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
3416 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
3417 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
3418 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
3422 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
3424 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3428 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
3429 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
3430 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
3436 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
3437 for a description of available commands.
3439 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
3440 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
3441 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
3443 (debug-enable 'backwards)
3445 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
3446 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
3448 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
3450 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
3452 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
3453 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
3454 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
3455 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
3456 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
3457 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
3460 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
3462 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
3463 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
3464 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
3465 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
3467 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
3468 the file and should not be affected by this change.
3470 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
3472 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3474 ** Readline support has changed again.
3476 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
3477 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
3478 to activate readline is now
3480 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
3483 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
3485 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
3486 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
3487 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
3490 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
3491 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
3492 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
3495 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
3496 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
3497 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
3498 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
3499 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
3500 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
3502 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
3503 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
3505 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
3507 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
3508 object it receives is the same string passed to
3509 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
3510 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
3511 string, not the suffix.
3513 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
3514 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
3515 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
3517 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
3519 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
3520 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
3521 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
3522 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
3525 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3527 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
3529 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
3530 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
3531 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
3532 appear from left to right.
3534 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
3537 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
3539 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
3540 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
3542 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3546 *** New function: hook? OBJ
3548 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
3550 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
3552 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
3553 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
3554 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
3556 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
3558 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
3560 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
3562 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
3565 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
3567 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
3568 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
3569 mentioning it here anyway.
3571 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
3573 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
3574 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
3575 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
3576 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
3579 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
3581 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
3583 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
3585 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
3586 otherwise return #f.
3588 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
3590 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
3591 returned by `opendir'.
3593 ** New function: using-readline?
3595 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
3597 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3599 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
3600 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3602 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3604 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3606 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3607 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3608 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3610 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3612 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3613 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3615 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3617 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3618 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3619 documentation slots are not yet used.
3621 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3623 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3624 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3625 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3630 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3631 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3632 (string-append x y))
3634 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3635 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3637 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3638 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3639 be made in a clean way.]
3641 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3643 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3645 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3647 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3648 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3650 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3652 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3654 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3656 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3658 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3659 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3660 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3661 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3664 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3666 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3668 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3670 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3672 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3673 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3675 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3677 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3679 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3681 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3683 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3684 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3685 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3686 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3687 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3688 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3690 This should not make any difference for most users.
3692 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3694 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3695 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3697 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3699 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3700 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3701 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3702 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3703 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3705 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3707 It is now replaced by:
3709 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3711 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3712 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3714 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3716 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3717 This might change when we get the new module system.
3719 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3723 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3725 * Changes to mailing lists
3727 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3729 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3732 * Changes to the distribution
3734 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3736 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3737 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3738 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3739 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3740 you explicitly specify it.
3742 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3743 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3744 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3745 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3746 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3749 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3750 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3751 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3752 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3754 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3755 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3756 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3759 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3761 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3764 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3766 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3768 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3769 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3770 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3771 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3773 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3774 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3777 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3779 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3780 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3781 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3782 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3783 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3784 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3785 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3786 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3798 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3799 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3800 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3801 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3802 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3807 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3808 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3816 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3821 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3822 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3825 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3826 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3827 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3828 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3830 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3832 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3834 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3835 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3837 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3839 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3841 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3842 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3844 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3847 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3849 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3851 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3853 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3855 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3857 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3859 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3860 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3861 when the hook was created.
3863 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3864 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3865 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3866 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3867 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3868 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3869 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3870 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3871 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3873 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3874 the dlopen family of functions.
3876 ** New function `provided?'
3878 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3879 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3880 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3881 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3883 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3885 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3886 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3887 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3888 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3891 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3892 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3893 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3894 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3896 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3897 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3898 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3901 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3902 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3903 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3904 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3905 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3906 but with the flag set.
3908 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3910 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3911 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3913 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3914 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3915 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3916 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3917 available Scheme format implementations.
3919 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3920 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3921 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3922 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3923 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3924 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3925 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3926 output is to the current error port if available by the
3927 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3930 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3931 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3932 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3933 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3934 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3935 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3936 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3937 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3939 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3940 be executed at a time.
3943 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3945 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3946 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3947 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3949 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3950 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3951 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3952 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3953 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3954 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3955 general form of a directive is:
3957 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3959 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3961 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3963 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3964 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3965 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3968 Any (print as `display' does).
3972 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3976 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3980 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3986 print number sign always.
3989 print comma separated.
3991 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3997 print number sign always.
4000 print comma separated.
4002 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
4008 print number sign always.
4011 print comma separated.
