1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
8 Changes in 2.0.6 (since 2.0.5):
12 ** New optimization pass: common subexpression elimination (CSE)
14 Guile's optimizer will now run a CSE pass after partial evaluation.
15 This pass propagates static information about branches taken, bound
16 lexicals, and effects from an expression's dominators. It can replace
17 common subexpressions with their boolean values (potentially enabling
18 dead code elimination), equivalent bound lexicals, or it can elide them
19 entirely, depending on the context in which they are executed. This
20 pass is especially useful in removing duplicate type checks, such as
21 those produced by SRFI-9 record accessors.
23 ** Improvements to the partial evaluator
25 Peval can now hoist tests that are common to both branches of a
26 conditional into the test. This can help with long chains of
27 conditionals, such as those generated by the `match' macro. Peval can
28 now do simple beta-reductions of procedures with rest arguments. It
29 also avoids residualizing degenerate lexical aliases, even when full
30 inlining is not possible. Finally, peval now uses the effects analysis
31 introduced for the CSE pass. More precise effects analysis allows peval
34 ** Run finalizers asynchronously in asyncs
36 Finalizers are now run asynchronously, via an async. See Asyncs in the
37 manual. This allows Guile and user code to safely allocate memory while
40 ** Update SRFI-14 character sets to Unicode 6.1
42 Note that this update causes the Latin-1 characters `§' and `¶' to be
43 reclassified as punctuation. They were previously considered to be part
46 ** Better source information for datums
48 When the `positions' reader option is on, as it is by default, Guile's
49 reader will record source information for more kinds of datums.
51 ** Improved error and warning messages
53 `syntax-violation' errors now prefer `subform' for source info, with
54 `form' as fallback. Syntactic errors in `cond' and `case' now produce
55 better errors. `case' can now warn on duplicate datums, or datums that
56 cannot be usefully compared with `eqv?'. `-Warity-mismatch' now handles
57 applicable structs. `-Wformat' is more robust in the presence of
58 `gettext'. Finally, various exceptions thrown by the Web modules now
59 define appropriate exception printers.
61 ** A few important bug fixes in the HTTP modules.
63 Guile's web server framework now checks if an application returns a body
64 where it is not permitted, for example in response to a HEAD request,
65 and warn or truncate the response as appropriate. Bad requests now
66 cause a 400 Bad Request response to be printed before closing the port.
67 Finally, some date-printing and URL-parsing bugs were fixed.
69 ** Pretty-print improvements
71 When Guile needs to pretty-print Tree-IL, it will try to reconstruct
72 `cond', `or`, and other derived syntax forms from the primitive tree-IL
73 forms. It also uses the original names instead of the fresh unique
74 names, when it is unambiguous to do so. This can be seen in the output
75 of REPL commands like `,optimize'.
77 Also, the `pretty-print' procedure has a new keyword argument,
80 ** Fix memory leak involving applicable SMOBs
82 At some point in the 1.9.x series, Guile began leaking any applicable
83 SMOB that was actually applied. (There was a weak-key map from SMOB to
84 trampoline functions, where the value had a strong reference on the
85 key.) This has been fixed. There was much rejoicing!
87 ** Support for HTTP/1.1 chunked transfer coding
89 See "Transfer Codings" in the manual, for more.
91 ** Micro-optimizations
93 A pile of micro-optimizations: the `string-trim' function when called
94 with `char-set:whitespace'; the `(web http)' parsers; SMOB application;
95 conversion of raw UTF-8 and UTF-32 data to and from SCM strings; vlists
96 and vhashes; `read' when processing string literals.
98 ** Incompatible change to `scandir'
100 As was the original intention, `scandir' now runs the `select?'
101 procedure on all items, including subdirectories and the `.' and `..'
102 entries. It receives the basename of the file in question instead of
103 the full name. We apologize for this incompatible change to this
104 function introduced in the 2.0.4 release.
108 The manual has been made much more consistent in its naming conventions
109 with regards to formal parameters of functions. Thanks to Bake Timmons.
113 ** New C function: `scm_to_pointer'
114 ** New C inline functions: `scm_new_smob', `scm_new_double_smob'
115 ** (ice-9 format): Add ~h specifier for localized number output.
116 ** (web response): New procedure: `response-must-not-include-body?'
117 ** New predicate: 'supports-source-properties?'
118 ** New C helpers: `scm_c_values', `scm_c_nvalues'
119 ** Newly public inline C function: `scm_unget_byte'
120 ** (language tree-il): New functions: `tree-il=?', `tree-il-hash'
121 ** New fluid: `%default-port-conversion-strategy'
122 ** New syntax: `=>' within `case'
123 ** (web http): `make-chunked-input-port', `make-chunked-output-port'
124 ** (web http): `declare-opaque-header!'
126 Search the manual for these identifiers, for more information.
130 ** `close-io-port' deprecated
134 ** `scm_sym2var' deprecated
136 In most cases, replace with `scm_lookup' or `scm_module_variable'. Use
137 `scm_define' or `scm_module_ensure_local_variable' if the second
138 argument is nonzero. See "Accessing Modules from C" in the manual, for
141 ** Lookup closures deprecated
143 These were never documented. See "Module System Reflection" in the
144 manual for replacements.
148 ** Fix compilation against uninstalled Guile on non-GNU platforms.
149 ** Fix `SCM_I_ERROR' definition for MinGW without networking.
150 ** Fix compilation with the Sun C compiler.
151 ** Fix check for `clock_gettime' on OpenBSD and some other systems.
152 ** Fix build with --enable-debug-malloc.
153 ** Honor $(program_transform_name) for the `guile-tools' symlink.
154 ** Fix cross-compilation of GOOPS-using code.
158 ** Fix use of unitialized stat buffer in search-path of absolute paths.
159 ** Avoid calling `freelocale' with a NULL argument.
160 ** Work around erroneous tr_TR locale in Darwin 8 in tests.
161 ** Fix `getaddrinfo' test for Darwin 8.
162 ** Use Gnulib's `regex' module for better regex portability.
163 ** `source-properties' and friends work on any object
164 ** Rewrite open-process in C, for robustness related to threads and fork
165 ** Fix <TAG>vector-length when applied to other uniform vector types
166 ** Fix escape-only prompt optimization (was disabled previously)
167 ** Fix a segfault when /dev/urandom is not accessible
168 ** Fix flush on soft ports, so that it actually runs.
169 ** Better compatibility of SRFI-9 records with core records
170 ** Fix and clarify documentation of `sorted?'.
171 ** Fix IEEE-754 endianness conversion in bytevectors.
172 ** Correct thunk check in the `wind' instruction.
173 ** Add @acronym support to texinfo modules
174 ** Fix docbook->texi for <ulink> without URL
175 ** Fix `setvbuf' to leave the line/column number unchanged.
176 ** Add missing public declaration for `scm_take_from_input_buffers'.
177 ** Fix relative file name canonicalization with empty %LOAD-PATH entries.
178 ** Import newer (ice-9 match) from Chibi-Scheme.
179 ** Fix unbound variables and unbound values in ECMAScript runtime.
180 ** Make SRFI-6 string ports Unicode-capable.
183 Changes in 2.0.5 (since 2.0.4):
185 This release fixes the binary interface information (SONAME) of
186 libguile, which was incorrect in 2.0.4. It does not contain other
190 Changes in 2.0.4 (since 2.0.3):
194 ** Better debuggability for interpreted procedures.
196 Guile 2.0 came with a great debugging experience for compiled
197 procedures, but the story for interpreted procedures was terrible. Now,
198 at least, interpreted procedures have names, and the `arity' procedure
199 property is always correct (or, as correct as it can be, in the presence
202 ** Support for cross-compilation.
204 One can now use a native Guile to cross-compile `.go' files for a
205 different architecture. See the documentation for `--target' in the
206 "Compilation" section of the manual, for information on how to use the
207 cross-compiler. See the "Cross building Guile" section of the README,
208 for more on how to cross-compile Guile itself.
210 ** The return of `local-eval'.
212 Back by popular demand, `the-environment' and `local-eval' allow the
213 user to capture a lexical environment, and then evaluate arbitrary
214 expressions in that context. There is also a new `local-compile'
215 command. See "Local Evaluation" in the manual, for more. Special
216 thanks to Mark Weaver for an initial implementation of this feature.
218 ** Fluids can now have default values.
220 Fluids are used for dynamic and thread-local binding. They have always
221 inherited their values from the context or thread that created them.
222 However, there was a case in which a new thread would enter Guile, and
223 the default values of all the fluids would be `#f' for that thread.
225 This has now been fixed so that `make-fluid' has an optional default
226 value for fluids in unrelated dynamic roots, which defaults to `#f'.
228 ** Garbage collector tuning.
230 The garbage collector has now been tuned to run more often under some
233 *** Unmanaged allocation
235 The new `scm_gc_register_allocation' function will notify the collector
236 of unmanaged allocation. This will cause the collector to run sooner.
237 Guile's `scm_malloc', `scm_calloc', and `scm_realloc' unmanaged
238 allocators eventually call this function. This leads to better
239 performance under steady-state unmanaged allocation.
241 *** Transient allocation
243 When the collector runs, it will try to record the total memory
244 footprint of a process, if the platform supports this information. If
245 the memory footprint is growing, the collector will run more frequently.
246 This reduces the increase of the resident size of a process in response
247 to a transient increase in allocation.
