1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
8 (During the 1.9 series, we will keep an incremental NEWS for the latest
9 prerelease, and a full NEWS corresponding to 1.8 -> 2.0.)
11 Changes in 1.9.3 (since the 1.9.2 prerelease):
13 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
15 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
16 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
17 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
18 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
19 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
22 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
23 code. This use is now discouraged.
25 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
27 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
28 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
29 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
32 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
33 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
34 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
36 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
38 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
40 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
41 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
42 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
43 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
45 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
47 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
48 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
51 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
52 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
53 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
54 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
56 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
58 ** scm_array_p has one argument, not two
60 Use of the second argument produced a deprecation warning, so it is
61 unlikely that any code out there actually used this functionality.
63 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
64 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
66 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
69 ** And of course, the usual collection of bugfixes
71 Interested users should see the ChangeLog for more information.
73 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
75 ** New readline history functions
77 The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
78 write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
79 History library functions.
82 Changes in 1.9.x (since the 1.8.x series):
84 * New modules (see the manual for details)
86 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
87 ** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
88 ** `(rnrs bytevector)', the R6RS bytevector API
89 ** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
90 ** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
92 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
94 ** Guile now can compile Scheme to bytecode for a custom virtual machine.
96 Compiled code loads much faster than Scheme source code, and runs around
97 3 or 4 times as fast, generating much less garbage in the process.
99 ** The stack limit is now initialized from the environment.
101 If getrlimit(2) is available and a stack limit is set, Guile will set
102 its stack limit to 80% of the rlimit. Otherwise the limit is 160000
103 words, a four-fold increase from the earlier default limit.
105 ** New environment variables: GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH,
106 GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH
108 GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is for compiled files what GUILE_LOAD_PATH is
109 for source files. It is a different path, however, because compiled
110 files are architecture-specific. GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is like
113 ** New read-eval-print loop (REPL) implementation
115 Running Guile with no arguments drops the user into the new REPL. While
116 it is self-documenting to an extent, the new REPL has not yet been
117 documented in the manual. This will be fixed before 2.0.
119 ** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
121 Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
124 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
126 ** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
128 This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
129 not apply to the compiler.
131 ** Files loaded with `primitive-load-path' will now be compiled
134 If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
135 not fresh, the .scm file will be compiled on the fly, and the resulting
136 .go file stored away. An advisory note will be printed on the console.
138 Note that this mechanism depends on preservation of the .scm and .go
139 modification times; if the .scm or .go files are moved after
140 installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
143 Autocompiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
144 directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
145 will be created if needed.
147 To inhibit autocompilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
148 variable to 0, or pass --no-autocompile on the Guile command line.
150 Note that there is currently a bug here: automatic compilation will
151 sometimes be attempted when it shouldn't.
153 For example, the old (lang elisp) modules are meant to be interpreted,
154 not compiled. This bug will be fixed before 2.0. FIXME 2.0: Should say
155 something here about module-transformer called for compile.
157 ** Files loaded with `load' will now be compiled automatically.
159 As with files loaded via `primitive-load-path', `load' will also compile
160 its target if autocompilation is enabled, and a fresh compiled file is
163 There are two points of difference to note, however. First, `load' does
164 not search `GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH' for the file; it only looks in the
165 autocompilation directory, normally a subdirectory of ~/.cache/guile.
167 Secondly, autocompilation also applies to files loaded via the -l
168 command-line argument -- so the user may experience a slight slowdown
169 the first time they run a Guile script, as the script is autocompiled.
171 ** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
173 Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
174 in the next prerelease.
176 ** New procedure in `(oops goops)': `method-formals'
178 ** BUG: (procedure-property func 'arity) does not work on compiled
181 This will be fixed one way or another before 2.0.
183 ** New procedures in (ice-9 session): `add-value-help-handler!',
184 `remove-value-help-handler!', `add-name-help-handler!'
185 `remove-name-help-handler!', `procedure-arguments',
187 The value and name help handlers provide some minimal extensibility to
188 the help interface. Guile-lib's `(texinfo reflection)' uses them, for
189 example, to make stexinfo help documentation available. See those
190 procedures' docstrings for more information.
192 `procedure-arguments' describes the arguments that a procedure can take,
193 combining arity and formals. For example:
195 (procedure-arguments resolve-interface)
196 => ((required . (name)) (rest . args))
198 Additionally, `module-commentary' is now publically exported from
201 ** Deprecated: `procedure->memoizing-macro', `procedure->syntax'
203 These procedures will not work with syncase expansion, and indeed are
204 not used in the normal course of Guile. They are still used by the old
205 Emacs Lisp support, however.
207 ** New language: ECMAScript
209 Guile now ships with one other high-level language supported,
210 ECMAScript. The goal is to support all of version 3.1 of the standard,
211 but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
212 documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
214 ** New language: Brainfuck
216 Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
217 brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
218 languages. See the manual for details, or
219 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
220 Brainfuck language itself.
222 ** Defmacros may now have docstrings.
224 Indeed, any macro may have a docstring. `object-documentation' from
225 `(ice-9 documentation)' may be used to retrieve the docstring, once you
226 have a macro value -- but see the above note about first-class macros.
227 Docstrings are associated with the syntax transformer procedures.
229 ** The psyntax expander now knows how to interpret the @ and @@ special
232 ** The psyntax expander is now hygienic with respect to modules.
234 Free variables in a macro are scoped in the module that the macro was
235 defined in, not in the module the macro is used in. For example, code
238 (define-module (foo) #:export (bar))
239 (define (helper x) ...)
241 (syntax-rules () ((_ x) (helper x))))
243 (define-module (baz) #:use-module (foo))
246 It used to be you had to export `helper' from `(foo)' as well.
247 Thankfully, this has been fixed.
249 ** New function, `procedure-module'
251 While useful on its own, `procedure-module' is used by psyntax on syntax
252 transformers to determine the module in which to scope introduced
255 ** `eval-case' has been deprecated, and replaced by `eval-when'.
257 The semantics of `eval-when' are easier to understand. It is still
258 missing documentation, however.
260 ** Guile is now more strict about prohibiting definitions in expression
263 Although previous versions of Guile accepted it, the following
264 expression is not valid, in R5RS or R6RS:
266 (if test (define foo 'bar) (define foo 'baz))
268 In this specific case, it would be better to do:
270 (define foo (if test 'bar 'baz))
272 It is certainly possible to circumvent this resriction with e.g.
273 `(module-define! (current-module) 'foo 'baz)'. We would appreciate
274 feedback about this change (a consequence of using psyntax as the
275 default expander), and may choose to revisit this situation before 2.0
276 in response to user feedback.
278 ** Defmacros must now produce valid Scheme expressions.
280 It used to be that defmacros could unquote in Scheme values, as a way of
281 supporting partial evaluation, and avoiding some hygiene issues. For
284 (define (helper x) ...)
285 (define-macro (foo bar)
288 Assuming this macro is in the `(baz)' module, the direct translation of
291 (define (helper x) ...)
292 (define-macro (foo bar)
293 `((@@ (baz) helper) ,bar))
295 Of course, one could just use a hygienic macro instead:
299 ((_ bar) (helper bar))))
301 ** Guile's psyntax now supports docstrings and internal definitions.
303 The following Scheme is not strictly legal:
310 However its intent is fairly clear. Guile interprets "bar" to be the
311 docstring of `foo', and the definition of `baz' is still in definition
314 ** Macros need to be defined before their first use.
316 It used to be that with lazy memoization, this might work:
320 (define-macro (ref x) x)
323 But now, the body of `foo' is interpreted to mean a call to the toplevel
324 `ref' function, instead of a macro expansion. The solution is to define
325 macros before code that uses them.
327 ** Functions needed by macros at expand-time need to be present at
330 For example, this code will work at the REPL:
332 (define (double-helper x) (* x x))
333 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
334 (double-literal 2) => 4
336 But it will not work when a file is compiled, because the definition of
337 `double-helper' is not present at expand-time. The solution is to wrap
338 the definition of `double-helper' in `eval-when':
340 (eval-when (load compile eval)
341 (define (double-helper x) (* x x)))
342 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
343 (double-literal 2) => 4
345 See the (currently missing) documentation for eval-when for more
348 ** New variable, %pre-modules-transformer
350 Need to document this one some more.
352 ** Temporarily removed functions: `macroexpand', `macroexpand-1'
354 `macroexpand' will be added back before 2.0. It is unclear how to
355 implement `macroexpand-1' with syntax-case, though PLT Scheme does prove
358 ** New reader macros: #' #` #, #,@
360 These macros translate, respectively, to `syntax', `quasisyntax',
361 `unsyntax', and `unsyntax-splicing'. See the R6RS for more information.
362 These reader macros may be overridden by `read-hash-extend'.
364 ** Incompatible change to #'
366 Guile did have a #' hash-extension, by default, which just returned the
367 subsequent datum: #'foo => foo. In the unlikely event that anyone
368 actually used this, this behavior may be reinstated via the
369 `read-hash-extend' mechanism.
371 ** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
373 #; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
376 ** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
377 works (with compiled procedures)
379 It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
380 calls only up to or from a certain procedure, even if that procedure
381 already tail-called another procedure. This was because the debug
382 information from the original procedure was kept on the stack.
384 Now with the new compiler, the stack only contains active frames from
385 the current continuation. A narrow to a procedure that is not in the
386 stack will result in an empty stack. To fix this, narrow to a procedure
387 that is active in the current continuation, or narrow to a specific
388 number of stack frames.
390 ** backtraces through compiled procedures only show procedures that are
391 active in the current continuation
393 Similarly to the previous issue, backtraces in compiled code may be
394 different from backtraces in interpreted code. There are no semantic
395 differences, however. Please mail bug-guile@gnu.org if you see any
396 deficiencies with Guile's backtraces.
398 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case macros now propagate source information
399 through to the expanded code
401 This should result in better backtraces.
403 ** The currying behavior of `define' has been removed.
405 Before, `(define ((f a) b) (* a b))' would translate to
407 (define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
409 Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
410 default. If there is sufficient demand, this syntax can be supported
413 ** All modules have names now
415 Before, you could have anonymous modules: modules without names. Now,
416 because of hygiene and macros, all modules have names. If a module was
417 created without a name, the first time `module-name' is called on it, a
418 fresh name will be lazily generated for it.
420 ** Many syntax errors have different texts now
422 Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
423 are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
424 using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
426 ** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
427 values to the expected number
429 For example, the interpreter would raise an error evaluating the form,
430 `(+ (values 1 2) (values 3 4))', because it would see the operands as
431 being two compound "values" objects, to which `+' does not apply.
433 The compiler, on the other hand, receives multiple values on the stack,
434 not as a compound object. Given that it must check the number of values
435 anyway, if too many values are provided for a continuation, it chooses
436 to truncate those values, effectively evaluating `(+ 1 3)' instead.