4013 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
4019 print number sign always.
4022 print comma separated.
4024 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
4029 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
4033 print a number as a Roman numeral.
4036 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
4039 print a number as an ordinal English number.
4042 print a number as a cardinal English number.
4047 prints `y' and `ies'.
4050 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4053 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4058 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
4062 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
4065 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
4066 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
4068 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4071 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
4072 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
4074 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4077 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
4079 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
4081 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4084 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
4086 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
4088 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4091 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
4094 The sign appears before the padding.
4102 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
4104 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
4109 print N page separators.
4119 newline is ignored, white space left.
4122 newline is left, white space ignored.
4127 relative tabulation.
4133 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
4135 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
4138 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
4140 converts by `string-capitalize'.
4143 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
4146 converts by `string-upcase'.
4149 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
4151 jumps N arguments forward.
4154 jumps 1 argument backward.
4157 jumps N arguments backward.
4160 jumps to the 0th argument.
4163 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
4165 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
4166 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
4168 take argument from N.
4171 true test conditional.
4174 if-else-then conditional.
4180 default clause follows.
4183 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
4185 at most N iterations.
4188 args from next arg (a list of lists).
4191 args from the rest of arguments.
4194 args from the rest args (lists).
4205 aborts if N <= M <= K
4207 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
4210 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4213 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4219 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
4221 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
4223 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
4224 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
4225 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
4226 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
4227 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
4228 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
4232 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
4236 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
4242 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
4245 Print a `#\space' character
4247 print N `#\space' characters.
4250 Print a `#\tab' character
4252 print N `#\tab' characters.
4255 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
4256 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
4257 must be a positive decimal number.
4260 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4261 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4262 be processed by `read'.
4265 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4266 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4267 be processed by `read'.
4270 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
4273 prints format version.
4276 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
4277 and format it accordingly.
4279 *** Configuration Variables
4281 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
4282 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
4283 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
4284 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
4287 format:symbol-case-conv
4288 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
4289 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
4290 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
4291 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
4292 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
4294 format:iobj-case-conv
4295 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
4296 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
4299 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
4302 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
4308 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
4309 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
4310 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
4311 `format' padding style.
4314 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
4315 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
4316 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
4317 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
4321 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
4322 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
4323 directive parameters or modifiers)).
4326 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
4327 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
4328 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
4329 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
4330 parameters or modifiers)).
4333 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
4335 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
4337 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
4338 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
4340 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
4341 string-downcase! functions.
4343 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
4344 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
4346 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
4349 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
4352 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
4353 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
4355 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
4357 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
4358 the symbol had be read by `read'.
4360 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
4361 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
4362 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
4363 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
4364 would if STRING were input.
4366 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
4368 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
4369 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
4370 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
4371 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
4374 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
4376 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
4377 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
4380 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
4382 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
4383 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
4385 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
4386 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
4388 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
4389 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
4390 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
4391 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
4393 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
4394 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
4396 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
4397 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
4398 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
4400 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
4401 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
4403 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
4404 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
4405 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
4406 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
4407 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
4409 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
4410 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
4411 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
4412 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
4413 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
4414 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
4416 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
4417 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
4418 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
4421 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
4422 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
4423 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
4424 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
4425 the following grammar:
4426 ((apples (single-char #\a))
4427 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
4428 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
4429 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
4430 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
4431 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
4432 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
4433 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
4434 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
4435 last option in its combination)
4437 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
4438 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
4439 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
4440 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
4442 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
4443 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
4444 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
4446 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4447 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4448 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
4450 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
4451 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
4452 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
4453 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
4454 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
4455 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
4456 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
4457 ordinary argument strings.
4459 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
4460 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
4461 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
4462 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
4464 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
4465 as a list, associated with the empty list.
4467 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
4468 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
4469 - a required option is omitted
4470 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
4471 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
4472 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
4473 - an option predicate fails
4478 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
4481 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
4482 (verbose (required? #f)
4485 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
4486 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
4487 (predicate ,string?))))
4489 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
4490 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4492 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4493 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
4494 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
4495 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
4498 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
4500 It will be removed in a few releases.
4502 ** New syntax: lambda*
4503 ** New syntax: define*
4504 ** New syntax: define*-public
4505 ** New syntax: defmacro*
4506 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
4507 Guile now supports optional arguments.
4509 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
4510 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
4511 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
4512 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
4513 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
4515 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
4516 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
4517 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
4519 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
4521 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
4522 and examples for `lambda*':
4525 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
4527 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
4528 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
4529 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
4530 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
4531 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
4532 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
4533 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
4534 can be checked with the bound? macro.