249 *** Management of threads, bignums
251 Creating a thread will allocate a fair amount of memory. Guile now does
252 some GC work (using `GC_collect_a_little') when allocating a thread.
253 This leads to a better memory footprint when creating many short-lived
256 Similarly, bignums can occupy a lot of memory. Guile now offers hooks
257 to enable custom GMP allocators that end up calling
258 `scm_gc_register_allocation'. These allocators are enabled by default
259 when running Guile from the command-line. To enable them in libraries,
260 set the `scm_install_gmp_memory_functions' variable to a nonzero value
261 before loading Guile.
263 ** SRFI-39 parameters are available by default.
265 Guile now includes support for parameters, as defined by SRFI-39, in the
266 default environment. See "Parameters" in the manual, for more
267 information. `current-input-port', `current-output-port', and
268 `current-error-port' are now parameters.
270 ** Add `current-warning-port'.
272 Guile now outputs warnings on a separate port, `current-warning-port',
273 initialized to the value that `current-error-port' has on startup.
275 ** Syntax parameters.
277 Following Racket's lead, Guile now supports syntax parameters. See
278 "Syntax parameters" in the manual, for more.
280 Also see Barzilay, Culpepper, and Flatt's 2011 SFP workshop paper,
281 "Keeping it Clean with syntax-parameterize".
283 ** Parse command-line arguments from the locale encoding.
285 Guile now attempts to parse command-line arguments using the user's
286 locale. However for backwards compatibility with other 2.0.x releases,
287 it does so without actually calling `setlocale'. Please report any bugs
288 in this facility to bug-guile@gnu.org.
290 ** One-armed conditionals: `when' and `unless'
292 Guile finally has `when' and `unless' in the default environment. Use
293 them whenever you would use an `if' with only one branch. See
294 "Conditionals" in the manual, for more.
296 ** `current-filename', `add-to-load-path'
298 There is a new form, `(current-filename)', which expands out to the
299 source file in which it occurs. Combined with the new
300 `add-to-load-path', this allows simple scripts to easily add nearby
301 directories to the load path. See "Load Paths" in the manual, for more.
303 ** `random-state-from-platform'
305 This procedure initializes a random seed using good random sources
306 available on your platform, such as /dev/urandom. See "Random Number
307 Generation" in the manual, for more.
309 ** Warn about unsupported `simple-format' options.
311 The `-Wformat' compilation option now reports unsupported format options
312 passed to `simple-format'.
316 Besides the sections already mentioned, the following manual sections
317 are new in this release: "Modules and the File System", "Module System
318 Reflection", "Syntax Transformer Helpers", and "Local Inclusion".
322 ** (ice-9 session): `apropos-hook'
323 ** New print option: `escape-newlines', defaults to #t.
324 ** (ice-9 ftw): `file-system-fold', `file-system-tree', `scandir'
325 ** `scm_c_value_ref': access to multiple returned values from C
326 ** scm_call (a varargs version), scm_call_7, scm_call_8, scm_call_9
327 ** Some new syntax helpers in (system syntax)
329 Search the manual for these identifiers and modules, for more.
333 ** FreeBSD build fixes.
334 ** OpenBSD compilation fixes.
335 ** Solaris 2.10 test suite fixes.
336 ** IA64 compilation fix.
337 ** MinGW build fixes.
338 ** Work around instruction reordering on SPARC and HPPA in the VM.
339 ** Gnulib updates: added `dirfd', `setenv' modules.
343 ** Add a deprecated alias for $expt.
344 ** Add an exception printer for `getaddrinfo-error'.
345 ** Add deprecated shim for `scm_display_error' with stack as first argument.
346 ** Add warnings for unsupported `simple-format' options.
347 ** Allow overlapping regions to be passed to `bytevector-copy!'.
348 ** Better function prologue disassembly
349 ** Compiler: fix miscompilation of (values foo ...) in some contexts.
350 ** Compiler: fix serialization of #nil-terminated lists.
351 ** Compiler: allow values bound in non-tail let expressions to be collected.
352 ** Deprecate SCM_ASRTGO.
353 ** Document invalidity of (begin) as expression; add back-compat shim.
354 ** Don't leak file descriptors when mmaping objcode.
355 ** Empty substrings no longer reference the original stringbuf.
356 ** FFI: Fix `set-pointer-finalizer!' to leave the type cell unchanged.
357 ** FFI: Hold a weak reference to the CIF made by `procedure->pointer'.
358 ** FFI: Hold a weak reference to the procedure passed to `procedure->pointer'.
359 ** FFI: Properly unpack small integer return values in closure call.
360 ** Fix R6RS `fold-left' so the accumulator is the first argument.
361 ** Fix bit-set*! bug from 2005.
362 ** Fix bug in `make-repl' when `lang' is actually a <language>.
363 ** Fix bugs related to mutation, the null string, and shared substrings.
364 ** Fix <dynwind> serialization.
365 ** Fix erroneous check in `set-procedure-properties!'.
366 ** Fix generalized-vector-{ref,set!} for slices.
367 ** Fix error messages involving definition forms.
368 ** Fix primitive-eval to return #<unspecified> for definitions.
369 ** HTTP: Extend handling of "Cache-Control" header.
370 ** HTTP: Fix qstring writing of cache-extension values
371 ** HTTP: Fix validators for various list-style headers.
372 ** HTTP: Permit non-date values for Expires header.
373 ** HTTP: `write-request-line' writes absolute paths, not absolute URIs.
374 ** Hack the port-column of current-output-port after printing a prompt.
375 ** Make sure `regexp-quote' tests use Unicode-capable string ports.
376 ** Peval: Fix bugs in the new optimizer.
377 ** Statistically unique marks and labels, for robust hygiene across sessions.
378 ** Web: Allow URIs with empty authorities, like "file:///etc/hosts".
379 ** `,language' at REPL sets the current-language fluid.
380 ** `primitive-load' returns the value(s) of the last expression.
381 ** `scm_from_stringn' always returns unique strings.
382 ** `scm_i_substring_copy' tries to narrow the substring.
383 ** i18n: Fix gc_malloc/free mismatch on non-GNU systems.
386 Changes in 2.0.3 (since 2.0.2):
390 ** Guile has a new optimizer, `peval'.
392 `Peval' is a partial evaluator that performs constant folding, dead code
393 elimination, copy propagation, and inlining. By default it runs on
394 every piece of code that Guile compiles, to fold computations that can
395 happen at compile-time, so they don't have to happen at runtime.
397 If we did our job right, the only impact you would see would be your
398 programs getting faster. But if you notice slowdowns or bloated code,
399 please send a mail to bug-guile@gnu.org with details.
401 Thanks to William R. Cook, Oscar Waddell, and Kent Dybvig for inspiring
402 peval and its implementation.
404 You can see what peval does on a given piece of code by running the new
405 `,optimize' REPL meta-command, and comparing it to the output of
406 `,expand'. See "Compile Commands" in the manual, for more.
408 ** Fewer calls to `stat'.
410 Guile now stats only the .go file and the .scm file when loading a fresh
415 ** New module: `(web client)', a simple synchronous web client.
417 See "Web Client" in the manual, for more.
419 ** Users can now install compiled `.go' files.
421 See "Installing Site Packages" in the manual.
423 ** Remove Front-Cover and Back-Cover text from the manual.
425 The manual is still under the GNU Free Documentation License, but no
426 longer has any invariant sections.
428 ** More helpful `guild help'.
430 `guild' is Guile's multi-tool, for use in shell scripting. Now it has a
431 nicer interface for querying the set of existing commands, and getting
432 help on those commands. Try it out and see!
434 ** New macro: `define-syntax-rule'
436 `define-syntax-rule' is a shorthand to make a `syntax-rules' macro with
437 one clause. See "Syntax Rules" in the manual, for more.
439 ** The `,time' REPL meta-command now has more precision.
441 The output of this command now has microsecond precision, instead of
442 10-millisecond precision.
444 ** `(ice-9 match)' can now match records.
446 See "Pattern Matching" in the manual, for more on matching records.
448 ** New module: `(language tree-il debug)'.
450 This module provides a tree-il verifier. This is useful for people that
451 generate tree-il, usually as part of a language compiler.
453 ** New functions: `scm_is_exact', `scm_is_inexact'.
455 These provide a nice C interface for Scheme's `exact?' and `inexact?',
460 See the git log (or the ChangeLog) for more details on these bugs.
462 ** Fix order of importing modules and resolving duplicates handlers.
463 ** Fix a number of bugs involving extended (merged) generics.
464 ** Fix invocation of merge-generics duplicate handler.
465 ** Fix write beyond array end in arrays.c.
466 ** Fix read beyond end of hashtable size array in hashtab.c.
467 ** (web http): Locale-independent parsing and serialization of dates.
468 ** Ensure presence of Host header in HTTP/1.1 requests.
469 ** Fix take-right and drop-right for improper lists.
470 ** Fix leak in get_current_locale().
471 ** Fix recursive define-inlinable expansions.
472 ** Check that srfi-1 procedure arguments are procedures.
473 ** Fix r6rs `map' for multiple returns.
474 ** Fix scm_tmpfile leak on POSIX platforms.
475 ** Fix a couple of leaks (objcode->bytecode, make-boot-program).
476 ** Fix guile-lib back-compatibility for module-stexi-documentation.
477 ** Fix --listen option to allow other ports.
478 ** Fix scm_to_latin1_stringn for substrings.
479 ** Fix compilation of untyped arrays of rank not 1.