438 The idea is that the semantics that the compiler implements is more
439 intuitive, and the use of the interpreter will fade out with time.
440 This behavior is allowed both by the R5RS and the R6RS.
442 ** Multiple values in compiled code are not represented by compound
445 This change may manifest itself in the following situation:
447 (let ((val (foo))) (do-something) val)
449 In the interpreter, if `foo' returns multiple values, multiple values
450 are produced from the `let' expression. In the compiler, those values
451 are truncated to the first value, and that first value is returned. In
452 the compiler, if `foo' returns no values, an error will be raised, while
453 the interpreter would proceed.
455 Both of these behaviors are allowed by R5RS and R6RS. The compiler's
456 behavior is more correct, however. If you wish to preserve a potentially
457 multiply-valued return, you will need to set up a multiple-value
458 continuation, using `call-with-values'.
460 ** Defmacros are now implemented in terms of syntax-case.
462 The practical ramification of this is that the `defmacro?' predicate has
463 been removed, along with `defmacro-transformer', `macro-table',
464 `xformer-table', `assert-defmacro?!', `set-defmacro-transformer!' and
465 `defmacro:transformer'. This is because defmacros are simply macros. If
466 any of these procedures provided useful facilities to you, we encourage
467 you to contact the Guile developers.
469 ** psyntax is now the default expander
471 Scheme code is now expanded by default by the psyntax hygienic macro
472 expander. Expansion is performed completely before compilation or
475 Notably, syntax errors will be signalled before interpretation begins.
476 In the past, many syntax errors were only detected at runtime if the
477 code in question was memoized.
479 As part of its expansion, psyntax renames all lexically-bound
480 identifiers. Original identifier names are preserved and given to the
481 compiler, but the interpreter will see the renamed variables, e.g.,
482 `x432' instead of `x'.
484 Note that the psyntax that Guile uses is a fork, as Guile already had
485 modules before incompatible modules were added to psyntax -- about 10
486 years ago! Thus there are surely a number of bugs that have been fixed
487 in psyntax since then. If you find one, please notify bug-guile@gnu.org.
489 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case are available by default.
491 There is no longer any need to import the `(ice-9 syncase)' module
492 (which is now deprecated). The expander may be invoked directly via
493 `sc-expand', though it is normally searched for via the current module
496 Also, the helper routines for syntax-case are available in the default
497 environment as well: `syntax->datum', `datum->syntax',
498 `bound-identifier=?', `free-identifier=?', `generate-temporaries',
499 `identifier?', and `syntax-violation'. See the R6RS for documentation.
501 ** Lexical bindings introduced by hygienic macros may not be referenced
502 by nonhygienic macros.
504 If a lexical binding is introduced by a hygienic macro, it may not be
505 referenced by a nonhygienic macro. For example, this works:
508 (define-macro (bind-x val body)
509 `(let ((x ,val)) ,body))
510 (define-macro (ref x)
517 (define-syntax bind-x
519 ((_ val body) (let ((x val)) body))))
520 (define-macro (ref x)
524 It is not normal to run into this situation with existing code. However,
525 as code is ported over from defmacros to syntax-case, it is possible to
526 run into situations like this. In the future, Guile will probably port
527 its `while' macro to syntax-case, which makes this issue one to know
530 ** Macros may no longer be referenced as first-class values.
532 In the past, you could evaluate e.g. `if', and get its macro value. Now,
533 expanding this form raises a syntax error.
535 Macros still /exist/ as first-class values, but they must be
536 /referenced/ via the module system, e.g. `(module-ref (current-module)
539 This decision may be revisited before the 2.0 release. Feedback welcome
540 to guile-devel@gnu.org (subscription required) or bug-guile@gnu.org (no
541 subscription required).
543 ** Unicode characters
545 Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
546 created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
547 probably be introduced at some point.
551 Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
552 encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
553 character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
555 Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
556 hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
557 or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
558 encoding of the port on which the string is read.
560 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
562 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
563 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
564 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
565 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
566 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
569 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
570 code. This use is now discouraged.
572 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
574 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
575 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
576 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
579 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
580 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
581 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
583 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
585 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
587 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
588 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
589 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
590 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
592 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
594 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
595 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
598 ** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
600 These variables contained the names of control characters and were
601 used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
602 never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
605 ** EBCDIC support is removed
607 There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
608 processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
609 and was unmaintained.
611 ** New macro type: syncase-macro
613 XXX Need to decide whether to document this for 2.0, probably should:
614 make-syncase-macro, make-extended-syncase-macro, macro-type,
615 syncase-macro-type, syncase-macro-binding
617 ** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
619 This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
622 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
624 This slightly improves program startup times.
626 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
628 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
630 ** Fix bad interaction between `false-if-exception' and stack-call.
632 Exceptions thrown by `false-if-exception' were erronously causing the
633 stack to be saved, causing later errors to show the incorrectly-saved
634 backtrace. This has been fixed.
636 ** New global variables: %load-compiled-path, %load-compiled-extensions
638 These are analogous to %load-path and %load-extensions.
640 ** New procedure, `make-promise'
642 `(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
644 ** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
646 Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
648 ** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
650 ** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
652 `module-bound?' was returning true if a module did have a local
653 variable, but one that was unbound, but another imported module bound
654 the variable. This was an error, and was fixed.
656 ** `(ice-9 syncase)' has been deprecated.
658 As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
659 no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
661 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
662 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
664 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
667 * Changes to the C interface
669 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
671 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
673 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
676 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
677 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
679 ** scm_primitive_load_path has additional argument, exception_on_error
681 ** New C function: scm_module_public_interface
683 This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
685 ** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
686 ** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
688 ** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
690 Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
691 definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
693 ** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
695 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
696 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
697 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
698 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
700 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
702 ** scm_array_p has one argument, not two
704 Use of the second argument produced a deprecation warning, so it is
705 unlikely that any code out there actually used this functionality.
707 * Changes to the distribution
709 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
711 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
712 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
715 ** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
717 `guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
718 `pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
719 guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
722 ** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
724 Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
725 macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
727 ** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
729 If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
730 to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
732 ** New dependency: GNU libunistring.
734 See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
735 unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
739 Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
743 ** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
744 ** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
747 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
749 * New modules (see the manual for details)
751 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
755 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
756 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
757 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
758 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
759 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
760 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
761 ** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
762 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
763 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
764 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
765 ** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
767 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
769 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
770 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
771 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
774 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
777 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
779 * New features (see the manual for details)
781 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
783 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
785 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
786 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
787 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
789 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
791 * Changes to the distribution
793 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
795 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
796 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
798 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
800 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
801 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
806 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
807 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
808 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
809 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
810 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
811 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
812 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
813 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
814 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
815 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
816 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
817 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
818 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
819 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
821 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
822 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
823 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
824 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
825 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
828 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
830 * Infrastructure changes
832 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
834 The new repository can be accessed using
835 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
836 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
838 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
840 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
842 * New modules (see the manual for details)
846 * New features (see the manual for details)
848 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
849 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
850 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
852 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
853 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
854 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
855 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
857 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
859 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
860 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
861 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
865 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
866 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
868 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
869 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
871 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
872 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
874 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
875 lead to a stack overflow.
877 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
878 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
879 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
880 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
881 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
882 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
883 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
884 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
885 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
886 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
887 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
888 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
889 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
890 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
891 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
892 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
895 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
899 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
900 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
901 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
902 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
903 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
904 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
905 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
906 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
907 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
908 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
909 system and library calls.
910 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
911 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
912 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
913 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
914 uniform vectors on AIX.
915 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
916 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
917 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
918 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
919 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
921 * New modules (see the manual for details)
925 * Documentation fixes and improvements
927 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
929 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
930 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
932 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
934 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
936 * Changes to the distribution
938 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
940 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
941 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
942 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
944 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
946 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
949 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
951 * New modules (see the manual for details)
958 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
959 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
960 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
961 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
962 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
963 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
964 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
966 * Implementation improvements
968 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
969 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
972 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
974 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
976 ** set-program-arguments
979 * Incompatible changes
981 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
983 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
984 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
985 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
986 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
991 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
992 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
993 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
994 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
995 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
996 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
998 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
999 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
1000 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
1001 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
1002 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
1003 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
1004 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
1005 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
1006 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
1007 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
1008 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
1009 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
1010 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
1011 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
1012 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
1013 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
1016 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
1018 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
1020 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
1022 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
1023 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
1024 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
1025 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
1026 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
1027 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
1035 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
1037 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
1039 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
1041 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
1043 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
1045 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
1047 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
1048 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
1049 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
1051 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
1053 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
1055 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
1056 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
1058 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
1060 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
1061 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
1063 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
1065 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
1067 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
1069 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
1071 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
1073 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
1075 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
1077 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
1079 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
1081 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
1082 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
1083 file was on a different device.
1086 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
1088 * Changes to the distribution
1090 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
1092 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
1094 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
1096 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
1098 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
1100 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
1103 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
1105 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
1106 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
1107 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
1108 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
1109 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
1110 items like the versioned share directory name
1111 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
1113 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
1114 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
1115 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
1116 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
1117 with each micro release during a stable series.
1119 ** Thread implementation has changed.
1121 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
1122 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
1123 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
1124 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
1125 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
1128 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
1129 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
1130 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
1131 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
1134 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
1135 in which case "null" threads are used.
1137 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
1138 "Blocking", and others.
1140 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
1142 This is a milder form of deprecation.
1144 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
1145 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
1146 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
1147 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
1148 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
1150 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
1151 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
1153 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
1155 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
1156 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
1158 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
1161 This SRFI is always available.
1163 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
1165 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
1166 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
1167 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
1168 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
1171 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
1173 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
1174 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
1175 parameters without currying.
1177 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
1179 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
1180 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
1182 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
1183 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
1186 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
1187 with a renaming import, for example.
1189 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
1191 The official version is good enough now.
1193 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
1195 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
1196 provided. Use 'make html'.
1198 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
1200 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
1201 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
1202 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
1203 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
1205 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
1207 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
1210 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1212 ** New command line option `-L'.
1214 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
1216 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
1218 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
1219 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
1221 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
1223 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
1224 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
1226 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
1228 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
1229 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
1232 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
1235 (define-module (demo)
1239 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
1242 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1244 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
1246 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
1247 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
1248 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
1250 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
1252 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
1253 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
1255 ** New function hashx-remove!
1257 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
1259 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
1260 barriers and dynamic states.
1262 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
1263 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
1264 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
1267 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
1268 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
1269 Barriers" in the manual.
1271 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
1272 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
1274 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
1276 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
1277 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
1278 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
1279 variable %load-path.
1281 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
1283 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
1284 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
1286 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
1287 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
1288 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
1290 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
1291 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
1293 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
1294 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
1295 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
1297 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
1298 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
1299 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
1302 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
1303 substrings and read-only strings.