4536 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
4538 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
4539 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
4540 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
4541 are given as keywords are bound to values.
4543 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
4544 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
4545 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
4546 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
4547 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
4548 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
4549 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
4550 and until the procedure is called.
4552 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
4554 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
4555 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
4556 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
4557 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
4558 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
4559 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
4560 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
4561 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
4562 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
4563 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
4565 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
4566 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
4567 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
4568 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
4571 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
4573 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
4574 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
4575 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
4576 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
4578 ** New syntax: and-let*
4579 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
4581 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
4582 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
4583 (<variable> <expression>)
4586 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
4587 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
4588 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
4591 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
4592 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
4593 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
4594 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
4595 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
4596 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
4597 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
4599 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
4600 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
4601 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4602 shadow earlier bindings.
4604 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4606 ** New sorting functions
4608 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4609 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4610 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4611 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4613 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4614 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4617 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4618 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4619 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4621 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4622 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4623 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4624 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4626 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4627 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4628 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4629 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4630 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4633 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4634 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4635 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4636 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4637 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4638 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4640 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4641 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4642 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4644 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4645 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4646 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4649 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4650 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4651 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4653 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4654 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4656 ** New built-in random number support
4658 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4659 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4660 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4661 returned have a uniform distribution.
4663 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4664 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4665 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4666 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4667 effect of the `random' operation.
4669 *** New variable: *random-state*
4670 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4671 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4672 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4673 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4674 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4677 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4678 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4679 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4680 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4681 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4683 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4684 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4685 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4686 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4687 initialized using SEED.
4689 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4690 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4691 range between 0 and 1.
4693 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4694 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4695 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4696 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4697 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4698 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4699 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4701 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4702 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4703 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4704 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4705 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4706 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4708 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4709 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4710 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4711 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4713 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4714 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4715 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4716 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4718 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4719 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4720 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4722 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4724 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4727 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4728 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4731 ** New function: make-guardian
4732 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4733 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4734 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4735 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4736 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4738 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4739 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4740 one object if at all.
4742 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4743 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4744 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4746 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4747 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4748 read again in last-in first-out order.
4750 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4751 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4753 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4755 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4756 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4757 file position is used.
4759 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4760 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4761 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4763 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4764 redefined using seek.
4766 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4767 size is not supplied.
4769 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4770 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4772 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4773 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4775 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4777 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4778 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4779 and returns the contents as a single string.
4781 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4782 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4783 lists in serial order.
4785 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4786 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4787 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4789 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4790 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4791 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4792 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4794 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4795 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4796 and #f if an error occured.
4798 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4800 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4801 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4802 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4803 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4805 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4807 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4810 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4812 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4815 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4819 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4820 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4822 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4823 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4827 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4829 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4831 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4832 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4834 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4836 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4837 might change when we get the new module system.
4839 ** The smob interface
4841 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4842 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4844 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4846 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4850 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4851 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4852 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4853 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4854 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4855 will be freed by the default free function.
4857 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4858 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4859 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4860 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4862 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4863 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4864 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4865 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4867 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4869 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4870 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4874 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4875 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4876 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4878 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4879 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4880 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4881 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4883 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4884 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4885 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4887 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4888 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4889 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4890 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4892 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4893 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4894 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4896 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4900 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4902 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4903 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4904 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4906 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4907 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4908 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4910 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4911 a string port's buffer.
4913 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4914 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4915 function pointers which together define the current random number
4916 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4917 number library functions.
4919 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4922 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4923 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4926 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4927 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4929 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4930 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4932 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4933 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4936 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4937 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4938 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4939 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4941 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4942 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4943 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4944 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4945 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4946 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4947 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4949 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4950 by libguile and the application.
4952 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4953 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4954 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4955 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4957 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4958 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4960 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4961 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4962 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4964 ** Random number library functions
4965 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4966 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4967 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4969 The default random state is stored in:
4971 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4972 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4973 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4978 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4980 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4981 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4982 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4983 isn't a random state.
4985 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4986 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4988 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4989 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4990 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4991 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4993 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4994 Return 32 random bits.
4996 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4997 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4999 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5000 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
5002 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5003 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
5005 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
5006 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
5008 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
5009 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
5010 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
5014 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
5016 * Changes to the distribution
5018 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
5019 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
5020 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
5023 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
5024 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
5025 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
5027 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
5028 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
5029 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
5030 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
5033 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
5034 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
5035 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
5037 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5039 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
5041 *** Function: batch-mode?