480 ** Fix unparse-tree-il of <dynset>.
481 ** Fix reading of #||||#.
482 ** Fix segfault in GOOPS when class fields are redefined.
483 ** Prefer poll(2) over select(2) to allow file descriptors above FD_SETSIZE.
486 Changes in 2.0.2 (since 2.0.1):
490 ** `guile-tools' renamed to `guild'
492 The new name is shorter. Its intended future use is for a CPAN-like
493 system for Guile wizards and journeyfolk to band together to share code;
494 hence the name. `guile-tools' is provided as a backward-compatible
495 symbolic link. See "Using Guile Tools" in the manual, for more.
497 ** New control operators: `shift' and `reset'
499 See "Shift and Reset" in the manual, for more information.
501 ** `while' as an expression
503 Previously the return value of `while' was unspecified. Now its
504 values are specified both in the case of normal termination, and via
505 termination by invoking `break', possibly with arguments. See "while
506 do" in the manual for more.
508 ** Disallow access to handles of weak hash tables
510 `hash-get-handle' and `hash-create-handle!' are no longer permitted to
511 be called on weak hash tables, because the fields in a weak handle could
512 be nulled out by the garbage collector at any time, but yet they are
513 otherwise indistinguishable from pairs. Use `hash-ref' and `hash-set!'
516 ** More precision for `get-internal-run-time', `get-internal-real-time'
518 On 64-bit systems which support POSIX clocks, Guile's internal timing
519 procedures offer nanosecond resolution instead of the 10-millisecond
520 resolution previously available. 32-bit systems now use 1-millisecond
523 ** Guile now measures time spent in GC
525 `gc-stats' now returns a meaningful value for `gc-time-taken'.
529 The statprof profiler now exports a `gcprof' procedure, driven by the
530 `after-gc-hook', to see which parts of your program are causing GC. Let
531 us know if you find it useful.
533 ** `map', `for-each' and some others now implemented in Scheme
535 We would not mention this in NEWS, as it is not a user-visible change,
536 if it were not for one thing: `map' and `for-each' are no longer
537 primitive generics. Instead they are normal bindings, which can be
538 wrapped by normal generics. This fixes some modularity issues between
539 core `map', SRFI-1 `map', and GOOPS.
541 Also it's pretty cool that we can do this without a performance impact.
543 ** Add `scm_peek_byte_or_eof'.
545 This helper is like `scm_peek_char_or_eof', but for bytes instead of
548 ** Implement #:stop-at-first-non-option option for getopt-long
550 See "getopt-long Reference" in the manual, for more information.
552 ** Improve R6RS conformance for conditions in the I/O libraries
554 The `(rnrs io simple)' module now raises the correct R6RS conditions in
555 error cases. `(rnrs io ports)' is also more correct now, though it is
556 still a work in progress.
558 ** All deprecated routines emit warnings
560 A few deprecated routines were lacking deprecation warnings. This has
565 ** Constants in compiled code now share state better
567 Constants with shared state, like `("foo")' and `"foo"', now share state
568 as much as possible, in the entire compilation unit. This cuts compiled
569 `.go' file sizes in half, generally, and speeds startup.
571 ** VLists: optimize `vlist-fold-right', and add `vhash-fold-right'
573 These procedures are now twice as fast as they were.
575 ** UTF-8 ports to bypass `iconv' entirely
577 This reduces memory usage in a very common case.
581 The compiler is now about 40% faster. (Note that this is only the case
582 once the compiler is itself compiled, so the build still takes as long
587 Some assertions that were mostly useful for sanity-checks on the
588 bytecode compiler are now off for both "regular" and "debug" engines.
589 This together with a fix to cache a TLS access and some other tweaks
590 improve the VM's performance by about 20%.
592 ** SRFI-1 list-set optimizations
594 lset-adjoin and lset-union now have fast paths for eq? sets.
596 ** `memq', `memv' optimizations
598 These procedures are now at least twice as fast than in 2.0.1.
602 ** Deprecate scm_whash API
604 `scm_whash_get_handle', `SCM_WHASHFOUNDP', `SCM_WHASHREF',
605 `SCM_WHASHSET', `scm_whash_create_handle', `scm_whash_lookup', and
606 `scm_whash_insert' are now deprecated. Use the normal hash table API
609 ** Deprecate scm_struct_table
611 `SCM_STRUCT_TABLE_NAME', `SCM_SET_STRUCT_TABLE_NAME',
612 `SCM_STRUCT_TABLE_CLASS', `SCM_SET_STRUCT_TABLE_CLASS',
613 `scm_struct_table', and `scm_struct_create_handle' are now deprecated.
614 These routines formed part of the internals of the map between structs
617 ** Deprecate scm_internal_dynamic_wind
619 The `scm_t_inner' type and `scm_internal_dynamic_wind' are deprecated,
620 as the `scm_dynwind' API is better, and this API encourages users to
621 stuff SCM values into pointers.
623 ** Deprecate scm_immutable_cell, scm_immutable_double_cell
625 These routines are deprecated, as the GC_STUBBORN API doesn't do
630 Andreas Rottman kindly transcribed the missing parts of the `(rnrs io
631 ports)' documentation from the R6RS documentation. Thanks Andreas!
635 ** Fix double-loading of script in -ds case
636 ** -x error message fix
637 ** iconveh-related cross-compilation fixes
638 ** Fix small integer return value packing on big endian machines.
639 ** Fix hash-set! in weak-value table from non-immediate to immediate
640 ** Fix call-with-input-file & relatives for multiple values
641 ** Fix `hash' for inf and nan
642 ** Fix libguile internal type errors caught by typing-strictness==2
643 ** Fix compile error in MinGW fstat socket detection
644 ** Fix generation of auto-compiled file names on MinGW
645 ** Fix multithreaded access to internal hash tables
646 ** Emit a 1-based line number in error messages
647 ** Fix define-module ordering
648 ** Fix several POSIX functions to use the locale encoding
649 ** Add type and range checks to the complex generalized vector accessors
650 ** Fix unaligned accesses for bytevectors of complex numbers
652 ** Fix erroneous VM stack overflow for canceled threads
655 Changes in 2.0.1 (since 2.0.0):
659 ** guile.m4 supports linking with rpath
661 The GUILE_FLAGS macro now sets GUILE_LIBS and GUILE_LTLIBS, which
662 include appropriate directives to the linker to include libguile-2.0.so
663 in the runtime library lookup path.
665 ** `begin' expands macros in its body before other expressions
667 This enables support for programs like the following:
672 (or (= x 0) (odd? (- x 1)))))
675 ((odd? x) (not (even? x)))))
678 ** REPL reader usability enhancements
680 The REPL now flushes input after a read error, which should prevent one
681 error from causing other errors. The REPL also now interprets comments
684 ** REPL output has configurable width
686 The REPL now defaults to output with the current terminal's width, in
687 columns. See "Debug Commands" in the manual for more information on
690 ** Better C access to the module system
692 Guile now has convenient C accessors to look up variables or values in
693 modules and their public interfaces. See `scm_c_public_ref' and friends
694 in "Accessing Modules from C" in the manual.
696 ** Added `scm_call_5', `scm_call_6'
698 See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
700 ** Added `scm_from_latin1_keyword', `scm_from_utf8_keyword'
702 See "Keyword Procedures" in the manual, for more. Note that
703 `scm_from_locale_keyword' should not be used when the name is a C string
706 ** R6RS unicode and string I/O work
708 Added efficient implementations of `get-string-n' and `get-string-n!'
709 for binary ports. Exported `current-input-port', `current-output-port'
710 and `current-error-port' from `(rnrs io ports)', and enhanced support
713 ** Added `pointer->scm', `scm->pointer' to `(system foreign)'
715 These procedure are useful if one needs to pass and receive SCM values
716 to and from foreign functions. See "Foreign Variables" in the manual,
719 ** Added `heap-allocated-since-gc' to `(gc-stats)'
721 Also fixed the long-standing bug in the REPL `,stat' command.
723 ** Add `on-error' REPL option
725 This option controls what happens when an error occurs at the REPL, and
726 defaults to `debug', indicating that Guile should enter the debugger.
727 Other values include `report', which will simply print a backtrace
728 without entering the debugger. See "System Commands" in the manual.
730 ** Enforce immutability of string literals
732 Attempting to mutate a string literal now causes a runtime error.
734 ** Fix pthread redirection
736 Guile 2.0.0 shipped with headers that, if configured with pthread
737 support, would re-define `pthread_create', `pthread_join', and other API
738 to redirect to the BDW-GC wrappers, `GC_pthread_create', etc. This was
739 unintended, and not necessary: because threads must enter Guile with
740 `scm_with_guile', Guile can handle thread registration itself, without
741 needing to make the GC aware of all threads. This oversight has been
744 ** `with-continuation-barrier' now unwinds on `quit'
746 A throw to `quit' in a continuation barrier will cause Guile to exit.
747 Before, it would do so before unwinding to the barrier, which would
748 prevent cleanup handlers from running. This has been fixed so that it
749 exits only after unwinding.