1305 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
1306 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
1309 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
1311 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
1320 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
1321 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
1322 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
1324 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
1325 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
1326 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
1327 on an ANSI terminal:
1329 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
1330 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
1333 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
1335 See the manual for details.
1337 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
1339 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
1342 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
1344 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
1345 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
1346 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
1347 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
1349 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
1350 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
1351 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
1354 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
1356 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
1357 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
1368 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
1372 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
1377 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
1381 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
1385 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
1388 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
1389 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
1390 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
1391 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
1393 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
1394 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
1397 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
1400 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
1404 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
1406 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
1407 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
1408 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
1411 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
1414 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
1416 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
1419 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
1420 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
1423 (define-module (foo)
1428 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
1429 has been detected is to
1431 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
1432 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
1433 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
1436 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
1439 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
1441 to your .guile init file.
1443 ** New define-module option: :replace
1445 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
1448 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
1449 for the core binding `format'.
1451 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
1453 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
1454 a prefix to all imported bindings.
1456 (define-module (foo)
1457 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
1459 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
1462 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
1464 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
1465 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
1466 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
1468 ** New function: effective-version
1470 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1471 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1472 to the distribution" above.
1474 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
1476 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
1477 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
1479 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
1481 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
1482 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
1484 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
1486 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
1487 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
1490 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
1492 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
1494 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
1496 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
1497 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
1498 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
1501 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
1502 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
1503 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
1504 'system-async-mark'.
1506 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
1507 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
1509 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
1510 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
1511 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
1514 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
1516 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
1517 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
1520 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
1521 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
1523 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
1524 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
1525 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
1526 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
1527 level for the current thread.
1529 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
1531 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
1533 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
1534 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
1537 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
1539 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
1541 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
1544 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
1546 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
1549 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
1550 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
1551 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
1553 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
1554 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
1555 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
1556 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
1567 ERROR: Numerical overflow
1569 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
1572 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
1574 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
1575 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
1576 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
1587 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
1589 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
1590 them is also done exactly, of course:
1595 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
1596 for exact arguments.
1598 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
1599 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
1601 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
1603 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
1604 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
1605 equal to a floating point number. For example:
1607 (inexact->exact 1.234)
1608 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
1610 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
1612 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
1615 ** New function 'rationalize'.
1617 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
1618 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
1620 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
1623 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
1624 result when both its arguments are exact.
1626 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
1628 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
1629 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
1630 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
1632 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
1634 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
1635 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
1636 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
1638 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
1641 ** pretty-print has more options.
1643 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
1644 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
1645 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
1647 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
1649 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
1650 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
1651 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
1653 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
1655 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
1656 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
1658 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
1660 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
1661 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
1664 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
1666 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
1667 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
1668 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
1669 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
1670 without the soft port blocking.
1672 ** Deprecated: undefine
1674 There is no replacement for undefine.
1676 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
1677 have been discouraged.
1679 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
1680 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
1681 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
1684 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
1686 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
1688 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
1689 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
1690 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
1691 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
1694 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
1695 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
1696 be removed in the next major Guile release.
1698 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
1700 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
1701 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
1702 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
1703 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
1704 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
1705 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
1707 * Changes to the C interface
1709 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
1710 take a 'delete' function argument.
1712 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
1713 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
1715 This is an incompatible change.
1717 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
1719 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
1720 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
1721 --disable-deprecated.
1723 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
1725 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
1726 Scheme values has been added.
1728 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
1729 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
1732 - int scm_is_* (...)
1734 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
1735 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
1737 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
1739 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
1740 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
1743 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
1745 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
1746 scm_from_int for ints.
1748 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
1749 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
1750 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
1752 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
1754 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
1755 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
1756 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
1759 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
1761 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
1763 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
1765 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
1766 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
1767 following alternatives.
1769 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
1770 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
1771 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
1772 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
1774 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
1775 do the validating for you.
1777 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
1778 have been discouraged.
1780 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
1781 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
1784 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
1786 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
1787 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
1790 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
1792 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
1795 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
1798 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
1800 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
1801 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
1803 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
1804 scm_truncate_number should have.
1806 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
1807 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
1809 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
1812 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
1813 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
1814 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
1816 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
1817 easier to use from C.
1819 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
1820 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
1822 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
1823 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
1824 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
1827 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
1828 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
1829 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
1830 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
1833 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
1834 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
1835 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
1836 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
1837 and is thus quite efficient.
1839 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
1841 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
1842 about the character encoding.
1844 Replace according to the following table:
1846 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
1847 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
1848 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
1849 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
1850 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
1851 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
1852 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
1853 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
1854 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
1856 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
1857 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
1859 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
1861 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
1862 now also available to C code.
1864 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
1866 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
1867 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
1868 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
1870 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
1873 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
1875 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
1876 unceremoniously removed.
1878 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
1879 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
1880 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
1882 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
1883 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
1884 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1885 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1886 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
1887 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
1890 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
1892 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
1893 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
1894 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
1895 manual for more details.
1897 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1898 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1900 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
1901 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
1902 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1904 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
1906 Migrate according to the following table:
1908 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
1909 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
1910 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
1911 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
1912 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
1913 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
1914 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
1916 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
1917 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
1918 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
1919 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
1920 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
1921 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
1922 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
1924 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
1926 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
1927 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
1929 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
1930 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
1931 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
1932 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
1934 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
1936 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
1937 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
1938 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
1940 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
1941 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
1943 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
1944 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
1945 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
1946 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
1948 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
1950 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
1951 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
1952 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
1953 prevent a potential memory leak:
1960 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
1962 mem = scm_malloc (100);
1963 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
1965 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
1966 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
1973 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
1974 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
1978 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
1980 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
1982 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
1983 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
1984 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
1986 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1987 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
1989 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
1991 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
1993 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
1994 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
1995 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
1997 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
1998 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
2000 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
2001 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
2002 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
2003 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
2006 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
2008 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
2009 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
2010 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
2012 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
2014 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
2015 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
2017 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
2019 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
2020 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
2022 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
2024 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
2025 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
2026 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
2028 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
2030 You should not have used them.
2032 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
2034 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
2035 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
2037 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
2039 This macro is not intended for public use.
2041 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
2043 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
2045 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
2047 Use scm_is_real instead.
2049 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
2051 Use scm_is_complex instead.
2053 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
2055 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
2056 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
2058 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
2059 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
2061 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
2062 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
2064 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
2066 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
2069 ** New function: scm_effective_version
2071 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
2072 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
2073 to the distribution" above.
2075 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
2077 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
2078 arguments are now passed directly:
2080 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
2082 This is an incompatible change.
2084 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
2086 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
2087 function in the init section.
2089 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
2091 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
2093 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
2094 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
2095 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
2096 stays roughly constant.
2098 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
2099 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
2100 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
2101 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
2102 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
2105 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
2106 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
2107 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
2108 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
2110 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
2111 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
2112 objects for every type.
2115 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
2117 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
2119 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
2121 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
2122 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
2123 initializes a new cell (see below).
2125 ** New functions for memory management
2127 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
2128 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
2129 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
2130 cause aborts in long running programs.
2132 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
2133 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
2135 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
2136 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
2137 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
2138 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
2139 details and for upgrading instructions.
2141 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
2142 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
2143 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
2145 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
2147 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
2148 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
2149 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
2150 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
2151 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
2153 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
2154 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
2155 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
2157 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
2158 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
2160 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
2162 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
2163 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
2164 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
2165 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
2166 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
2168 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
2170 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
2173 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
2175 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
2177 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
2179 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
2180 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
2182 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
2184 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
2185 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
2187 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
2188 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
2190 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
2192 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
2194 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
2195 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
2196 blocking it is not well defined.
2198 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
2200 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
2201 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
2202 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
2203 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
2204 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
2205 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
2206 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
2207 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
2208 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
2209 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
2210 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2211 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
2212 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
2213 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
2214 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
2215 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
2216 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
2217 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2218 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
2219 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
2220 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
2221 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
2222 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
2223 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
2224 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
2225 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
2226 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
2227 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
2228 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
2229 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
2230 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
2232 * Changes to bundled modules
2236 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
2237 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
2238 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
2239 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
2240 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
2243 Changes since Guile 1.4:
2245 * Changes to the distribution
2247 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
2249 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
2251 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
2252 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
2253 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
2254 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
2255 indicate major changes in Guile.
2257 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
2258 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
2259 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
2260 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
2262 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
2263 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
2264 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
2265 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
2266 micro version number.
2268 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
2270 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
2272 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
2273 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
2275 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
2277 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
2278 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
2279 See INSTALL and README for more information.
2281 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
2283 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
2284 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
2285 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
2288 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
2290 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
2293 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
2295 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
2296 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
2298 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
2300 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
2301 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
2304 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
2306 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
2309 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
2312 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
2314 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
2316 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
2317 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
2318 open-output-string, get-output-string.
2320 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
2322 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
2324 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
2327 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
2329 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
2331 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
2333 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
2334 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
2335 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
2337 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
2339 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
2341 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
2342 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
2351 See README there for more info.
2353 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
2354 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
2357 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
2359 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
2361 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
2363 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
2364 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
2365 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
2367 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
2369 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
2370 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
2371 to be named `and-let*', of course.
2373 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
2374 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
2376 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
2379 (oop goops describe)
2381 (oop goops active-slot)
2382 (oop goops composite-slot)
2384 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
2385 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
2386 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
2388 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
2390 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
2391 in the default environment:
2393 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
2394 %read-line write-line
2396 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
2397 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
2399 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
2401 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
2404 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
2405 can be used for similar functionality.
2407 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
2409 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
2410 it defines two procedures:
2412 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
2414 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
2415 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
2416 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
2419 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
2421 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
2422 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
2423 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
2424 write large strings.
2426 ** New module (ice-9 match)
2428 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
2429 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
2431 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
2433 for complete documentation.
2435 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
2437 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
2438 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
2439 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
2440 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
2442 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
2443 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
2447 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
2448 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
2449 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
2452 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
2455 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
2456 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
2458 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
2459 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
2462 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
2465 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
2467 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
2469 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2471 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
2473 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
2474 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
2475 Scheme programs easier.
2477 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
2478 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
2479 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
2480 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
2481 `cond-expand' when using this option.
2484 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
2485 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
2487 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
2490 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
2492 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
2493 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
2494 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
2497 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2499 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
2501 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
2502 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
2503 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
2504 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
2505 was also ASCII, for example.
2507 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
2509 tag - no replacement.
2510 fseek - replaced by seek.
2511 list* - replaced by cons*.
2513 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
2517 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
2518 (define m (make-safe-module))
2519 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
2520 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
2521 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
2523 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
2525 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
2526 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
2527 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
2529 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
2531 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
2532 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
2533 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
2534 from the issues related to the module system.