5043 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
5046 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
5048 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
5049 case has not been implemented.
5051 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
5052 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
5053 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
5056 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
5057 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
5059 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
5061 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5063 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
5065 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
5066 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
5069 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
5070 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
5071 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
5072 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
5075 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
5077 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
5078 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
5079 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
5080 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
5081 find those libraries.
5083 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
5084 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
5087 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
5089 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
5090 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
5091 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
5092 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
5094 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
5095 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
5096 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
5100 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
5102 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
5103 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
5104 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
5107 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
5108 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
5109 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
5110 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
5112 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
5113 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
5116 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
5117 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
5118 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
5119 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
5120 compiler where to find the libraries.
5122 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
5123 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
5124 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
5126 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
5127 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
5128 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
5129 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
5130 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
5134 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5136 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
5137 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
5138 internationalization support.
5140 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
5141 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
5142 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
5143 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
5144 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
5146 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
5147 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
5148 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
5149 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
5150 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
5152 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
5153 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
5154 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
5155 any GNU mirror site.
5157 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
5159 ** New function: add-history STRING
5160 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
5161 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
5162 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
5164 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
5166 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
5167 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
5168 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
5171 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
5172 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
5173 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
5175 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
5177 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
5180 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
5181 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
5184 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
5185 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
5186 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
5187 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
5188 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
5189 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
5191 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
5192 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
5193 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
5194 of the form mentioned above.
5196 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
5197 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
5198 returned in the special `rest' list.
5200 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
5201 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
5203 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
5205 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
5207 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
5209 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
5210 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
5211 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
5212 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
5213 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
5214 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
5215 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
5216 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
5219 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
5221 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
5223 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
5224 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
5227 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
5228 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
5229 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
5233 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
5234 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
5235 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
5236 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
5237 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
5238 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
5239 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
5240 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
5243 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
5245 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
5246 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
5247 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
5249 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
5251 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
5252 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
5254 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
5255 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
5256 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
5258 Why do we have this function?
5259 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
5260 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
5261 primitive, and display it differently, and
5262 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
5263 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
5266 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
5267 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
5270 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
5271 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
5272 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
5273 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
5275 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
5276 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
5279 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
5280 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
5282 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
5284 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
5285 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
5286 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
5287 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
5288 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
5289 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
5290 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
5293 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
5295 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
5296 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
5298 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
5299 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
5300 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
5301 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
5302 properly continue the print chain.
5304 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
5305 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
5306 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
5307 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
5308 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
5309 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
5310 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
5311 print-state, it is simply ignored.
5313 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
5314 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
5315 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
5316 safest to not check for these pairs.
5318 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
5319 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
5320 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
5321 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
5323 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
5325 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
5326 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
5328 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
5330 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
5332 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
5333 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
5334 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
5336 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
5337 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
5338 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
5340 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
5341 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
5342 the following functions and macros:
5344 Function: make-fluid
5346 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
5347 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
5348 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
5349 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
5350 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
5352 Function: fluid? OBJ
5354 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
5356 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
5357 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
5359 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
5360 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
5362 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
5364 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
5365 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
5366 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
5367 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
5368 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
5369 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
5370 modified by `with-fluids*'.
5372 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
5374 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
5375 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
5376 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
5377 should evaluate to a fluid.
5379 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
5381 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
5382 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
5383 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
5384 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
5385 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
5387 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
5390 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
5392 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
5394 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
5396 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
5399 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
5400 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
5401 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
5402 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
5403 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
5406 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
5407 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
5408 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
5410 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
5411 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
5412 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
5414 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
5415 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
5416 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5417 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
5419 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
5420 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
5421 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5422 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
5424 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
5425 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
5426 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
5427 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
5429 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
5430 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
5431 their revealed counts set to zero.
5433 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5434 Returns an integer file descriptor.
5436 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5437 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
5439 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5440 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
5442 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5443 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
5444 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
5446 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
5447 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
5448 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
5450 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
5451 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
5452 default environment inherited by child processes.
5454 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
5455 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
5456 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
5458 The return value is unspecified.
5460 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
5461 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
5462 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
5463 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
5464 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
5466 The return value is unspecified.
5468 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
5469 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
5477 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
5478 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
5481 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
5484 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
5485 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
5486 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
5488 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
5489 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
5490 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
5491 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
5494 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
5495 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
5497 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
5498 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
5499 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
5500 the `environ' procedure.