751 ** `string->pointer' and `pointer->string' have optional encoding arg
753 This allows users of the FFI to more easily deal in strings with
754 particular (non-locale) encodings, like "utf-8". See "Void Pointers and
755 Byte Access" in the manual, for more.
757 ** R6RS fixnum arithmetic optimizations
759 R6RS fixnum operations are are still slower than generic arithmetic,
762 ** New procedure: `define-inlinable'
764 See "Inlinable Procedures" in the manual, for more.
766 ** New procedure: `exact-integer-sqrt'
768 See "Integer Operations" in the manual, for more.
770 ** "Extended read syntax" for symbols parses better
772 In #{foo}# symbols, backslashes are now treated as escapes, as the
773 symbol-printing code intended. Additionally, "\x" within #{foo}# is now
774 interpreted as starting an R6RS hex escape. This is backward compatible
775 because the symbol printer would never produce a "\x" before. The
776 printer also works better too.
778 ** Added `--fresh-auto-compile' option
780 This allows a user to invalidate the auto-compilation cache. It's
781 usually not needed. See "Compilation" in the manual, for a discussion.
785 ** GOOPS documentation updates
789 Thanks to Mark Harig for improvements to guile.1.
791 ** SRFI-23 documented
793 The humble `error' SRFI now has an entry in the manual.
797 ** `(ice-9 binary-ports)': "R6RS I/O Ports", in the manual
798 ** `(ice-9 eval-string)': "Fly Evaluation", in the manual
799 ** `(ice-9 command-line)', not documented yet
803 ** Fixed `iconv_t' memory leak on close-port
804 ** Fixed some leaks with weak hash tables
805 ** Export `vhash-delq' and `vhash-delv' from `(ice-9 vlist)'
806 ** `after-gc-hook' works again
807 ** `define-record-type' now allowed in nested contexts
808 ** `exact-integer-sqrt' now handles large integers correctly
809 ** Fixed C extension examples in manual
810 ** `vhash-delete' honors HASH argument
811 ** Make `locale-digit-grouping' more robust
812 ** Default exception printer robustness fixes
813 ** Fix presence of non-I CPPFLAGS in `guile-2.0.pc'
814 ** `read' updates line/column numbers when reading SCSH block comments
815 ** Fix imports of multiple custom interfaces of same module
816 ** Fix encoding scanning for non-seekable ports
817 ** Fix `setter' when called with a non-setter generic
818 ** Fix f32 and f64 bytevectors to not accept rationals
819 ** Fix description of the R6RS `finite?' in manual
820 ** Quotient, remainder and modulo accept inexact integers again
821 ** Fix `continue' within `while' to take zero arguments
822 ** Fix alignment for structures in FFI
823 ** Fix port-filename of stdin, stdout, stderr to match the docs
824 ** Fix weak hash table-related bug in `define-wrapped-pointer-type'
825 ** Fix partial continuation application with pending procedure calls
826 ** scm_{to,from}_locale_string use current locale, not current ports
827 ** Fix thread cleanup, by using a pthread_key destructor
828 ** Fix `quit' at the REPL
829 ** Fix a failure to sync regs in vm bytevector ops
830 ** Fix (texinfo reflection) to handle nested structures like syntax patterns
831 ** Fix stexi->html double translation
832 ** Fix tree-il->scheme fix for <prompt>
833 ** Fix compilation of <prompt> in <fix> in single-value context
834 ** Fix race condition in ensure-writable-dir
835 ** Fix error message on ,disassemble "non-procedure"
836 ** Fix prompt and abort with the boot evaluator
837 ** Fix `procedure->pointer' for functions returning `void'
838 ** Fix error reporting in dynamic-pointer
839 ** Fix problems detecting coding: in block comments
840 ** Fix duplicate load-path and load-compiled-path in compilation environment
841 ** Add fallback read(2) suppport for .go files if mmap(2) unavailable
842 ** Fix c32vector-set!, c64vector-set!
843 ** Fix mistakenly deprecated read syntax for uniform complex vectors
844 ** Fix parsing of exact numbers with negative exponents
845 ** Ignore SIGPIPE in (system repl server)
846 ** Fix optional second arg to R6RS log function
847 ** Fix R6RS `assert' to return true value.
848 ** Fix fencepost error when seeking in bytevector input ports
849 ** Gracefully handle `setlocale' errors when starting the REPL
850 ** Improve support of the `--disable-posix' configure option
851 ** Make sure R6RS binary ports pass `binary-port?' regardless of the locale
852 ** Gracefully handle unterminated UTF-8 sequences instead of hitting an `assert'
856 Changes in 2.0.0 (changes since the 1.8.x series):
858 * New modules (see the manual for details)
860 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
861 ** `(srfi srfi-27)', sources of random bits
862 ** `(srfi srfi-38)', External Representation for Data With Shared Structure
863 ** `(srfi srfi-42)', eager comprehensions
864 ** `(srfi srfi-45)', primitives for expressing iterative lazy algorithms
865 ** `(srfi srfi-67)', compare procedures
866 ** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
867 ** `(ice-9 futures)', fine-grain parallelism
868 ** `(rnrs bytevectors)', the R6RS bytevector API
869 ** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
870 ** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
871 ** `(ice-9 vlist)', lists with constant-time random access; hash lists
872 ** `(system foreign)', foreign function interface
873 ** `(sxml match)', a pattern matcher for SXML
874 ** `(srfi srfi-9 gnu)', extensions to the SRFI-9 record library
875 ** `(system vm coverage)', a line-by-line code coverage library
876 ** `(web uri)', URI data type, parser, and unparser
877 ** `(web http)', HTTP header parsers and unparsers
878 ** `(web request)', HTTP request data type, reader, and writer
879 ** `(web response)', HTTP response data type, reader, and writer
880 ** `(web server)', Generic HTTP server
881 ** `(ice-9 poll)', a poll wrapper
882 ** `(web server http)', HTTP-over-TCP web server implementation
884 ** Replaced `(ice-9 match)' with Alex Shinn's compatible, hygienic matcher.
886 Guile's copy of Andrew K. Wright's `match' library has been replaced by
887 a compatible hygienic implementation by Alex Shinn. It is now
888 documented, see "Pattern Matching" in the manual.
890 Compared to Andrew K. Wright's `match', the new `match' lacks
891 `match-define', `match:error-control', `match:set-error-control',
892 `match:error', `match:set-error', and all structure-related procedures.
894 ** Imported statprof, SSAX, and texinfo modules from Guile-Lib
896 The statprof statistical profiler, the SSAX XML toolkit, and the texinfo
897 toolkit from Guile-Lib have been imported into Guile proper. See
898 "Standard Library" in the manual for more details.
900 ** Integration of lalr-scm, a parser generator
902 Guile has included Dominique Boucher's fine `lalr-scm' parser generator
903 as `(system base lalr)'. See "LALR(1) Parsing" in the manual, for more
906 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
908 ** Guile now can compile Scheme to bytecode for a custom virtual machine.
910 Compiled code loads much faster than Scheme source code, and runs around
911 3 or 4 times as fast, generating much less garbage in the process.
913 ** Evaluating Scheme code does not use the C stack.
915 Besides when compiling Guile itself, Guile no longer uses a recursive C
916 function as an evaluator. This obviates the need to check the C stack
917 pointer for overflow. Continuations still capture the C stack, however.
919 ** New environment variables: GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH,
920 GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH
922 GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is for compiled files what GUILE_LOAD_PATH is
923 for source files. It is a different path, however, because compiled
924 files are architecture-specific. GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is like
927 ** New read-eval-print loop (REPL) implementation
929 Running Guile with no arguments drops the user into the new REPL. See
930 "Using Guile Interactively" in the manual, for more information.
932 ** Remove old Emacs interface
934 Guile had an unused `--emacs' command line argument that was supposed to
935 help when running Guile inside Emacs. This option has been removed, and
936 the helper functions `named-module-use!' and `load-emacs-interface' have
939 ** Add `(system repl server)' module and `--listen' command-line argument
941 The `(system repl server)' module exposes procedures to listen on
942 sockets for connections, and serve REPLs to those clients. The --listen
943 command-line argument allows any Guile program to thus be remotely
946 See "Invoking Guile" for more information on `--listen'.
948 ** Command line additions
950 The guile binary now supports a new switch "-x", which can be used to
951 extend the list of filename extensions tried when loading files
954 ** New reader options: `square-brackets', `r6rs-hex-escapes',
957 The reader supports a new option (changeable via `read-options'),
958 `square-brackets', which instructs it to interpret square brackets as
959 parentheses. This option is on by default.
961 When the new `r6rs-hex-escapes' reader option is enabled, the reader
962 will recognize string escape sequences as defined in R6RS. R6RS string
963 escape sequences are incompatible with Guile's existing escapes, though,
964 so this option is off by default.
966 Additionally, Guile follows the R6RS newline escaping rules when the
967 `hungry-eol-escapes' option is enabled.
969 See "String Syntax" in the manual, for more information.
971 ** Function profiling and tracing at the REPL
973 The `,profile FORM' REPL meta-command can now be used to statistically
974 profile execution of a form, to see which functions are taking the most
975 time. See `,help profile' for more information.
977 Similarly, `,trace FORM' traces all function applications that occur
978 during the execution of `FORM'. See `,help trace' for more information.
980 ** Recursive debugging REPL on error
982 When Guile sees an error at the REPL, instead of saving the stack, Guile
983 will directly enter a recursive REPL in the dynamic context of the
984 error. See "Error Handling" in the manual, for more information.
986 A recursive REPL is the same as any other REPL, except that it
987 has been augmented with debugging information, so that one can inspect
988 the context of the error. The debugger has been integrated with the REPL
989 via a set of debugging meta-commands.
991 For example, one may access a backtrace with `,backtrace' (or
992 `,bt'). See "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for more
995 ** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
997 Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
1000 ** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
1002 Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
1003 `/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
1004 include `/path/to/lib'.