2536 *** New function: load-extension
2538 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
2540 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
2542 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
2543 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
2544 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
2546 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
2548 This function registers a initialization function for use by
2549 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
2550 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
2551 support dynamic linking).
2553 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
2555 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
2556 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
2557 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
2558 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
2561 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
2562 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
2563 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
2564 library and initialize it explicitly.
2566 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
2567 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
2569 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
2571 (define-module (foo bar))
2573 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
2575 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
2577 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
2578 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
2580 (scheme-report-environment 5)
2581 (null-environment 5)
2582 (interaction-environment)
2588 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
2590 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
2591 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
2592 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
2593 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
2595 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
2596 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
2597 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
2598 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
2599 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
2600 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
2601 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
2602 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
2603 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
2604 one eval to the next.
2606 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
2607 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
2608 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
2609 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
2610 subforms are at the top-level as well.
2612 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
2613 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
2614 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
2615 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
2616 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
2617 used in a lexical environment.
2619 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
2620 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
2621 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
2622 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
2623 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
2624 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
2626 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
2628 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
2629 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
2630 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
2631 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
2632 new facilities: selection and renaming.
2634 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
2635 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
2636 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
2638 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
2639 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
2641 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
2642 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
2643 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
2645 (remove-if . zonk-y)
2646 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
2648 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
2649 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
2650 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
2651 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
2654 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
2655 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
2656 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
2657 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
2659 (remove-if . zonk-y)
2660 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
2661 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
2663 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
2664 ;; and all four by upcasing.
2665 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
2666 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
2667 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
2669 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
2671 (remove-if . zonk-y)
2672 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
2673 :renamer upcase-symbol))
2675 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
2676 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
2677 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
2679 See manual for more info.
2681 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
2683 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
2684 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
2685 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
2687 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
2689 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
2690 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
2691 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
2693 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
2694 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
2695 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
2696 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
2698 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
2700 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
2701 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
2703 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
2704 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
2705 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
2706 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
2707 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
2710 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
2711 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
2712 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
2713 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
2714 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
2715 successful and #f if it wasn't.
2717 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
2718 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
2719 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
2720 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
2721 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
2723 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
2724 objects are usually permanent.
2726 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
2727 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
2729 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
2731 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
2732 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
2735 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
2739 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
2744 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
2746 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
2747 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
2748 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
2749 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
2751 ** New function `make-object-property'
2753 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
2754 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
2758 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
2759 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
2763 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
2764 source properties eventually.
2766 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
2768 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
2769 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
2770 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
2772 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
2773 will be removed in the next release.
2775 ** New define-module option: pure
2777 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
2782 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
2785 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
2787 Export names NAME1 ...
2789 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
2790 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
2794 (define-module (foo)
2796 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
2799 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
2804 ** New function: object->string OBJ
2806 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
2808 ** New function: port? X
2810 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
2811 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
2813 ** New function: file-port?
2815 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
2817 ** New function: port-for-each proc
2819 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
2820 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
2821 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
2822 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
2823 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
2825 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
2827 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
2828 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
2829 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
2830 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
2831 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
2834 ** New function: close-fdes fd
2836 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
2837 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
2838 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
2839 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
2842 ** New function: crypt password salt
2844 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
2847 ** New function: chroot path
2849 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
2851 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
2853 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
2856 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
2858 Get or set the priority of the running process.
2860 ** New function: getpass prompt
2862 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
2865 ** New function: flock file operation
2867 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
2869 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
2871 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
2874 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
2876 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
2877 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
2878 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
2879 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
2880 of the temporary file.
2882 ** New function: open-input-string string
2884 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
2885 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
2886 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
2888 ** New function: open-output-string
2890 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
2891 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
2893 ** New function: get-output-string
2895 Return the contents of an output string port.
2897 ** New function: identity
2899 Return the argument.
2901 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
2902 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
2904 ** New function: inet-pton family address
2906 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
2907 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
2908 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2911 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
2912 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
2914 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
2916 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
2917 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
2918 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2921 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
2922 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
2923 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
2927 Use `identity' instead.
2933 ** Deprecated: return-it
2937 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
2939 Use `string-length' instead.
2941 ** Deprecated: flags
2943 Use `logior' instead.
2945 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
2947 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
2948 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
2949 port-for-each is more flexible.
2951 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
2952 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
2953 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
2955 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
2957 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
2959 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
2961 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
2963 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
2965 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
2966 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
2968 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
2969 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
2971 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
2972 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
2974 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
2976 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
2977 Removed function: builtin-bindings
2979 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
2980 Use module system operations for all variables.
2982 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
2984 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
2987 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
2989 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
2990 The following bugs have been fixed:
2992 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
2993 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
2996 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
2997 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
2998 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
3000 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
3001 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
3003 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
3004 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
3007 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
3008 The expansion used to be like so:
3010 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
3012 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
3014 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
3016 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
3017 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
3019 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
3021 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
3022 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
3023 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
3027 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
3028 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
3030 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
3035 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
3036 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
3038 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
3039 and `d', other keywords allowed.
3040 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
3042 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
3045 * Changes to the C interface
3047 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
3049 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
3050 with "_t". What a concept.
3052 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
3054 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
3056 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
3060 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
3061 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
3063 *** C Functions removed
3065 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
3066 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
3067 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
3068 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
3069 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
3070 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
3071 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
3073 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
3075 Use scm_mem2string instead.
3077 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
3079 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
3081 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
3082 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
3084 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
3086 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
3089 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
3091 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
3093 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
3095 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
3096 Evaluation" in the manual.
3098 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
3100 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
3101 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
3103 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
3105 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
3106 Constructors" in the manual.
3108 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
3110 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
3111 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
3113 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
3115 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
3117 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
3118 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
3119 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
3121 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
3123 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
3125 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
3126 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
3127 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
3130 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
3132 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
3134 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
3135 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
3137 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
3139 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
3140 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
3141 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
3142 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
3144 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
3145 scm_primitive_property_ref
3146 scm_primitive_property_set_x
3147 scm_primitive_property_del_x
3149 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
3150 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
3152 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
3154 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
3155 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
3156 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
3157 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
3159 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
3161 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
3162 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
3163 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
3164 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
3165 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
3166 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
3167 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
3169 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
3170 scm_remember_upto_here
3172 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
3174 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
3176 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
3177 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
3179 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
3181 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
3183 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
3185 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
3187 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
3189 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
3190 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
3191 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
3192 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
3193 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
3194 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
3196 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
3198 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
3200 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
3201 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
3202 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
3204 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
3206 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
3207 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
3208 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
3210 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
3212 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
3213 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
3216 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
3219 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
3220 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
3223 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
3225 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
3227 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
3229 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
3231 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
3233 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
3235 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
3236 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
3237 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
3238 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
3239 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
3240 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
3241 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
3242 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
3243 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
3244 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
3245 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
3246 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
3247 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
3248 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
3249 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
3251 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
3252 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
3253 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
3254 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
3255 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
3256 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
3257 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
3258 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
3259 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
3260 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
3261 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
3262 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
3263 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
3264 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
3265 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
3266 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
3267 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
3268 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
3269 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
3270 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
3271 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
3272 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
3273 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
3274 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
3275 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
3276 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
3277 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
3278 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
3279 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
3281 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
3283 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
3285 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
3286 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
3288 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
3290 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
3292 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
3294 Use scm_string_hash instead.
3296 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
3298 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
3300 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
3302 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
3304 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
3307 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
3308 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
3310 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
3312 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
3314 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
3316 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
3318 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
3320 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
3322 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
3324 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
3327 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
3329 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
3331 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
3333 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
3334 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
3336 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
3337 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
3339 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
3341 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
3342 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
3343 scm_module_define, scm_define.
3345 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
3347 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
3349 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
3350 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
3352 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
3353 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
3354 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
3355 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
3357 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
3358 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
3359 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
3361 Use the new ones from above instead.
3363 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
3365 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
3366 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
3367 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
3369 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
3370 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
3372 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
3373 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
3376 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
3377 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
3379 Use the new functions instead.
3381 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
3384 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
3386 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
3388 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
3391 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
3393 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
3396 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
3398 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
3401 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
3402 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
3403 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
3405 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
3407 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
3408 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
3410 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
3411 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
3412 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
3413 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
3416 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
3418 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
3419 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
3420 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
3421 inexact for an exact.
3423 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
3424 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
3425 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
3428 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
3429 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
3430 accept an inexact argument.
3432 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
3433 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
3435 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
3438 ** New number validation macros:
3439 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
3443 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
3445 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
3446 scm_unprotect_object.
3448 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
3450 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
3452 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
3455 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
3457 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
3461 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
3463 * Changes to the distribution
3465 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
3467 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
3468 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
3469 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
3470 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
3471 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
3472 obtain these programs.
3473 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
3474 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
3476 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
3477 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
3478 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
3479 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
3480 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
3482 However, this approach means that minor differences between
3483 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
3484 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
3485 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
3489 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
3492 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
3493 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
3494 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
3495 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
3497 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
3499 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
3501 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
3502 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
3504 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
3505 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
3507 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
3508 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
3510 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
3511 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
3512 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
3513 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
3515 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
3517 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
3521 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
3522 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
3524 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
3526 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
3527 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
3529 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
3530 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
3531 number of objects of that kind.
3533 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
3535 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
3536 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
3537 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
3538 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
3539 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
3541 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
3543 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
3545 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
3547 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
3550 ** New module (ice-9 time)
3552 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
3554 ** New module (ice-9 history)
3556 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
3558 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3560 ** New command line option --debug
3562 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
3564 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
3566 ** New help facility
3568 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
3569 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
3570 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
3571 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
3572 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
3573 (help) gives this text
3575 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
3576 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
3578 Examples: (help help)
3580 (help "output-string")
3582 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
3584 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
3586 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
3587 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
3590 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
3591 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
3592 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
3595 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
3596 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
3597 use absolute filenames when possible.
3599 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
3600 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
3601 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
3604 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
3606 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
3607 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
3608 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
3609 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
3611 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
3613 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
3615 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
3616 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
3617 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
3619 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
3620 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
3621 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
3623 (read-enable 'positions)
3624 (debug-enable 'debug)
3626 ** Backtraces in scripts
3628 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
3632 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
3634 at the top of the script.
3636 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
3637 The second enables backtraces.)
3639 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
3641 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
3642 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
3643 substantially faster than before.
3645 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
3646 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
3648 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
3649 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
3651 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
3653 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
3654 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
3655 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
3657 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
3658 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
3659 when this hook is run in the future.
3661 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
3662 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
3664 ** Improvements to garbage collector
3666 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
3667 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
3670 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
3671 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
3672 more and more memory for certain programs.)