5502 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
5503 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
5506 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
5507 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
5509 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
5510 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
5511 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
5512 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
5514 *** procedure: times
5515 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
5516 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
5517 return a selected component:
5520 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
5524 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
5527 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
5531 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
5532 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
5536 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
5537 terminated child processes.
5539 ** Removed: list-length
5540 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
5541 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
5543 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
5545 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
5547 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
5549 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
5550 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
5551 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
5552 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
5554 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
5555 extra complexity it introduces.
5557 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
5558 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
5560 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
5561 variable to any non-empty value.
5563 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
5564 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
5566 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5568 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
5569 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
5571 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
5573 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
5574 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
5576 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
5578 ** vector handling routines
5580 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
5581 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
5582 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
5583 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
5584 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
5586 ** pair and list routines
5588 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
5591 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
5593 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
5596 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5598 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
5600 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
5601 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5602 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5603 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5604 site-specific initialization code.
5606 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5607 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5608 initialization processes.
5610 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5611 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5612 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5613 initialized properly.
5615 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5616 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5617 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5619 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5620 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5621 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5622 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5623 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5625 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5627 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5628 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5629 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5630 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5631 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5633 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5634 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5635 which look like this:
5638 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5640 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5641 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5644 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5645 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5648 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5650 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5651 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5652 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5654 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5655 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5656 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5657 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5658 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5660 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5661 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5663 int (*free) (SCM port);
5664 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5665 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5666 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5670 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5671 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5672 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5674 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5677 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5678 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5679 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5681 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5682 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5683 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5686 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5690 struct timeval *timeout);
5692 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5693 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5694 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5695 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5696 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5697 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5699 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5700 scm_catch_body_t body,
5702 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5705 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5706 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5707 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5708 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5709 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5710 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5712 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5714 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5717 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5718 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5719 spawning threads from application C code.
5721 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5722 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5723 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5724 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5725 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5726 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5728 ** Removed functions:
5730 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5731 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5733 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5735 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5736 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5738 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5740 ** mbstrings are now removed
5742 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5743 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5745 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5747 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5748 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5749 their new names and arguments:
5751 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5752 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5753 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5754 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5757 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5759 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5761 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5764 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5766 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5767 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5768 pass a #f arg to catch.
5770 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5772 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5773 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5776 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5777 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5778 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5779 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5780 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5781 reclaim its storage.
5783 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5784 worrying that some other function you call will call
5785 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5786 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5787 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5788 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5791 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5793 * Changes to the distribution
5795 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5796 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5799 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5800 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5802 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5803 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5805 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5807 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5808 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5809 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5811 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5813 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5814 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5815 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5816 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5817 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5818 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5820 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5821 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5822 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5825 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5826 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5827 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5828 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5830 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5831 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5832 libraries to your link command:
5834 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5835 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5836 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5837 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5839 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5840 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5841 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5843 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5845 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5846 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5849 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5851 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5852 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5853 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5854 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5855 searched is system dependent.
5857 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5859 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5861 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5863 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5864 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5866 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5868 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5869 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5870 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5871 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5872 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5875 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5877 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5878 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5879 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5880 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5881 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5883 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5885 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5886 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5888 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5890 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5891 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5892 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5895 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5897 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5898 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5899 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5900 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5902 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5903 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5905 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5907 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5908 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5910 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5912 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5913 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5921 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5923 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5924 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5925 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5926 a more informative way.
5928 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5929 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5930 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5931 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5932 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5933 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5935 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5936 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5939 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5940 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5941 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5944 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5945 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5946 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5947 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5948 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5949 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5951 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5952 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5953 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5954 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5957 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5958 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5959 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5960 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5961 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5962 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5964 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5965 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5966 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5967 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5968 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5970 *** regexp functions
5972 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5973 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5974 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5976 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5977 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5978 with SCSH regular expressions.
5980 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5981 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5982 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5983 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5985 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5986 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5987 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5988 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5990 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5991 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5992 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5993 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5994 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5995 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5997 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5998 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5999 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
6000 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
6001 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
6003 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
6005 **** Constant: regexp/extended
6006 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
6007 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
6008 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
6010 **** Constant: regexp/icase
6011 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
6012 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
6014 **** Constant: regexp/newline
6015 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
6017 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
6020 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
6021 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
6022 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
6024 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
6025 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
6026 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
6028 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
6029 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
6030 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
6031 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
6032 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
6035 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
6037 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
6038 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
6039 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
6040 used when different portions of a string are passed to
6041 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
6042 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
6044 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
6045 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
6046 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
6048 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
6049 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
6052 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
6053 and replace them with the contents of another string.