1006 ** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
1008 Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
1011 ** Load path change: search in version-specific paths before site paths
1013 When looking for a module, Guile now searches first in Guile's
1014 version-specific path (the library path), *then* in the site dir. This
1015 allows Guile's copy of SSAX to override any Guile-Lib copy the user has
1016 installed. Also it should cut the number of `stat' system calls by half,
1019 ** Value history in the REPL on by default
1021 By default, the REPL will save computed values in variables like `$1',
1022 `$2', and the like. There are programmatic and interactive interfaces to
1023 control this. See "Value History" in the manual, for more information.
1025 ** Readline tab completion for arguments
1027 When readline is enabled, tab completion works for arguments too, not
1028 just for the operator position.
1030 ** Expression-oriented readline history
1032 Guile's readline history now tries to operate on expressions instead of
1033 input lines. Let us know what you think!
1035 ** Interactive Guile follows GNU conventions
1037 As recommended by the GPL, Guile now shows a brief copyright and
1038 warranty disclaimer on startup, along with pointers to more information.
1040 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1042 ** Support for R6RS libraries
1044 The `library' and `import' forms from the latest Scheme report have been
1045 added to Guile, in such a way that R6RS libraries share a namespace with
1046 Guile modules. R6RS modules may import Guile modules, and are available
1047 for Guile modules to import via use-modules and all the rest. See "R6RS
1048 Libraries" in the manual for more information.
1050 ** Implementations of R6RS libraries
1052 Guile now has implementations for all of the libraries defined in the
1053 R6RS. Thanks to Julian Graham for this excellent hack. See "R6RS
1054 Standard Libraries" in the manual for a full list of libraries.
1056 ** Partial R6RS compatibility
1058 Guile now has enough support for R6RS to run a reasonably large subset
1061 Guile is not fully R6RS compatible. Many incompatibilities are simply
1062 bugs, though some parts of Guile will remain R6RS-incompatible for the
1063 foreseeable future. See "R6RS Incompatibilities" in the manual, for more
1066 Please contact bug-guile@gnu.org if you have found an issue not
1067 mentioned in that compatibility list.
1069 ** New implementation of `primitive-eval'
1071 Guile's `primitive-eval' is now implemented in Scheme. Actually there is
1072 still a C evaluator, used when building a fresh Guile to interpret the
1073 compiler, so we can compile eval.scm. Thereafter all calls to
1074 primitive-eval are implemented by VM-compiled code.
1076 This allows all of Guile's procedures, be they interpreted or compiled,
1077 to execute on the same stack, unifying multiple-value return semantics,
1078 providing for proper tail recursion between interpreted and compiled
1079 code, and simplifying debugging.
1081 As part of this change, the evaluator no longer mutates the internal
1082 representation of the code being evaluated in a thread-unsafe manner.
1084 There are two negative aspects of this change, however. First, Guile
1085 takes a lot longer to compile now. Also, there is less debugging
1086 information available for debugging interpreted code. We hope to improve
1087 both of these situations.
1089 There are many changes to the internal C evalator interface, but all
1090 public interfaces should be the same. See the ChangeLog for details. If
1091 we have inadvertantly changed an interface that you were using, please
1092 contact bug-guile@gnu.org.
1094 ** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
1096 This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
1097 not apply to the compiler.
1099 ** No more `local-eval'
1101 `local-eval' used to exist so that one could evaluate code in the
1102 lexical context of a function. Since there is no way to get the lexical
1103 environment any more, as that concept has no meaning for the compiler,
1104 and a different meaning for the interpreter, we have removed the
1107 If you think you need `local-eval', you should probably implement your
1108 own metacircular evaluator. It will probably be as fast as Guile's
1111 ** Scheme source files will now be compiled automatically.
1113 If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
1114 not fresh, the .scm file will be compiled on the fly, and the resulting
1115 .go file stored away. An advisory note will be printed on the console.
1117 Note that this mechanism depends on the timestamp of the .go file being
1118 newer than that of the .scm file; if the .scm or .go files are moved
1119 after installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
1122 Auto-compiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
1123 directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
1124 will be created if needed.
1126 To inhibit automatic compilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
1127 variable to 0, or pass --no-auto-compile on the Guile command line.
1129 ** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
1131 Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
1132 in the next prerelease.
1134 ** New POSIX procedure: `getsid'
1136 Scheme binding for the `getsid' C library call.
1138 ** New POSIX procedure: `getaddrinfo'
1140 Scheme binding for the `getaddrinfo' C library function.
1142 ** Multicast socket options
1144 Support was added for the IP_MULTICAST_TTL and IP_MULTICAST_IF socket
1145 options. See "Network Sockets and Communication" in the manual, for
1148 ** `recv!', `recvfrom!', `send', `sendto' now deal in bytevectors
1150 These socket procedures now take bytevectors as arguments, instead of
1151 strings. There is some deprecated string support, however.
1153 ** New GNU procedures: `setaffinity' and `getaffinity'.
1155 See "Processes" in the manual, for more information.
1157 ** New procedures: `compose', `negate', and `const'
1159 See "Higher-Order Functions" in the manual, for more information.
1161 ** New procedure in `(oops goops)': `method-formals'
1163 ** New procedures in (ice-9 session): `add-value-help-handler!',
1164 `remove-value-help-handler!', `add-name-help-handler!'
1165 `remove-name-help-handler!', `procedure-arguments'
1167 The value and name help handlers provide some minimal extensibility to
1168 the help interface. Guile-lib's `(texinfo reflection)' uses them, for
1169 example, to make stexinfo help documentation available. See those
1170 procedures' docstrings for more information.
1172 `procedure-arguments' describes the arguments that a procedure can take,
1173 combining arity and formals. For example:
1175 (procedure-arguments resolve-interface)
1176 => ((required . (name)) (rest . args))
1178 Additionally, `module-commentary' is now publically exported from
1181 ** Removed: `procedure->memoizing-macro', `procedure->syntax'
1183 These procedures created primitive fexprs for the old evaluator, and are
1184 no longer supported. If you feel that you need these functions, you
1185 probably need to write your own metacircular evaluator (which will
1186 probably be as fast as Guile's, anyway).
1188 ** New language: ECMAScript
1190 Guile now ships with one other high-level language supported,
1191 ECMAScript. The goal is to support all of version 3.1 of the standard,
1192 but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
1193 documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
1195 ** New language: Brainfuck
1197 Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
1198 brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
1199 languages. See the manual for details, or
1200 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
1201 Brainfuck language itself.
1203 ** New language: Elisp
1205 Guile now has an experimental Emacs Lisp compiler and runtime. You can
1206 now switch to Elisp at the repl: `,language elisp'. All kudos to Daniel
1207 Kraft and Brian Templeton, and all bugs to bug-guile@gnu.org.
1209 ** Better documentation infrastructure for macros
1211 It is now possible to introspect on the type of a macro, e.g.
1212 syntax-rules, identifier-syntax, etc, and extract information about that
1213 macro, such as the syntax-rules patterns or the defmacro arguments.
1214 `(texinfo reflection)' takes advantage of this to give better macro
1217 ** Support for arbitrary procedure metadata
1219 Building on its support for docstrings, Guile now supports multiple
1220 docstrings, adding them to the tail of a compiled procedure's
1221 properties. For example:
1227 (procedure-properties foo)
1228 => ((name . foo) (documentation . "one") (documentation . "two"))
1230 Also, vectors of pairs are now treated as additional metadata entries:
1233 #((quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
1235 (procedure-properties bar)
1236 => ((name . bar) (quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
1238 This allows arbitrary literals to be embedded as metadata in a compiled
1241 ** The psyntax expander now knows how to interpret the @ and @@ special
1244 ** The psyntax expander is now hygienic with respect to modules.
1246 Free variables in a macro are scoped in the module that the macro was
1247 defined in, not in the module the macro is used in. For example, code
1248 like this works now:
1250 (define-module (foo) #:export (bar))
1251 (define (helper x) ...)
1253 (syntax-rules () ((_ x) (helper x))))
1255 (define-module (baz) #:use-module (foo))
1258 It used to be you had to export `helper' from `(foo)' as well.
1259 Thankfully, this has been fixed.
1261 ** Support for version information in Guile's `module' form
1263 Guile modules now have a `#:version' field. See "R6RS Version
1264 References", "General Information about Modules", "Using Guile Modules",
1265 and "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual for more information.
1267 ** Support for renaming bindings on module export
1269 Wherever Guile accepts a symbol as an argument to specify a binding to
1270 export, it now also accepts a pair of symbols, indicating that a binding
1271 should be renamed on export. See "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual
1272 for more information.
1274 ** New procedure: `module-export-all!'
1276 This procedure exports all current and future bindings from a module.
1277 Use as `(module-export-all! (current-module))'.
1279 ** New procedure `reload-module', and `,reload' REPL command
1281 See "Module System Reflection" and "Module Commands" in the manual, for
1284 ** `eval-case' has been deprecated, and replaced by `eval-when'.
1286 The semantics of `eval-when' are easier to understand. See "Eval When"
1287 in the manual, for more information.