3674 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
3675 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
3677 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
3678 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
3680 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
3681 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
3682 in order not to need further allocation.)
3684 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
3687 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
3688 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
3689 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
3690 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
3692 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
3694 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
3697 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
3699 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
3702 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
3703 GC in percent of total heap size
3706 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
3707 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
3709 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
3711 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
3712 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
3714 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
3716 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
3717 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
3719 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
3721 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
3722 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
3726 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
3727 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
3729 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
3731 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3733 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
3735 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
3737 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
3739 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
3740 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
3742 (simple-format port message . args)
3743 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
3744 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
3745 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
3746 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
3747 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
3748 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
3749 Does not add a trailing newline."
3751 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
3753 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
3754 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
3756 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
3757 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
3759 ** Deprecated: list*
3761 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
3763 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
3765 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
3766 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
3768 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
3769 is returned as result.
3771 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
3773 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
3775 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
3777 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
3778 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
3781 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
3783 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
3785 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
3786 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
3788 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3790 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
3792 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
3794 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3796 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
3798 Thanks to Greg Badros!
3800 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3802 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3803 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
3804 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
3806 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
3809 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
3811 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
3812 the readability of argument checking.
3814 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
3816 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
3818 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
3820 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
3821 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
3822 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
3823 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
3824 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
3825 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
3826 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
3828 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
3830 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
3832 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
3833 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
3835 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
3837 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
3838 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
3841 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
3843 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
3844 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
3845 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
3847 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
3848 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
3849 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
3851 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
3852 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
3853 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
3854 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
3855 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
3856 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
3857 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
3859 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
3860 scm_end_input (object);
3861 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
3862 ptob->flush (object);
3864 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
3865 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
3868 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
3870 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
3872 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
3873 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
3874 removed in a future version.
3876 ** The format of error message strings has changed
3878 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
3879 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
3880 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
3881 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
3883 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
3884 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
3886 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
3889 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
3891 in your configure.in.
3893 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
3898 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
3904 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
3906 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
3910 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
3911 (define make-message string-append)
3913 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
3915 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
3919 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
3924 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
3928 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
3930 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
3931 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
3933 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
3935 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
3936 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
3937 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
3938 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
3939 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
3940 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
3942 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
3943 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
3944 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
3946 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
3947 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
3948 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
3951 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
3952 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
3953 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
3954 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
3955 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
3957 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
3958 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
3959 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
3960 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
3961 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
3962 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
3963 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
3965 Destructors are not yet implemented.
3967 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
3968 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
3969 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
3971 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
3972 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
3973 KEY in the calling thread.
3975 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
3976 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
3977 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
3978 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
3979 associated with the key.
3981 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
3983 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
3984 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
3986 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
3988 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
3989 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
3990 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
3992 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
3994 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
3995 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
3997 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
3999 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
4001 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
4002 returned is undefined.
4004 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
4005 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
4006 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
4008 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
4009 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
4010 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
4012 ** New C level GC hooks
4014 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
4016 scm_before_gc_c_hook
4019 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
4020 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
4021 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
4023 scm_before_mark_c_hook
4024 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
4025 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
4027 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
4028 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
4031 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
4033 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
4034 allocation parameters
4036 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
4037 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
4038 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
4042 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
4043 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
4044 scm_default_max_segment_size
4046 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
4048 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
4049 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
4051 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
4053 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
4054 object and count on the object being protected until
4055 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
4057 The functions also have better time complexity.
4059 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
4060 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
4061 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
4062 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
4063 are no longer needed.
4065 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
4067 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
4068 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
4069 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
4070 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
4072 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
4074 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
4076 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
4078 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
4079 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
4080 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
4081 until this issue has been settled.
4083 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
4085 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
4087 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
4090 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
4092 * Changes to system call interfaces:
4094 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
4095 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
4096 descriptors were checked.
4098 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
4099 atomically written to a pipe.
4101 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
4102 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
4103 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
4104 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
4105 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
4106 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
4107 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
4110 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
4111 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
4112 is changed without calling tzset.
4114 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
4116 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
4117 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
4118 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
4120 (define write-network-long
4121 (lambda (value port)
4122 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
4123 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
4124 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
4126 (define read-network-long
4128 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
4129 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
4130 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
4132 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
4133 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
4135 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
4136 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
4137 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
4138 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
4140 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
4141 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
4142 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
4143 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
4147 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
4149 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4153 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
4154 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
4155 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
4161 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
4162 for a description of available commands.
4164 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
4165 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
4166 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
4168 (debug-enable 'backwards)
4170 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
4171 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
4173 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
4175 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
4177 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
4178 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
4179 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
4180 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
4181 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
4182 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
4185 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
4187 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
4188 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
4189 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
4190 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
4192 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
4193 the file and should not be affected by this change.
4195 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
4197 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4199 ** Readline support has changed again.
4201 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
4202 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
4203 to activate readline is now
4205 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
4208 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
4210 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
4211 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
4212 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
4215 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
4216 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
4217 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
4220 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
4221 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
4222 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
4223 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
4224 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
4225 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
4227 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
4228 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
4230 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
4232 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
4233 object it receives is the same string passed to
4234 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
4235 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
4236 string, not the suffix.
4238 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
4239 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
4240 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
4242 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
4244 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
4245 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
4246 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
4247 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
4250 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
4252 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
4254 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
4255 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
4256 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
4257 appear from left to right.
4259 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
4262 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
4264 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
4265 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
4267 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
4271 *** New function: hook? OBJ
4273 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
4275 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
4277 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
4278 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
4279 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
4281 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
4283 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
4285 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
4287 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
4290 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
4292 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
4293 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
4294 mentioning it here anyway.
4296 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
4298 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
4299 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
4300 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
4301 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
4304 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
4306 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
4308 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
4310 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
4311 otherwise return #f.
4313 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
4315 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
4316 returned by `opendir'.
4318 ** New function: using-readline?
4320 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
4322 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
4324 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
4325 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
4327 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4329 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
4331 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
4332 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
4333 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
4335 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
4337 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
4338 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
4340 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
4342 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
4343 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
4344 documentation slots are not yet used.
4346 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
4348 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
4349 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
4350 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
4355 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
4356 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
4357 (string-append x y))
4359 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
4360 can also be used for concatenating strings.
4362 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
4363 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
4364 be made in a clean way.]
4366 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
4368 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
4370 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
4372 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
4373 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
4375 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4377 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
4379 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
4381 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
4383 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
4384 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
4385 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
4386 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
4389 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4391 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
4393 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
4395 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
4397 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
4398 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
4400 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4402 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
4404 Evaluates the body of a special form.
4406 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
4408 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
4409 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
4410 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
4411 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
4412 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
4413 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
4415 This should not make any difference for most users.
4417 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
4419 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
4420 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
4422 *** New functions for applying generic functions
4424 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
4425 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
4426 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
4427 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
4428 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
4430 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
4432 It is now replaced by:
4434 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
4436 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4437 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4439 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4441 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
4442 This might change when we get the new module system.
4444 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
4448 Changes since Guile 1.3:
4450 * Changes to mailing lists
4452 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
4454 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
4457 * Changes to the distribution
4459 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
4461 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
4462 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
4463 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
4464 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
4465 you explicitly specify it.
4467 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
4468 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
4469 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
4470 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
4471 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
4474 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
4475 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
4476 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
4477 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
4479 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
4480 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
4481 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
4484 You can activate the readline support by issuing
4486 (use-modules (readline-activator))
4489 from your ".guile" file, for example.
4491 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4493 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
4494 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
4495 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
4496 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
4498 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
4499 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
4502 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4504 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
4505 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
4506 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
4507 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
4508 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
4509 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
4510 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
4511 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
4523 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
4524 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
4525 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
4526 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
4527 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
4532 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
4533 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
4541 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
4546 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
4547 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
4550 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
4551 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
4552 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
4553 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
4555 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
4557 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
4559 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
4560 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
4562 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
4564 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
4566 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
4567 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
4569 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
4572 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
4574 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
4576 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
4578 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
4580 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
4582 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
4584 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
4585 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
4586 when the hook was created.
4588 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
4589 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
4590 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
4591 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
4592 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
4593 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
4594 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
4595 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
4596 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
4598 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
4599 the dlopen family of functions.
4601 ** New function `provided?'
4603 - Function: provided? FEATURE
4604 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
4605 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
4606 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
4608 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
4610 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
4611 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
4612 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
4613 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
4616 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
4617 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
4618 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
4619 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
4621 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
4622 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
4623 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
4626 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
4627 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
4628 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
4629 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
4630 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
4631 but with the flag set.
4633 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
4635 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
4636 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
4638 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
4639 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
4640 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
4641 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
4642 available Scheme format implementations.
4644 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
4645 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
4646 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
4647 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
4648 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
4649 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
4650 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
4651 output is to the current error port if available by the
4652 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
4655 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
4656 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
4657 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
4658 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
4659 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
4660 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
4661 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
4662 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
4664 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
4665 be executed at a time.
4668 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
4670 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
4671 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
4672 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
4674 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
4675 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
4676 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
4677 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
4678 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
4679 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
4680 general form of a directive is:
4682 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
4684 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
4686 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
4688 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
4689 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
4690 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
4693 Any (print as `display' does).
4697 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
4701 S-expression (print as `write' does).
4705 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
4711 print number sign always.
4714 print comma separated.
4716 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
4722 print number sign always.
4725 print comma separated.
4727 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
4733 print number sign always.
4736 print comma separated.
4738 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
4744 print number sign always.
4747 print comma separated.
4749 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
4754 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
4758 print a number as a Roman numeral.
4761 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
4764 print a number as an ordinal English number.
4767 print a number as a cardinal English number.
4772 prints `y' and `ies'.
4775 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4778 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4783 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
4787 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
4790 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
4791 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
4793 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4796 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
4797 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
4799 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4802 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
4804 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
4806 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4809 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
4811 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
4813 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4816 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
4819 The sign appears before the padding.
4827 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
4829 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
4834 print N page separators.
4844 newline is ignored, white space left.
4847 newline is left, white space ignored.
4852 relative tabulation.
4858 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
4860 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
4863 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
4865 converts by `string-capitalize'.
4868 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
4871 converts by `string-upcase'.
4874 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
4876 jumps N arguments forward.
4879 jumps 1 argument backward.
4882 jumps N arguments backward.
4885 jumps to the 0th argument.
4888 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
4890 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
4891 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
4893 take argument from N.
4896 true test conditional.
4899 if-else-then conditional.
4905 default clause follows.
4908 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
4910 at most N iterations.
4913 args from next arg (a list of lists).
4916 args from the rest of arguments.
4919 args from the rest args (lists).