6055 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
6056 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
6057 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
6058 may be one of the following arguments:
6060 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
6062 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
6064 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
6065 the regexp match is written.
6067 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
6068 following the regexp match is written.
6070 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
6071 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
6074 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
6075 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
6076 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
6077 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
6078 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
6079 which should be matched against this regular expression.
6081 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
6084 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
6085 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
6086 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
6087 written out to PORT.
6089 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
6090 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
6091 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
6092 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
6093 will return after processing a single match.
6095 *** Match Structures
6097 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
6098 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
6099 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
6100 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
6101 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
6102 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
6105 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
6106 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
6107 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
6108 information about the original target string that was matched against a
6109 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
6111 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
6112 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
6113 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
6115 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
6116 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
6117 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
6118 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
6119 number N did not match, return `#f'.
6121 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
6122 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
6124 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
6125 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
6127 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
6128 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
6130 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
6131 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
6133 **** Function: match:count MATCH
6134 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
6135 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
6136 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
6138 **** Function: match:string MATCH
6139 Return the original TARGET string.
6141 *** Backslash Escapes
6143 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
6144 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
6145 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
6146 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
6147 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
6148 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
6150 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
6151 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
6152 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
6153 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
6154 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
6155 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
6156 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
6157 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
6159 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
6160 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
6161 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
6162 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
6163 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
6164 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
6165 each match a single backslash in the target string.
6167 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
6168 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
6169 return the resulting string.
6171 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
6172 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
6173 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
6174 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
6175 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
6176 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
6177 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
6178 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
6179 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
6180 translated to the single character `*'.
6182 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
6183 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
6184 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
6185 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
6186 consecutive backslashes:
6188 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
6190 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
6191 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
6192 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
6194 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
6195 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
6196 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
6197 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
6198 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
6199 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
6201 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
6203 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
6204 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
6205 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
6206 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
6207 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
6208 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
6209 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
6210 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
6211 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
6212 cumbersome escape syntax.
6214 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6216 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6218 * Changes to system call interfaces:
6220 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
6223 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
6225 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
6227 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
6230 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
6231 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
6232 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
6233 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
6234 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
6236 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
6237 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
6238 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
6239 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
6240 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
6241 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
6242 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
6245 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
6246 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
6247 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
6250 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
6251 `force-output' on every port open for output.
6253 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
6254 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
6255 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
6256 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
6257 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
6258 installed, you can say:
6260 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
6263 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6265 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
6266 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
6267 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
6268 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
6269 new dynamic roots and threads.
6272 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
6274 * Changes to the distribution.
6276 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
6278 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
6279 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
6280 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
6281 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
6282 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
6283 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
6284 programming language. These are packaged together because the
6285 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
6287 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
6290 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
6291 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
6296 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6298 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
6299 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
6301 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
6302 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
6303 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
6304 the (command-line) function.
6305 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
6306 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
6307 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
6309 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
6310 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
6311 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
6312 command line arguments
6313 -ds do -s script at this point
6314 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
6315 -h, --help display this help and exit
6316 -v, --version display version information and exit
6317 \ read arguments from following script lines
6319 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
6320 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
6322 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6325 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6329 (main (command-line))
6331 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
6333 ekko a speckled gecko
6335 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
6336 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
6337 following list of command-line arguments:
6339 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
6341 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
6342 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
6343 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
6344 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
6345 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6347 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
6349 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
6351 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
6352 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
6355 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
6356 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
6357 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
6358 SCSH) for circumventing them.
6360 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
6361 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
6362 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
6363 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
6365 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
6369 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6373 If the user invokes this script as follows:
6375 ekko a speckled gecko
6377 Unix expands this into
6379 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
6381 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
6382 read from the second line of the script, producing:
6384 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6386 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
6387 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6389 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
6390 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
6391 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
6392 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
6393 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
6394 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
6395 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
6396 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
6397 it only terminates the argument list.)
6398 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
6399 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
6400 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
6401 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
6402 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
6403 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
6404 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
6405 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
6407 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6409 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
6410 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
6411 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
6412 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
6413 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
6415 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
6416 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
6417 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
6419 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
6421 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
6422 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
6423 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
6424 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
6427 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
6428 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6429 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6431 * Changes to Scheme functions
6433 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
6434 and disabled by default.
6436 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
6437 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
6438 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
6439 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
6441 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
6443 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
6445 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
6446 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
6448 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
6449 (read-set! keywords #f)
6451 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
6452 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
6453 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
6456 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
6457 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
6458 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
6461 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
6462 support for Scheme functions.