1289 ** Guile is now more strict about prohibiting definitions in expression
1292 Although previous versions of Guile accepted it, the following
1293 expression is not valid, in R5RS or R6RS:
1295 (if test (define foo 'bar) (define foo 'baz))
1297 In this specific case, it would be better to do:
1299 (define foo (if test 'bar 'baz))
1301 It is possible to circumvent this restriction with e.g.
1302 `(module-define! (current-module) 'foo 'baz)'. Contact the list if you
1305 ** Support for `letrec*'
1307 Guile now supports `letrec*', a recursive lexical binding operator in
1308 which the identifiers are bound in order. See "Local Bindings" in the
1309 manual, for more details.
1311 ** Internal definitions now expand to `letrec*'
1313 Following the R6RS, internal definitions now expand to letrec* instead
1314 of letrec. The following program is invalid for R5RS, but valid for
1319 (define baz (+ bar 20))
1322 ;; R5RS and Guile <= 1.8:
1323 (foo) => Unbound variable: bar
1324 ;; R6RS and Guile >= 2.0:
1327 This change should not affect correct R5RS programs, or programs written
1328 in earlier Guile dialects.
1330 ** Macro expansion produces structures instead of s-expressions
1332 In the olden days, macroexpanding an s-expression would yield another
1333 s-expression. Though the lexical variables were renamed, expansions of
1334 core forms like `if' and `begin' were still non-hygienic, as they relied
1335 on the toplevel definitions of `if' et al being the conventional ones.
1337 The solution is to expand to structures instead of s-expressions. There
1338 is an `if' structure, a `begin' structure, a `toplevel-ref' structure,
1339 etc. The expander already did this for compilation, producing Tree-IL
1340 directly; it has been changed now to do so when expanding for the
1343 ** Defmacros must now produce valid Scheme expressions.
1345 It used to be that defmacros could unquote in Scheme values, as a way of
1346 supporting partial evaluation, and avoiding some hygiene issues. For
1349 (define (helper x) ...)
1350 (define-macro (foo bar)
1353 Assuming this macro is in the `(baz)' module, the direct translation of
1356 (define (helper x) ...)
1357 (define-macro (foo bar)
1358 `((@@ (baz) helper) ,bar))
1360 Of course, one could just use a hygienic macro instead:
1364 ((_ bar) (helper bar))))
1366 ** Guile's psyntax now supports docstrings and internal definitions.
1368 The following Scheme is not strictly legal:
1375 However its intent is fairly clear. Guile interprets "bar" to be the
1376 docstring of `foo', and the definition of `baz' is still in definition
1379 ** Support for settable identifier syntax
1381 Following the R6RS, "variable transformers" are settable
1382 identifier-syntax. See "Identifier macros" in the manual, for more
1385 ** syntax-case treats `_' as a placeholder
1387 Following R6RS, a `_' in a syntax-rules or syntax-case pattern matches
1388 anything, and binds no pattern variables. Unlike the R6RS, Guile also
1389 permits `_' to be in the literals list for a pattern.
1391 ** Macros need to be defined before their first use.
1393 It used to be that with lazy memoization, this might work:
1397 (define-macro (ref x) x)
1400 But now, the body of `foo' is interpreted to mean a call to the toplevel
1401 `ref' function, instead of a macro expansion. The solution is to define
1402 macros before code that uses them.
1404 ** Functions needed by macros at expand-time need to be present at
1407 For example, this code will work at the REPL:
1409 (define (double-helper x) (* x x))
1410 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
1411 (double-literal 2) => 4
1413 But it will not work when a file is compiled, because the definition of
1414 `double-helper' is not present at expand-time. The solution is to wrap
1415 the definition of `double-helper' in `eval-when':
1417 (eval-when (load compile eval)
1418 (define (double-helper x) (* x x)))
1419 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
1420 (double-literal 2) => 4
1422 See the documentation for eval-when for more information.
1424 ** `macroexpand' produces structures, not S-expressions.
1426 Given the need to maintain referential transparency, both lexically and
1427 modular, the result of expanding Scheme expressions is no longer itself
1428 an s-expression. If you want a human-readable approximation of the
1429 result of `macroexpand', call `tree-il->scheme' from `(language
1432 ** Removed function: `macroexpand-1'
1434 It is unclear how to implement `macroexpand-1' with syntax-case, though
1435 PLT Scheme does prove that it is possible.
1437 ** New reader macros: #' #` #, #,@
1439 These macros translate, respectively, to `syntax', `quasisyntax',
1440 `unsyntax', and `unsyntax-splicing'. See the R6RS for more information.
1441 These reader macros may be overridden by `read-hash-extend'.
1443 ** Incompatible change to #'
1445 Guile did have a #' hash-extension, by default, which just returned the
1446 subsequent datum: #'foo => foo. In the unlikely event that anyone
1447 actually used this, this behavior may be reinstated via the
1448 `read-hash-extend' mechanism.
1450 ** `unquote' and `unquote-splicing' accept multiple expressions
1452 As per the R6RS, these syntax operators can now accept any number of
1453 expressions to unquote.
1455 ** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
1457 #; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
1460 ** Prompts: Delimited, composable continuations
1462 Guile now has prompts as part of its primitive language. See "Prompts"
1463 in the manual, for more information.
1465 Expressions entered in at the REPL, or from the command line, are
1466 surrounded by a prompt with the default prompt tag.
1468 ** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
1469 works (with compiled procedures)
1471 It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
1472 calls only up to or from a certain procedure, even if that procedure
1473 already tail-called another procedure. This was because the debug
1474 information from the original procedure was kept on the stack.
1476 Now with the new compiler, the stack only contains active frames from
1477 the current continuation. A narrow to a procedure that is not in the
1478 stack will result in an empty stack. To fix this, narrow to a procedure
1479 that is active in the current continuation, or narrow to a specific
1480 number of stack frames.
1482 ** Backtraces through compiled procedures only show procedures that are
1483 active in the current continuation
1485 Similarly to the previous issue, backtraces in compiled code may be
1486 different from backtraces in interpreted code. There are no semantic
1487 differences, however. Please mail bug-guile@gnu.org if you see any
1488 deficiencies with Guile's backtraces.
1490 ** `positions' reader option enabled by default
1492 This change allows primitive-load without --auto-compile to also
1493 propagate source information through the expander, for better errors and
1494 to let macros know their source locations. The compiler was already
1495 turning it on anyway.
1497 ** New macro: `current-source-location'
1499 The macro returns the current source location (to be documented).
1501 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case macros now propagate source information
1502 through to the expanded code
1504 This should result in better backtraces.
1506 ** The currying behavior of `define' has been removed.
1508 Before, `(define ((f a) b) (* a b))' would translate to
1510 (define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
1512 Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
1513 default. Use the `(ice-9 curried-definitions)' module to get back the
1516 ** New procedure, `define!'
1518 `define!' is a procedure that takes two arguments, a symbol and a value,
1519 and binds the value to the symbol in the current module. It's useful to
1520 programmatically make definitions in the current module, and is slightly
1521 less verbose than `module-define!'.
1523 ** All modules have names now
1525 Before, you could have anonymous modules: modules without names. Now,
1526 because of hygiene and macros, all modules have names. If a module was
1527 created without a name, the first time `module-name' is called on it, a
1528 fresh name will be lazily generated for it.
1530 ** The module namespace is now separate from the value namespace
1532 It was a little-known implementation detail of Guile's module system
1533 that it was built on a single hierarchical namespace of values -- that
1534 if there was a module named `(foo bar)', then in the module named
1535 `(foo)' there was a binding from `bar' to the `(foo bar)' module.
1537 This was a neat trick, but presented a number of problems. One problem
1538 was that the bindings in a module were not apparent from the module
1539 itself; perhaps the `(foo)' module had a private binding for `bar', and
1540 then an external contributor defined `(foo bar)'. In the end there can
1541 be only one binding, so one of the two will see the wrong thing, and
1542 produce an obtuse error of unclear provenance.
1544 Also, the public interface of a module was also bound in the value
1545 namespace, as `%module-public-interface'. This was a hack from the early
1546 days of Guile's modules.
1548 Both of these warts have been fixed by the addition of fields in the
1549 `module' data type. Access to modules and their interfaces from the
1550 value namespace has been deprecated, and all accessors use the new
1551 record accessors appropriately.
1553 When Guile is built with support for deprecated code, as is the default,
1554 the value namespace is still searched for modules and public interfaces,
1555 and a deprecation warning is raised as appropriate.
1557 Finally, to support lazy loading of modules as one used to be able to do
1558 with module binder procedures, Guile now has submodule binders, called
1559 if a given submodule is not found. See boot-9.scm for more information.
1561 ** New procedures: module-ref-submodule, module-define-submodule,
1562 nested-ref-module, nested-define-module!, local-ref-module,
1565 These new accessors are like their bare variants, but operate on
1566 namespaces instead of values.
1568 ** The (app modules) module tree is officially deprecated
1570 It used to be that one could access a module named `(foo bar)' via
1571 `(nested-ref the-root-module '(app modules foo bar))'. The `(app
1572 modules)' bit was a never-used and never-documented abstraction, and has
1573 been deprecated. See the following mail for a full discussion:
1575 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2010-04/msg00168.html
1577 The `%app' binding is also deprecated.
1579 ** `module-filename' field and accessor
1581 Modules now record the file in which they are defined. This field may be
1582 accessed with the new `module-filename' procedure.
1584 ** Modules load within a known environment
1586 It takes a few procedure calls to define a module, and those procedure
1587 calls need to be in scope. Now we ensure that the current module when
1588 loading a module is one that has the needed bindings, instead of relying
1591 ** `load' is a macro (!) that resolves paths relative to source file dir
1593 The familiar Schem `load' procedure is now a macro that captures the
1594 name of the source file being expanded, and dispatches to the new
1595 `load-in-vicinity'. Referencing `load' by bare name returns a closure
1596 that embeds the current source file name.