4930 aborts if N <= M <= K
4932 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
4935 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4938 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4944 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
4946 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
4948 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
4949 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
4950 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
4951 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
4952 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
4953 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
4957 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
4961 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
4967 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
4970 Print a `#\space' character
4972 print N `#\space' characters.
4975 Print a `#\tab' character
4977 print N `#\tab' characters.
4980 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
4981 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
4982 must be a positive decimal number.
4985 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4986 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4987 be processed by `read'.
4990 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4991 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4992 be processed by `read'.
4995 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
4998 prints format version.
5001 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
5002 and format it accordingly.
5004 *** Configuration Variables
5006 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
5007 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
5008 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
5009 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
5012 format:symbol-case-conv
5013 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
5014 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
5015 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
5016 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
5017 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
5019 format:iobj-case-conv
5020 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
5021 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
5024 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
5027 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
5033 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
5034 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
5035 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
5036 `format' padding style.
5039 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
5040 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
5041 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
5042 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
5046 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
5047 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
5048 directive parameters or modifiers)).
5051 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
5052 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
5053 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
5054 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
5055 parameters or modifiers)).
5058 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
5060 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
5062 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
5063 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
5065 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
5066 string-downcase! functions.
5068 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
5069 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
5071 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
5074 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
5077 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
5078 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
5080 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
5082 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
5083 the symbol had be read by `read'.
5085 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
5086 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
5087 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
5088 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
5089 would if STRING were input.
5091 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
5093 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
5094 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
5095 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
5096 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
5099 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
5101 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
5102 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
5105 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
5107 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
5108 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
5110 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
5111 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
5113 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
5114 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
5115 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
5116 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
5118 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
5119 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
5121 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
5122 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
5123 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
5125 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
5126 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
5128 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
5129 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
5130 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
5131 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
5132 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
5134 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
5135 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
5136 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
5137 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
5138 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
5139 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
5141 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
5142 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
5143 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
5146 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
5147 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
5148 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
5149 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
5150 the following grammar:
5151 ((apples (single-char #\a))
5152 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
5153 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
5154 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
5155 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
5156 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
5157 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
5158 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
5159 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
5160 last option in its combination)
5162 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
5163 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
5164 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
5165 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
5167 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
5168 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
5169 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
5171 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
5172 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
5173 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
5175 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
5176 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
5177 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
5178 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
5179 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
5180 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
5181 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
5182 ordinary argument strings.
5184 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
5185 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
5186 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
5187 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
5189 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
5190 as a list, associated with the empty list.
5192 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
5193 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
5194 - a required option is omitted
5195 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
5196 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
5197 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
5198 - an option predicate fails
5203 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
5206 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
5207 (verbose (required? #f)
5210 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
5211 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
5212 (predicate ,string?))))
5214 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
5215 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
5217 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
5218 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
5219 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
5220 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
5223 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
5225 It will be removed in a few releases.
5227 ** New syntax: lambda*
5228 ** New syntax: define*
5229 ** New syntax: define*-public
5230 ** New syntax: defmacro*
5231 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
5232 Guile now supports optional arguments.
5234 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
5235 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
5236 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
5237 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
5238 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
5240 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
5241 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
5242 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
5244 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
5246 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
5247 and examples for `lambda*':
5250 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
5252 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
5253 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
5254 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
5255 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
5256 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
5257 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
5258 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
5259 can be checked with the bound? macro.
5261 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
5263 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
5264 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
5265 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
5266 are given as keywords are bound to values.
5268 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
5269 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
5270 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
5271 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
5272 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
5273 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
5274 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
5275 and until the procedure is called.
5277 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
5279 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
5280 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
5281 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
5282 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
5283 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
5284 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
5285 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
5286 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
5287 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
5288 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
5290 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
5291 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
5292 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
5293 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
5296 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
5298 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
5299 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
5300 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
5301 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
5303 ** New syntax: and-let*
5304 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
5306 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
5307 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
5308 (<variable> <expression>)
5311 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
5312 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
5313 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
5316 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
5317 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
5318 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
5319 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
5320 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
5321 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
5322 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
5324 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
5325 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
5326 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
5327 shadow earlier bindings.
5329 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
5331 ** New sorting functions
5333 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
5334 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
5335 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
5336 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
5338 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
5339 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
5342 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
5343 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
5344 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
5346 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
5347 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
5348 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
5349 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
5351 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
5352 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
5353 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
5354 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
5355 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
5358 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
5359 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
5360 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
5361 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
5362 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
5363 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
5365 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
5366 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
5367 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
5369 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
5370 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
5371 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
5374 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
5375 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
5376 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
5378 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
5379 Added for compatibility with scsh.
5381 ** New built-in random number support
5383 *** New function: random N [STATE]
5384 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
5385 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
5386 returned have a uniform distribution.
5388 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
5389 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
5390 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
5391 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
5392 effect of the `random' operation.
5394 *** New variable: *random-state*
5395 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
5396 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
5397 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
5398 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
5399 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
5402 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
5403 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
5404 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
5405 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
5406 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
5408 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
5409 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
5410 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
5411 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
5412 initialized using SEED.
5414 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
5415 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
5416 range between 0 and 1.
5418 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
5419 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
5420 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
5421 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
5422 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
5423 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
5424 or a uniform vector of doubles.
5426 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
5427 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
5428 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
5429 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
5430 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
5431 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
5433 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
5434 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
5435 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
5436 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
5438 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
5439 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
5440 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
5441 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
5443 *** New function: random:exp STATE
5444 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
5445 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
5447 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
5449 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
5452 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
5453 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
5456 ** New function: make-guardian
5457 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
5458 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
5459 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
5460 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
5461 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
5463 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
5464 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
5465 one object if at all.
5467 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
5468 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
5469 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
5471 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
5472 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
5473 read again in last-in first-out order.
5475 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
5476 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
5478 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
5480 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
5481 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
5482 file position is used.
5484 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
5485 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
5486 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
5488 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
5489 redefined using seek.
5491 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
5492 size is not supplied.
5494 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
5495 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
5497 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
5498 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
5500 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
5502 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
5503 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
5504 and returns the contents as a single string.
5506 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
5507 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
5508 lists in serial order.
5510 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
5511 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
5512 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
5514 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
5515 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
5516 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
5517 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
5519 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
5520 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
5521 and #f if an error occured.
5523 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
5525 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
5526 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
5527 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
5528 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
5530 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
5532 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
5535 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
5537 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
5540 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5544 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
5545 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
5547 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
5548 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
5552 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5554 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
5556 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
5557 binds a variable named NAME to it.
5559 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
5561 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
5562 might change when we get the new module system.
5564 ** The smob interface
5566 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
5567 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
5569 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
5571 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
5575 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
5576 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
5577 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
5578 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
5579 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
5580 will be freed by the default free function.
5582 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
5583 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
5584 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
5585 `scm_make_smob_type'.
5587 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
5588 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
5589 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
5590 `scm_make_smob_type'.
5592 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
5594 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
5595 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
5599 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
5600 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
5601 `scm_make_smob_type'.
5603 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
5604 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
5605 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
5606 `scm_make_smob_type'.
5608 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
5609 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
5610 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
5612 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
5613 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
5614 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
5615 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
5617 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
5618 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
5619 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
5621 *** scm_newptob has been removed
5625 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
5627 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
5628 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
5629 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
5631 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
5632 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
5633 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
5635 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
5636 a string port's buffer.
5638 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
5639 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
5640 function pointers which together define the current random number
5641 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
5642 number library functions.
5644 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
5647 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
5648 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
5651 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
5652 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
5654 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
5655 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
5657 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
5658 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
5661 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
5662 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
5663 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
5664 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
5666 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
5667 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
5668 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
5669 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
5670 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
5671 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
5672 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
5674 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
5675 by libguile and the application.
5677 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
5678 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
5679 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
5680 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
5682 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
5683 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
5685 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
5686 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
5687 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
5689 ** Random number library functions
5690 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
5691 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
5692 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
5694 The default random state is stored in:
5696 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
5697 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
5698 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
5703 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
5705 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
5706 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
5707 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
5708 isn't a random state.
5710 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
5711 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
5713 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
5714 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
5715 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
5716 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
5718 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5719 Return 32 random bits.
5721 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5722 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
5724 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5725 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
5727 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5728 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
5730 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
5731 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
5733 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
5734 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
5735 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
5739 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
5741 * Changes to the distribution
5743 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
5744 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
5745 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
5748 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
5749 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
5750 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
5752 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
5753 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
5754 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
5755 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
5758 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
5759 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
5760 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
5762 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5764 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
5766 *** Function: batch-mode?
5768 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
5771 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
5773 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
5774 case has not been implemented.
5776 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
5777 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
5778 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
5781 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
5782 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
5784 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
5786 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5788 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
5790 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
5791 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
5794 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
5795 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
5796 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
5797 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
5800 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
5802 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
5803 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
5804 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
5805 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
5806 find those libraries.
5808 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
5809 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
5812 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
5814 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
5815 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
5816 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
5817 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
5819 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
5820 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
5821 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
5825 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
5827 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
5828 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
5829 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
5832 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
5833 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
5834 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
5835 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
5837 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
5838 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
5841 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
5842 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
5843 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
5844 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
5845 compiler where to find the libraries.
5847 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
5848 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
5849 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
5851 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
5852 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
5853 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
5854 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
5855 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
5859 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5861 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
5862 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
5863 internationalization support.
5865 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
5866 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
5867 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
5868 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
5869 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
5871 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
5872 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
5873 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
5874 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
5875 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
5877 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
5878 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
5879 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
5880 any GNU mirror site.
5882 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
5884 ** New function: add-history STRING
5885 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
5886 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
5887 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
5889 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
5891 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
5892 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
5893 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
5896 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
5897 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
5898 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
5900 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
5902 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
5905 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
5906 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
5909 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
5910 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
5911 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
5912 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
5913 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
5914 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
5916 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
5917 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
5918 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
5919 of the form mentioned above.
5921 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
5922 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
5923 returned in the special `rest' list.
5925 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
5926 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
5928 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
5930 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
5932 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
5934 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
5935 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
5936 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
5937 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
5938 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
5939 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
5940 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
5941 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
5944 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
5946 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
5948 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
5949 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
5952 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
5953 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
5954 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
5958 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
5959 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
5960 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
5961 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
5962 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
5963 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
5964 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
5965 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
5968 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
5970 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
5971 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
5972 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
5974 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
5976 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
5977 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
5979 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
5980 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
5981 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
5983 Why do we have this function?
5984 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
5985 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
5986 primitive, and display it differently, and
5987 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
5988 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
5991 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
5992 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
5995 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
5996 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
5997 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
5998 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
6000 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
6001 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
6004 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
6005 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
6007 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
6009 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
6010 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
6011 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
6012 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
6013 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
6014 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
6015 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
6018 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
6020 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
6021 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
6023 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
6024 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
6025 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
6026 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
6027 properly continue the print chain.