6464 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6465 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
6466 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
6467 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
6470 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6471 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
6472 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
6475 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
6476 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
6477 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
6480 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
6481 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
6482 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
6483 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
6484 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
6485 display the result as a prompt.
6486 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
6488 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
6489 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
6490 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
6493 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
6494 procedure of zero arguments.
6496 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
6497 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
6498 argument is bound in the current module.
6500 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
6501 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
6502 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
6503 public bindings into the current module.
6505 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
6506 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
6508 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
6509 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
6511 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
6512 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
6514 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
6515 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
6517 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
6518 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
6520 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
6521 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
6522 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
6523 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
6524 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
6526 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
6527 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
6528 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
6529 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
6531 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
6534 ** Changes to I/O functions
6536 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
6537 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
6538 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
6540 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
6541 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
6542 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
6544 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
6545 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
6547 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
6548 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
6549 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
6550 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
6552 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
6554 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
6555 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
6557 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
6558 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
6559 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
6560 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
6561 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
6564 'trim omit delimiter from result
6565 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
6566 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
6567 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
6569 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
6571 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
6572 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
6574 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
6575 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
6576 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
6577 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
6578 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
6580 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
6581 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
6582 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
6584 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
6585 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
6586 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
6587 above, and defaults to 'peek.
6589 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
6590 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6592 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
6593 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
6595 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
6597 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
6598 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
6599 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
6600 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
6601 a delimiting character.
6602 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6604 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6605 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6606 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6607 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6608 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6609 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6611 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6612 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6614 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6615 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6616 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6618 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6619 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6620 the array to read and write.
6622 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6623 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6626 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6628 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6631 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6632 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6633 Values for COMMAND are:
6635 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6636 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6637 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6638 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6639 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6640 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6641 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6642 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6644 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6646 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6647 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6648 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6649 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6650 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6651 corresponding return set will be the same.
6653 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6656 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6657 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6658 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6659 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6660 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6661 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6662 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6663 special file being created.
6665 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6666 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6668 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6669 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6670 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6671 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6672 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6673 and originating address.
6675 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6676 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6677 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6679 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6682 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6683 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6686 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6687 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6688 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6689 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6690 this function returns #f.
6692 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6693 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6694 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6697 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6698 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6699 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6702 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6703 a valid STATUS value.
6705 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6707 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6708 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6710 Component Accessor Setter
6711 ========================= ============ ============
6712 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6713 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6714 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6715 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6716 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6717 year tm:year set-tm:year
6718 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6719 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6720 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6721 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6722 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6724 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6725 describing the host system:
6728 ============================================== ================
6729 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6730 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6731 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6732 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6733 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6735 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6736 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6737 system's user database:
6740 ====================== =================
6741 user name passwd:name
6742 user password passwd:passwd
6745 real name passwd:gecos
6746 home directory passwd:dir
6747 shell program passwd:shell
6749 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6750 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6751 system's group database:
6754 ======================= ============
6755 group name group:name
6756 group password group:passwd
6758 group members group:mem
6760 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6761 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6765 ========================= ===============
6766 official name of host hostent:name
6767 alias list hostent:aliases
6768 host address type hostent:addrtype
6769 length of address hostent:length
6770 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6772 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6773 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6777 ========================= ===============
6778 official name of net netent:name
6779 alias list netent:aliases
6780 net number type netent:addrtype
6781 net number netent:net
6783 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6784 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6788 ========================= ===============
6789 official protocol name protoent:name
6790 alias list protoent:aliases
6791 protocol number protoent:proto
6793 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6794 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6798 ========================= ===============
6799 official service name servent:name
6800 alias list servent:aliases
6801 port number servent:port
6802 protocol to use servent:proto
6804 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6805 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6808 ======================================== ===============
6809 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6810 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6811 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6812 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6814 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6815 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6816 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6818 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6819 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6821 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6822 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6824 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6825 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6827 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6829 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6831 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6832 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6833 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6835 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6836 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6837 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6838 return the remaining characters as a string.
6840 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6841 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6842 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6844 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6846 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6848 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6851 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6854 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6855 and returns the array
6857 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6858 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6859 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6861 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6863 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6864 symbol's value from C code:
6866 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6867 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6868 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6869 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6871 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6872 without assigning them a value.
6874 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6875 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6876 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6878 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6879 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6880 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6882 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6883 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6885 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6886 doesn't actually care about that.
6888 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6889 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6890 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6892 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6893 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6894 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6895 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6896 which we have just created and initialized.