1598 This fix allows `load' of relative paths to be resolved with respect to
1599 the location of the file that calls `load'.
1601 ** Many syntax errors have different texts now
1603 Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
1604 are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
1605 using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
1607 ** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
1608 values to the expected number
1610 For example, the interpreter would raise an error evaluating the form,
1611 `(+ (values 1 2) (values 3 4))', because it would see the operands as
1612 being two compound "values" objects, to which `+' does not apply.
1614 The compiler, on the other hand, receives multiple values on the stack,
1615 not as a compound object. Given that it must check the number of values
1616 anyway, if too many values are provided for a continuation, it chooses
1617 to truncate those values, effectively evaluating `(+ 1 3)' instead.
1619 The idea is that the semantics that the compiler implements is more
1620 intuitive, and the use of the interpreter will fade out with time.
1621 This behavior is allowed both by the R5RS and the R6RS.
1623 ** Multiple values in compiled code are not represented by compound
1626 This change may manifest itself in the following situation:
1628 (let ((val (foo))) (do-something) val)
1630 In the interpreter, if `foo' returns multiple values, multiple values
1631 are produced from the `let' expression. In the compiler, those values
1632 are truncated to the first value, and that first value is returned. In
1633 the compiler, if `foo' returns no values, an error will be raised, while
1634 the interpreter would proceed.
1636 Both of these behaviors are allowed by R5RS and R6RS. The compiler's
1637 behavior is more correct, however. If you wish to preserve a potentially
1638 multiply-valued return, you will need to set up a multiple-value
1639 continuation, using `call-with-values'.
1641 ** Defmacros are now implemented in terms of syntax-case.
1643 The practical ramification of this is that the `defmacro?' predicate has
1644 been removed, along with `defmacro-transformer', `macro-table',
1645 `xformer-table', `assert-defmacro?!', `set-defmacro-transformer!' and
1646 `defmacro:transformer'. This is because defmacros are simply macros. If
1647 any of these procedures provided useful facilities to you, we encourage
1648 you to contact the Guile developers.
1650 ** Hygienic macros documented as the primary syntactic extension mechanism.
1652 The macro documentation was finally fleshed out with some documentation
1653 on `syntax-rules' and `syntax-case' macros, and other parts of the macro
1654 expansion process. See "Macros" in the manual, for details.
1656 ** psyntax is now the default expander
1658 Scheme code is now expanded by default by the psyntax hygienic macro
1659 expander. Expansion is performed completely before compilation or
1662 Notably, syntax errors will be signalled before interpretation begins.
1663 In the past, many syntax errors were only detected at runtime if the
1664 code in question was memoized.
1666 As part of its expansion, psyntax renames all lexically-bound
1667 identifiers. Original identifier names are preserved and given to the
1668 compiler, but the interpreter will see the renamed variables, e.g.,
1669 `x432' instead of `x'.
1671 Note that the psyntax that Guile uses is a fork, as Guile already had
1672 modules before incompatible modules were added to psyntax -- about 10
1673 years ago! Thus there are surely a number of bugs that have been fixed
1674 in psyntax since then. If you find one, please notify bug-guile@gnu.org.
1676 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case are available by default.
1678 There is no longer any need to import the `(ice-9 syncase)' module
1679 (which is now deprecated). The expander may be invoked directly via
1680 `macroexpand', though it is normally searched for via the current module
1683 Also, the helper routines for syntax-case are available in the default
1684 environment as well: `syntax->datum', `datum->syntax',
1685 `bound-identifier=?', `free-identifier=?', `generate-temporaries',
1686 `identifier?', and `syntax-violation'. See the R6RS for documentation.
1688 ** Tail patterns in syntax-case
1690 Guile has pulled in some more recent changes from the psyntax portable
1691 syntax expander, to implement support for "tail patterns". Such patterns
1692 are supported by syntax-rules and syntax-case. This allows a syntax-case
1693 match clause to have ellipses, then a pattern at the end. For example:
1696 (syntax-rules (else)
1697 ((_ val match-clause ... (else e e* ...))
1700 Note how there is MATCH-CLAUSE, which is ellipsized, then there is a
1701 tail pattern for the else clause. Thanks to Andreas Rottmann for the
1702 patch, and Kent Dybvig for the code.
1704 ** Lexical bindings introduced by hygienic macros may not be referenced
1705 by nonhygienic macros.
1707 If a lexical binding is introduced by a hygienic macro, it may not be
1708 referenced by a nonhygienic macro. For example, this works:
1711 (define-macro (bind-x val body)
1712 `(let ((x ,val)) ,body))
1713 (define-macro (ref x)
1715 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1720 (define-syntax bind-x
1722 ((_ val body) (let ((x val)) body))))
1723 (define-macro (ref x)
1725 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
1727 It is not normal to run into this situation with existing code. However,
1728 if you have defmacros that expand to hygienic macros, it is possible to
1729 run into situations like this. For example, if you have a defmacro that
1730 generates a `while' expression, the `break' bound by the `while' may not
1731 be visible within other parts of your defmacro. The solution is to port
1732 from defmacros to syntax-rules or syntax-case.
1734 ** Macros may no longer be referenced as first-class values.
1736 In the past, you could evaluate e.g. `if', and get its macro value. Now,
1737 expanding this form raises a syntax error.
1739 Macros still /exist/ as first-class values, but they must be
1740 /referenced/ via the module system, e.g. `(module-ref (current-module)
1743 ** Macros may now have docstrings.
1745 `object-documentation' from `(ice-9 documentation)' may be used to
1746 retrieve the docstring, once you have a macro value -- but see the above
1747 note about first-class macros. Docstrings are associated with the syntax
1748 transformer procedures.
1750 ** `case-lambda' is now available in the default environment.
1752 The binding in the default environment is equivalent to the one from the
1753 `(srfi srfi-16)' module. Use the srfi-16 module explicitly if you wish
1754 to maintain compatibility with Guile 1.8 and earlier.
1756 ** Procedures may now have more than one arity.
1758 This can be the case, for example, in case-lambda procedures. The
1759 arities of compiled procedures may be accessed via procedures from the
1760 `(system vm program)' module; see "Compiled Procedures", "Optional
1761 Arguments", and "Case-lambda" in the manual.
1763 ** Deprecate arity access via (procedure-properties proc 'arity)
1765 Instead of accessing a procedure's arity as a property, use the new
1766 `procedure-minimum-arity' function, which gives the most permissive
1767 arity that the function has, in the same format as the old arity
1770 ** `lambda*' and `define*' are now available in the default environment
1772 As with `case-lambda', `(ice-9 optargs)' continues to be supported, for
1773 compatibility purposes. No semantic change has been made (we hope).
1774 Optional and keyword arguments now dispatch via special VM operations,
1775 without the need to cons rest arguments, making them very fast.
1777 ** New syntax: define-once
1779 `define-once' is like Lisp's `defvar': it creates a toplevel binding,
1780 but only if one does not exist already.
1782 ** New function, `truncated-print', with `format' support
1784 `(ice-9 pretty-print)' now exports `truncated-print', a printer that
1785 will ensure that the output stays within a certain width, truncating the
1786 output in what is hopefully an intelligent manner. See the manual for
1789 There is a new `format' specifier, `~@y', for doing a truncated
1790 print (as opposed to `~y', which does a pretty-print). See the `format'
1791 documentation for more details.
1793 ** Better pretty-printing
1795 Indentation recognizes more special forms, like `syntax-case', and read
1796 macros like `quote' are printed better.
1798 ** Passing a number as the destination of `format' is deprecated
1800 The `format' procedure in `(ice-9 format)' now emits a deprecation
1801 warning if a number is passed as its first argument.
1803 Also, it used to be that you could omit passing a port to `format', in
1804 some cases. This still works, but has been formally deprecated.
1806 ** SRFI-4 vectors reimplemented in terms of R6RS bytevectors
1808 Guile now implements SRFI-4 vectors using bytevectors. Often when you
1809 have a numeric vector, you end up wanting to write its bytes somewhere,
1810 or have access to the underlying bytes, or read in bytes from somewhere
1811 else. Bytevectors are very good at this sort of thing. But the SRFI-4
1812 APIs are nicer to use when doing number-crunching, because they are
1813 addressed by element and not by byte.
1815 So as a compromise, Guile allows all bytevector functions to operate on
1816 numeric vectors. They address the underlying bytes in the native
1817 endianness, as one would expect.
1819 Following the same reasoning, that it's just bytes underneath, Guile
1820 also allows uniform vectors of a given type to be accessed as if they
1821 were of any type. One can fill a u32vector, and access its elements with
1822 u8vector-ref. One can use f64vector-ref on bytevectors. It's all the
1825 In this way, uniform numeric vectors may be written to and read from
1826 input/output ports using the procedures that operate on bytevectors.
1828 Calls to SRFI-4 accessors (ref and set functions) from Scheme are now
1829 inlined to the VM instructions for bytevector access.
1831 See "SRFI-4" in the manual, for more information.
1833 ** Nonstandard SRFI-4 procedures now available from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'
1835 Guile's `(srfi srfi-4)' now only exports those srfi-4 procedures that
1836 are part of the standard. Complex uniform vectors and the
1837 `any->FOOvector' family are now available only from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'.