6029 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
6030 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
6031 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
6032 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
6033 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
6034 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
6035 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
6036 print-state, it is simply ignored.
6038 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
6039 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
6040 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
6041 safest to not check for these pairs.
6043 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
6044 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
6045 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
6046 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
6048 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
6050 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
6051 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
6053 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
6055 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
6057 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
6058 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
6059 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
6061 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
6062 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
6063 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
6065 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
6066 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
6067 the following functions and macros:
6069 Function: make-fluid
6071 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
6072 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
6073 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
6074 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
6075 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
6077 Function: fluid? OBJ
6079 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
6081 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
6082 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
6084 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
6085 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
6087 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
6089 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
6090 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
6091 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
6092 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
6093 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
6094 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
6095 modified by `with-fluids*'.
6097 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
6099 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
6100 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
6101 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
6102 should evaluate to a fluid.
6104 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
6106 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
6107 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
6108 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
6109 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
6110 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
6112 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
6115 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
6117 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
6119 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
6121 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
6124 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
6125 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
6126 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
6127 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
6128 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
6131 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
6132 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
6133 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
6135 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
6136 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
6137 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
6139 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
6140 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
6141 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
6142 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
6144 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
6145 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
6146 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
6147 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
6149 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
6150 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
6151 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
6152 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
6154 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
6155 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
6156 their revealed counts set to zero.
6158 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6159 Returns an integer file descriptor.
6161 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6162 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
6164 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6165 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
6167 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6168 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
6169 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
6171 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
6172 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
6173 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
6175 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
6176 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
6177 default environment inherited by child processes.
6179 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
6180 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
6181 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
6183 The return value is unspecified.
6185 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
6186 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
6187 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
6188 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
6189 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
6191 The return value is unspecified.
6193 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
6194 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
6202 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
6203 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
6206 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
6209 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
6210 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
6211 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
6213 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
6214 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
6215 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
6216 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
6219 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
6220 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
6222 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
6223 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
6224 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
6225 the `environ' procedure.
6227 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
6228 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
6231 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
6232 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
6234 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
6235 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
6236 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
6237 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
6239 *** procedure: times
6240 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
6241 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
6242 return a selected component:
6245 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
6249 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
6252 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
6256 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
6257 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
6261 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
6262 terminated child processes.
6264 ** Removed: list-length
6265 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
6266 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
6268 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
6270 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
6272 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
6274 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
6275 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
6276 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
6277 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
6279 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
6280 extra complexity it introduces.
6282 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
6283 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
6285 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
6286 variable to any non-empty value.
6288 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
6289 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
6291 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6293 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
6294 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
6296 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
6298 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
6299 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
6301 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
6303 ** vector handling routines
6305 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
6306 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
6307 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
6308 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
6309 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
6311 ** pair and list routines
6313 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
6316 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
6318 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
6321 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6323 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
6325 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
6326 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
6327 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
6328 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
6329 site-specific initialization code.
6331 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
6332 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
6333 initialization processes.
6335 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
6336 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
6337 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
6338 initialized properly.
6340 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
6341 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
6342 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
6344 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
6345 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
6346 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
6347 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
6348 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
6350 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
6352 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
6353 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
6354 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
6355 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
6356 objects the smob refers to get marked.
6358 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
6359 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
6360 which look like this:
6363 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
6365 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
6366 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
6369 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
6370 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
6373 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
6375 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
6376 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
6377 you will need to change your functions slightly.
6379 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
6380 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
6381 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
6382 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
6383 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
6385 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
6386 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
6388 int (*free) (SCM port);
6389 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
6390 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
6391 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
6395 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
6396 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
6397 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
6399 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
6402 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
6403 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
6404 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
6406 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
6407 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
6408 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
6411 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
6415 struct timeval *timeout);
6417 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
6418 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
6419 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
6420 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
6421 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
6422 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
6424 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
6425 scm_catch_body_t body,
6427 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
6430 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
6431 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
6432 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
6433 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
6434 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
6435 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
6437 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
6439 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
6442 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
6443 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
6444 spawning threads from application C code.
6446 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
6447 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
6448 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
6449 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
6450 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
6451 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
6453 ** Removed functions:
6455 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
6456 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
6458 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
6460 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
6461 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
6463 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
6465 ** mbstrings are now removed
6467 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
6468 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
6470 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
6472 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
6473 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
6474 their new names and arguments:
6476 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
6477 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
6478 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
6479 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
6482 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
6484 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
6486 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
6489 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
6491 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
6492 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
6493 pass a #f arg to catch.
6495 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
6497 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
6498 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
6501 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
6502 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
6503 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
6504 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
6505 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
6506 reclaim its storage.
6508 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
6509 worrying that some other function you call will call
6510 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
6511 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
6512 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
6513 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
6516 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
6518 * Changes to the distribution
6520 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
6521 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
6524 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
6525 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
6527 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
6528 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
6530 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
6532 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
6533 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
6534 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
6536 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6538 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
6539 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
6540 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
6541 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
6542 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
6543 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
6545 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
6546 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
6547 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
6550 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
6551 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
6552 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
6553 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
6555 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
6556 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
6557 libraries to your link command:
6559 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
6560 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
6561 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6562 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6564 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
6565 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
6566 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
6568 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6570 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
6571 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
6574 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
6576 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
6577 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
6578 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
6579 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
6580 searched is system dependent.
6582 (dynamic-object? VAL)
6584 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
6586 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
6588 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
6589 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
6591 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
6593 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
6594 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
6595 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
6596 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
6597 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
6600 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
6602 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
6603 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
6604 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
6605 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
6606 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
6608 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
6610 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
6611 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
6613 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
6615 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
6616 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
6617 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
6620 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
6622 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
6623 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
6624 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
6625 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
6627 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
6628 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
6630 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
6632 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
6633 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
6635 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
6637 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
6638 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
6646 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
6648 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
6649 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
6650 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
6651 a more informative way.
6653 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
6654 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
6655 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
6656 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
6657 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
6658 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
6660 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
6661 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
6664 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
6665 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
6666 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
6669 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
6670 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
6671 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
6672 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
6673 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
6674 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
6676 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
6677 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
6678 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
6679 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
6682 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
6683 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
6684 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
6685 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
6686 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
6687 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
6689 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
6690 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
6691 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
6692 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
6693 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
6695 *** regexp functions
6697 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
6698 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
6699 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
6701 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
6702 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
6703 with SCSH regular expressions.
6705 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
6706 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
6707 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
6708 position of STR at which to begin matching.
6710 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
6711 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
6712 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
6713 `string-match' returns `#f'.
6715 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
6716 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
6717 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
6718 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
6719 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
6720 match strings against the compiled regexp.
6722 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
6723 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
6724 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
6725 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
6726 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
6728 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
6730 **** Constant: regexp/extended
6731 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
6732 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
6733 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
6735 **** Constant: regexp/icase
6736 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
6737 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
6739 **** Constant: regexp/newline
6740 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
6742 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
6745 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
6746 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
6747 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
6749 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
6750 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
6751 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
6753 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
6754 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
6755 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
6756 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
6757 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
6760 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
6762 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
6763 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
6764 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
6765 used when different portions of a string are passed to
6766 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
6767 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
6769 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
6770 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
6771 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
6773 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
6774 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
6777 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
6778 and replace them with the contents of another string.
6780 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
6781 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
6782 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
6783 may be one of the following arguments:
6785 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
6787 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
6789 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
6790 the regexp match is written.
6792 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
6793 following the regexp match is written.
6795 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
6796 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
6799 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
6800 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
6801 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
6802 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
6803 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
6804 which should be matched against this regular expression.
6806 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
6809 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
6810 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
6811 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
6812 written out to PORT.
6814 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
6815 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
6816 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
6817 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
6818 will return after processing a single match.
6820 *** Match Structures
6822 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
6823 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
6824 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
6825 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
6826 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
6827 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
6830 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
6831 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
6832 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
6833 information about the original target string that was matched against a
6834 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
6836 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
6837 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
6838 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
6840 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
6841 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
6842 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
6843 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
6844 number N did not match, return `#f'.
6846 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
6847 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
6849 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
6850 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
6852 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
6853 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
6855 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
6856 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
6858 **** Function: match:count MATCH
6859 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
6860 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
6861 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
6863 **** Function: match:string MATCH
6864 Return the original TARGET string.
6866 *** Backslash Escapes
6868 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
6869 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
6870 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
6871 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
6872 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
6873 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
6875 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
6876 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
6877 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
6878 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
6879 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
6880 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
6881 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
6882 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
6884 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
6885 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
6886 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
6887 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
6888 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
6889 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
6890 each match a single backslash in the target string.
6892 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
6893 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
6894 return the resulting string.
6896 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
6897 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
6898 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
6899 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
6900 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
6901 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
6902 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
6903 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
6904 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
6905 translated to the single character `*'.
6907 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
6908 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
6909 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
6910 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
6911 consecutive backslashes:
6913 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
6915 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
6916 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
6917 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
6919 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
6920 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
6921 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
6922 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
6923 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
6924 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
6926 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
6928 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
6929 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
6930 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
6931 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
6932 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
6933 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
6934 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
6935 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
6936 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
6937 cumbersome escape syntax.
6939 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6941 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6943 * Changes to system call interfaces:
6945 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
6948 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
6950 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
6952 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
6955 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
6956 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
6957 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
6958 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
6959 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
6961 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
6962 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
6963 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
6964 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
6965 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
6966 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
6967 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
6970 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
6971 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
6972 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
6975 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
6976 `force-output' on every port open for output.
6978 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
6979 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
6980 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
6981 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
6982 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
6983 installed, you can say:
6985 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
6988 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6990 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
6991 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
6992 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
6993 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
6994 new dynamic roots and threads.
6997 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
6999 * Changes to the distribution.
7001 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
7003 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
7004 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
7005 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
7006 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
7007 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
7008 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
7009 programming language. These are packaged together because the
7010 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
7012 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
7015 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
7016 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
7021 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
7023 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
7024 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
7026 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
7027 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
7028 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
7029 the (command-line) function.
7030 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
7031 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
7032 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
7034 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
7035 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
7036 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
7037 command line arguments
7038 -ds do -s script at this point
7039 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
7040 -h, --help display this help and exit
7041 -v, --version display version information and exit
7042 \ read arguments from following script lines
7044 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
7045 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
7047 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7050 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
7054 (main (command-line))
7056 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
7058 ekko a speckled gecko
7060 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
7061 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
7062 following list of command-line arguments:
7064 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
7066 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
7067 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
7068 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
7069 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
7070 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
7072 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
7074 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
7076 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
7077 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
7080 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
7081 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
7082 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
7083 SCSH) for circumventing them.
7085 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
7086 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
7087 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
7088 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
7090 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
7094 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
7098 If the user invokes this script as follows:
7100 ekko a speckled gecko
7102 Unix expands this into
7104 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
7106 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
7107 read from the second line of the script, producing:
7109 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
7111 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
7112 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
7114 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
7115 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
7116 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
7117 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
7118 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
7119 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
7120 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
7121 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
7122 it only terminates the argument list.)