6898 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6899 should one occur. We call it like this:
6900 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6902 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6903 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6904 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6905 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6906 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6907 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6910 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6911 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6912 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6913 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6914 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6915 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6916 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6919 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6920 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6921 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6922 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6923 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6926 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6927 scm_internal_catch, except:
6929 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6930 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6931 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6932 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6935 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6936 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6937 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6939 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6940 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6941 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6942 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6945 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6946 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6947 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6949 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6950 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6951 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6952 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6953 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6955 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6956 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6957 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6959 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6960 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6961 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6963 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6964 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6966 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6967 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6968 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6971 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6972 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6973 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6974 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6975 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6976 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6977 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6980 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6981 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6983 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6984 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6985 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6986 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6987 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6990 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6991 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6993 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6994 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6997 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6998 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
7000 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7003 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
7004 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
7005 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
7006 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
7007 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
7008 given the following arguments:
7010 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
7012 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
7014 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
7016 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7019 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
7020 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
7021 command-line arguments.
7023 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
7024 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
7025 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
7026 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
7027 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
7028 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
7031 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7034 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
7035 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
7037 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
7038 rearranged slightly. They are now:
7040 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7041 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
7042 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
7043 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
7045 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7046 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
7048 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7049 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
7050 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
7051 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
7053 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7054 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
7056 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
7057 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
7059 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
7061 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
7062 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
7063 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
7066 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
7067 returns a port instead of an FD object.
7069 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
7070 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
7075 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
7078 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
7080 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
7081 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
7082 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
7083 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
7085 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
7087 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
7089 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
7090 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
7091 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
7092 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
7093 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
7094 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
7095 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
7096 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
7097 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
7098 for more information.
7100 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
7101 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
7103 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
7104 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
7105 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
7106 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
7107 following two lines at the top of the file:
7109 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7112 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
7113 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
7114 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
7116 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
7118 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7120 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
7123 (display (car args))
7124 (if (pair? (cdr args))
7126 (loop (cdr args)))))
7129 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
7130 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
7131 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
7132 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
7133 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
7134 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
7138 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
7141 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
7144 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
7146 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
7147 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
7148 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
7149 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
7150 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
7153 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
7154 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
7155 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
7156 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
7157 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
7160 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
7163 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
7164 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
7165 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
7168 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
7169 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
7170 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
7172 to see a backtrace, and
7173 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
7174 to see them by default.
7178 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
7180 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
7182 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
7183 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
7186 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
7187 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
7188 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
7189 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
7192 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
7193 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
7194 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
7195 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
7196 functions which inspired them.
7198 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
7199 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
7203 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
7205 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
7207 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
7208 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
7211 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
7212 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
7213 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
7215 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
7216 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
7217 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
7218 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
7219 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
7221 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
7223 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
7224 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
7225 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
7228 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
7231 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
7233 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
7234 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
7235 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
7236 above should serve their purposes.
7238 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
7239 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
7240 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
7241 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
7243 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
7246 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
7247 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
7248 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
7249 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
7251 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
7252 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
7253 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
7254 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
7256 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
7257 for the `read' function.
7260 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
7261 to that of `integer?'.
7263 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
7264 use the R4RS names for these functions.
7266 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
7267 it simply returns the object's property list.
7269 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
7270 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
7271 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
7272 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
7274 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
7276 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
7279 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
7281 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
7282 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
7284 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
7286 void (*main_func) (),
7289 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
7290 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
7291 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
7292 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
7293 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
7295 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
7296 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
7297 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
7298 know which arguments have been processed.
7300 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
7301 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
7302 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
7303 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
7304 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
7306 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
7307 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
7308 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
7309 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
7310 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
7311 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
7312 people from making that mistake.
7314 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
7315 convenient ways to override these when desired.
7317 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
7319 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
7323 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
7326 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
7327 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
7328 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
7329 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
7332 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
7333 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
7334 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
7335 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
7338 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
7339 have been added to the Guile library.
7341 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
7342 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
7343 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
7346 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
7347 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
7348 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
7350 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
7351 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
7352 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
7353 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
7354 argument from the list.
7357 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
7360 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
7361 null-terminated string, and returns it.
7363 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
7364 to a Scheme port object.
7366 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
7367 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
7372 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
7374 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
7375 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
7376 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
7377 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
7378 code as a special datatype.
7380 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
7381 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
7382 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
7383 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
7384 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
7387 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
7388 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
7389 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
7390 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
7391 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
7393 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
7396 Copyright information:
7398 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7400 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7401 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7402 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7403 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7405 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7406 of this document, or of portions of it,
7407 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7408 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7413 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"