7123 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
7124 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
7125 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
7126 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
7127 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
7128 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
7129 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
7130 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
7132 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7134 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
7135 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
7136 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
7137 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
7138 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
7140 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
7141 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
7142 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
7144 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
7146 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
7147 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
7148 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
7149 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
7152 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
7153 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
7154 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
7156 * Changes to Scheme functions
7158 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
7159 and disabled by default.
7161 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
7162 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
7163 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
7164 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
7166 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
7168 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
7170 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
7171 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
7173 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
7174 (read-set! keywords #f)
7176 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
7177 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
7178 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
7181 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
7182 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
7183 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
7186 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
7187 support for Scheme functions.
7189 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
7190 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
7191 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
7192 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
7195 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
7196 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
7197 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
7200 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
7201 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
7202 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
7205 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
7206 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
7207 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
7208 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
7209 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
7210 display the result as a prompt.
7211 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
7213 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
7214 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
7215 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
7218 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
7219 procedure of zero arguments.
7221 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
7222 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
7223 argument is bound in the current module.
7225 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
7226 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
7227 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
7228 public bindings into the current module.
7230 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
7231 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
7233 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
7234 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
7236 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
7237 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
7239 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
7240 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
7242 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
7243 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
7245 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
7246 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
7247 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
7248 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
7249 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
7251 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
7252 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
7253 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
7254 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
7256 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
7259 ** Changes to I/O functions
7261 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
7262 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
7263 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
7265 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
7266 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
7267 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
7269 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
7270 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
7272 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
7273 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
7274 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
7275 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
7277 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
7279 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
7280 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
7282 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
7283 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
7284 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
7285 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
7286 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
7289 'trim omit delimiter from result
7290 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
7291 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
7292 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
7294 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
7296 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
7297 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
7299 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
7300 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
7301 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
7302 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
7303 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
7305 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
7306 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
7307 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
7309 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
7310 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
7311 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
7312 above, and defaults to 'peek.
7314 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
7315 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
7317 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
7318 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
7320 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
7322 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
7323 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
7324 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
7325 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
7326 a delimiting character.
7327 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
7329 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
7330 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
7331 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
7332 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
7333 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
7334 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
7336 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
7337 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
7339 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
7340 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
7341 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
7343 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
7344 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
7345 the array to read and write.
7347 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
7348 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
7351 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
7353 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
7356 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
7357 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
7358 Values for COMMAND are:
7360 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
7361 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
7362 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
7363 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
7364 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
7365 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
7366 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
7367 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
7369 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
7371 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
7372 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
7373 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
7374 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
7375 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
7376 corresponding return set will be the same.
7378 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
7381 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
7382 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
7383 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
7384 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
7385 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
7386 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
7387 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
7388 special file being created.
7390 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
7391 clashing with various SCSH forks.
7393 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
7394 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
7395 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
7396 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
7397 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
7398 and originating address.
7400 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
7401 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
7402 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
7404 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
7407 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
7408 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
7411 (status:exit-val STATUS)
7412 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
7413 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
7414 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
7415 this function returns #f.
7417 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
7418 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
7419 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
7422 (status:term-sig STATUS)
7423 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
7424 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
7427 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
7428 a valid STATUS value.
7430 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
7432 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
7433 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
7435 Component Accessor Setter
7436 ========================= ============ ============
7437 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
7438 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
7439 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
7440 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
7441 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
7442 year tm:year set-tm:year
7443 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
7444 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
7445 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
7446 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
7447 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
7449 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
7450 describing the host system:
7453 ============================================== ================
7454 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
7455 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
7456 release level of the operating system utsname:release
7457 version level of the operating system utsname:version
7458 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
7460 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
7461 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
7462 system's user database:
7465 ====================== =================
7466 user name passwd:name
7467 user password passwd:passwd
7470 real name passwd:gecos
7471 home directory passwd:dir
7472 shell program passwd:shell
7474 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
7475 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
7476 system's group database:
7479 ======================= ============
7480 group name group:name
7481 group password group:passwd
7483 group members group:mem
7485 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
7486 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
7490 ========================= ===============
7491 official name of host hostent:name
7492 alias list hostent:aliases
7493 host address type hostent:addrtype
7494 length of address hostent:length
7495 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
7497 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
7498 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
7502 ========================= ===============
7503 official name of net netent:name
7504 alias list netent:aliases
7505 net number type netent:addrtype
7506 net number netent:net
7508 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
7509 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
7513 ========================= ===============
7514 official protocol name protoent:name
7515 alias list protoent:aliases
7516 protocol number protoent:proto
7518 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
7519 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
7523 ========================= ===============
7524 official service name servent:name
7525 alias list servent:aliases
7526 port number servent:port
7527 protocol to use servent:proto
7529 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
7530 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
7533 ======================================== ===============
7534 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
7535 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
7536 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
7537 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
7539 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
7540 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
7541 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
7543 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
7544 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
7546 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
7547 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
7549 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
7550 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
7552 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
7554 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
7556 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
7557 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
7558 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
7560 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
7561 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
7562 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
7563 return the remaining characters as a string.
7565 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
7566 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
7567 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
7569 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
7571 * Changes to the gh_ interface
7573 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
7576 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
7579 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
7580 and returns the array
7582 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
7583 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
7584 the user to interpret the data both ways.
7586 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7588 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
7589 symbol's value from C code:
7591 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
7592 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
7593 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
7594 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
7596 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
7597 without assigning them a value.
7599 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
7600 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
7601 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
7603 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
7604 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
7605 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
7607 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
7608 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
7610 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
7611 doesn't actually care about that.
7613 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
7614 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
7615 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
7617 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
7618 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
7619 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
7620 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
7621 which we have just created and initialized.
7623 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
7624 should one occur. We call it like this:
7625 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
7627 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
7628 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
7629 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
7630 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
7631 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
7632 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
7635 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
7636 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
7637 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
7638 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
7639 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
7640 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
7641 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
7644 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
7645 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
7646 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
7647 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
7648 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
7651 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
7652 scm_internal_catch, except:
7654 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
7655 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
7656 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
7657 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
7660 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
7661 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
7662 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
7664 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
7665 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
7666 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
7667 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
7670 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
7671 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
7672 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
7674 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
7675 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
7676 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
7677 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
7678 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
7680 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
7681 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
7682 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
7684 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
7685 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
7686 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
7688 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
7689 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
7691 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
7692 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
7693 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
7696 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
7697 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
7698 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
7699 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
7700 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
7701 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
7702 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
7705 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
7706 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
7708 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
7709 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
7710 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
7711 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
7712 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
7715 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
7716 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
7718 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
7719 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
7722 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
7723 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
7725 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7728 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
7729 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
7730 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
7731 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
7732 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
7733 given the following arguments:
7735 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
7737 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
7739 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
7741 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7744 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
7745 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
7746 command-line arguments.
7748 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
7749 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
7750 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
7751 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
7752 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
7753 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
7756 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7759 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
7760 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
7762 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
7763 rearranged slightly. They are now:
7765 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7766 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
7767 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
7768 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
7770 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7771 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
7773 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7774 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
7775 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
7776 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
7778 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7779 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
7781 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
7782 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
7784 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
7786 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
7787 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
7788 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
7791 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
7792 returns a port instead of an FD object.
7794 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
7795 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
7800 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
7803 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
7805 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
7806 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
7807 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
7808 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
7810 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
7812 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
7814 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
7815 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
7816 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
7817 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
7818 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
7819 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
7820 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
7821 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
7822 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
7823 for more information.
7825 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
7826 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
7828 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
7829 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
7830 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
7831 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
7832 following two lines at the top of the file:
7834 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7837 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
7838 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
7839 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
7841 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
7843 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7845 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
7848 (display (car args))
7849 (if (pair? (cdr args))
7851 (loop (cdr args)))))
7854 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
7855 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
7856 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
7857 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
7858 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
7859 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
7863 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
7866 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
7869 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
7871 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
7872 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
7873 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
7874 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
7875 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
7878 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
7879 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
7880 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
7881 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
7882 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
7885 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
7888 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
7889 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
7890 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
7893 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
7894 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
7895 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
7897 to see a backtrace, and
7898 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
7899 to see them by default.
7903 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
7905 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
7907 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
7908 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
7911 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
7912 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
7913 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
7914 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
7917 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
7918 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
7919 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
7920 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
7921 functions which inspired them.
7923 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
7924 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
7928 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
7930 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
7932 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
7933 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
7936 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
7937 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
7938 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
7940 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
7941 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
7942 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
7943 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
7944 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
7946 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
7948 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
7949 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
7950 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
7953 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
7956 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
7958 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
7959 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
7960 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
7961 above should serve their purposes.
7963 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
7964 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
7965 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
7966 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
7968 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
7971 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
7972 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
7973 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
7974 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
7976 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
7977 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
7978 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
7979 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
7981 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
7982 for the `read' function.
7985 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
7986 to that of `integer?'.
7988 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
7989 use the R4RS names for these functions.
7991 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
7992 it simply returns the object's property list.
7994 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
7995 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
7996 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
7997 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
7999 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
8001 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
8004 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
8006 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
8007 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
8009 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
8011 void (*main_func) (),
8014 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
8015 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
8016 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
8017 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
8018 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
8020 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
8021 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
8022 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
8023 know which arguments have been processed.
8025 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
8026 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
8027 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
8028 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
8029 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
8031 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
8032 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
8033 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
8034 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
8035 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
8036 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
8037 people from making that mistake.
8039 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
8040 convenient ways to override these when desired.
8042 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
8044 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
8048 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
8051 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
8052 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
8053 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
8054 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
8057 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
8058 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
8059 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
8060 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
8063 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
8064 have been added to the Guile library.
8066 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
8067 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
8068 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
8071 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
8072 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
8073 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
8075 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
8076 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
8077 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
8078 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
8079 argument from the list.
8082 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
8085 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
8086 null-terminated string, and returns it.
8088 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
8089 to a Scheme port object.
8091 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
8092 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
8097 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
8099 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
8100 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
8101 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
8102 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
8103 code as a special datatype.
8105 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
8106 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
8107 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
8108 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
8109 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
8112 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
8113 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
8114 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
8115 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
8116 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
8118 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
8121 Copyright information:
8123 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8125 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8126 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8127 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8128 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8130 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8131 of this document, or of portions of it,
8132 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8133 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8138 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"