1839 Guile's default environment imports `(srfi srfi-4)', and probably should
1840 import `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)' as well.
1842 See "SRFI-4 Extensions" in the manual, for more information.
1844 ** New syntax: include-from-path.
1846 `include-from-path' is like `include', except it looks for its file in
1847 the load path. It can be used to compile other files into a file.
1849 ** New syntax: quasisyntax.
1851 `quasisyntax' is to `syntax' as `quasiquote' is to `quote'. See the R6RS
1852 documentation for more information. Thanks to Andre van Tonder for the
1855 ** `*unspecified*' is identifier syntax
1857 `*unspecified*' is no longer a variable, so it is optimized properly by
1858 the compiler, and is not `set!'-able.
1860 ** Changes and bugfixes in numerics code
1862 *** Added six new sets of fast quotient and remainder operators
1864 Added six new sets of fast quotient and remainder operator pairs with
1865 different semantics than the R5RS operators. They support not only
1866 integers, but all reals, including exact rationals and inexact
1867 floating point numbers.
1869 These procedures accept two real numbers N and D, where the divisor D
1870 must be non-zero. Each set of operators computes an integer quotient
1871 Q and a real remainder R such that N = Q*D + R and |R| < |D|. They
1872 differ only in how N/D is rounded to produce Q.
1874 `euclidean-quotient' returns the integer Q and `euclidean-remainder'
1875 returns the real R such that N = Q*D + R and 0 <= R < |D|. `euclidean/'
1876 returns both Q and R, and is more efficient than computing each
1877 separately. Note that when D > 0, `euclidean-quotient' returns
1878 floor(N/D), and when D < 0 it returns ceiling(N/D).
1880 `centered-quotient', `centered-remainder', and `centered/' are similar
1881 except that the range of remainders is -abs(D/2) <= R < abs(D/2), and
1882 `centered-quotient' rounds N/D to the nearest integer. Note that these
1883 operators are equivalent to the R6RS integer division operators `div',
1884 `mod', `div-and-mod', `div0', `mod0', and `div0-and-mod0'.
1886 `floor-quotient' and `floor-remainder' compute Q and R, respectively,
1887 where Q has been rounded toward negative infinity. `floor/' returns
1888 both Q and R, and is more efficient than computing each separately.
1889 Note that when applied to integers, `floor-remainder' is equivalent to
1890 the R5RS integer-only `modulo' operator. `ceiling-quotient',
1891 `ceiling-remainder', and `ceiling/' are similar except that Q is
1892 rounded toward positive infinity.
1894 For `truncate-quotient', `truncate-remainder', and `truncate/', Q is
1895 rounded toward zero. Note that when applied to integers,
1896 `truncate-quotient' and `truncate-remainder' are equivalent to the
1897 R5RS integer-only operators `quotient' and `remainder'.
1899 For `round-quotient', `round-remainder', and `round/', Q is rounded to
1900 the nearest integer, with ties going to the nearest even integer.
1902 *** Complex number changes
1904 Guile is now able to represent non-real complex numbers whose
1905 imaginary part is an _inexact_ zero (0.0 or -0.0), per R6RS.
1906 Previously, such numbers were immediately changed into inexact reals.
1908 (real? 0.0+0.0i) now returns #f, per R6RS, although (zero? 0.0+0.0i)
1909 still returns #t, per R6RS. (= 0 0.0+0.0i) and (= 0.0 0.0+0.0i) are
1910 #t, but the same comparisons using `eqv?' or `equal?' are #f.
1912 Like other non-real numbers, these complex numbers with inexact zero
1913 imaginary part will raise exceptions is passed to procedures requiring
1914 reals, such as `<', `>', `<=', `>=', `min', `max', `positive?',
1915 `negative?', `inf?', `nan?', `finite?', etc.
1917 **** `make-rectangular' changes
1919 scm_make_rectangular `make-rectangular' now returns a real number only
1920 if the imaginary part is an _exact_ 0. Previously, it would return a
1921 real number if the imaginary part was an inexact zero.
1923 scm_c_make_rectangular now always returns a non-real complex number,
1924 even if the imaginary part is zero. Previously, it would return a
1925 real number if the imaginary part was zero.
1927 **** `make-polar' changes
1929 scm_make_polar `make-polar' now returns a real number only if the
1930 angle or magnitude is an _exact_ 0. If the magnitude is an exact 0,
1931 it now returns an exact 0. Previously, it would return a real
1932 number if the imaginary part was an inexact zero.
1934 scm_c_make_polar now always returns a non-real complex number, even if
1935 the imaginary part is 0.0. Previously, it would return a real number
1936 if the imaginary part was 0.0.
1938 **** `imag-part' changes
1940 scm_imag_part `imag-part' now returns an exact 0 if applied to an
1941 inexact real number. Previously it returned an inexact zero in this
1944 *** `eqv?' and `equal?' now compare numbers equivalently
1946 scm_equal_p `equal?' now behaves equivalently to scm_eqv_p `eqv?' for
1947 numeric values, per R5RS. Previously, equal? worked differently,
1948 e.g. `(equal? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #t but `(eqv? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #f,
1949 and `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f but `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
1952 *** `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' now returns #t
1954 Previously, `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f, although
1955 `(let ((x +nan.0)) (equal? x x))' and `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
1956 both returned #t. R5RS requires that `equal?' behave like
1957 `eqv?' when comparing numbers.
1959 *** Change in handling products `*' involving exact 0
1961 scm_product `*' now handles exact 0 differently. A product containing
1962 an exact 0 now returns an exact 0 if and only if the other arguments
1963 are all exact. An inexact zero is returned if and only if the other
1964 arguments are all finite but not all exact. If an infinite or NaN
1965 value is present, a NaN value is returned. Previously, any product
1966 containing an exact 0 yielded an exact 0, regardless of the other
1969 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' changes when the base is 0
1971 While `(expt 0 0)' is still 1, and `(expt 0 N)' for N > 0 is still
1972 zero, `(expt 0 N)' for N < 0 is now a NaN value, and likewise for
1973 integer-expt. This is more correct, and conforming to R6RS, but seems
1974 to be incompatible with R5RS, which would return 0 for all non-zero
1977 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' are more generic, less strict
1979 When raising to an exact non-negative integer exponent, `expt' and
1980 `integer-expt' are now able to exponentiate any object that can be
1981 multiplied using `*'. They can also raise an object to an exact
1982 negative integer power if its reciprocal can be taken using `/'.
1983 In order to allow this, the type of the first argument is no longer
1984 checked when raising to an exact integer power. If the exponent is 0
1985 or 1, the first parameter is not manipulated at all, and need not
1986 even support multiplication.
1988 *** Infinities are no longer integers, nor rationals
1990 scm_integer_p `integer?' and scm_rational_p `rational?' now return #f
1991 for infinities, per R6RS. Previously they returned #t for real
1992 infinities. The real infinities and NaNs are still considered real by
1993 scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
1995 *** NaNs are no longer rationals
1997 scm_rational_p `rational?' now returns #f for NaN values, per R6RS.
1998 Previously it returned #t for real NaN values. They are still
1999 considered real by scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
2001 *** `inf?' and `nan?' now throw exceptions for non-reals
2003 The domain of `inf?' and `nan?' is the real numbers. Guile now signals
2004 an error when a non-real number or non-number is passed to these
2005 procedures. (Note that NaNs _are_ considered numbers by scheme, despite
2008 *** `rationalize' bugfixes and changes
2010 Fixed bugs in scm_rationalize `rationalize'. Previously, it returned
2011 exact integers unmodified, although that was incorrect if the epsilon
2012 was at least 1 or inexact, e.g. (rationalize 4 1) should return 3 per
2013 R5RS and R6RS, but previously it returned 4. It also now handles
2014 cases involving infinities and NaNs properly, per R6RS.
2016 *** Trigonometric functions now return exact numbers in some cases
2018 scm_sin `sin', scm_cos `cos', scm_tan `tan', scm_asin `asin', scm_acos
2019 `acos', scm_atan `atan', scm_sinh `sinh', scm_cosh `cosh', scm_tanh
2020 `tanh', scm_sys_asinh `asinh', scm_sys_acosh `acosh', and
2021 scm_sys_atanh `atanh' now return exact results in some cases.
2023 *** New procedure: `finite?'
2025 Add scm_finite_p `finite?' from R6RS to guile core, which returns #t
2026 if and only if its argument is neither infinite nor a NaN. Note that
2027 this is not the same as (not (inf? x)) or (not (infinite? x)), since
2028 NaNs are neither finite nor infinite.
2030 *** Improved exactness handling for complex number parsing
2032 When parsing non-real complex numbers, exactness specifiers are now
2033 applied to each component, as is done in PLT Scheme. For complex
2034 numbers written in rectangular form, exactness specifiers are applied
2035 to the real and imaginary parts before calling scm_make_rectangular.
2036 For complex numbers written in polar form, exactness specifiers are
2037 applied to the magnitude and angle before calling scm_make_polar.
2039 Previously, exactness specifiers were applied to the number as a whole
2040 _after_ calling scm_make_rectangular or scm_make_polar.
2042 For example, (string->number "#i5.0+0i") now does the equivalent of:
2044 (make-rectangular (exact->inexact 5.0) (exact->inexact 0))
2046 which yields 5.0+0.0i. Previously it did the equivalent of:
2048 (exact->inexact (make-rectangular 5.0 0))
2052 ** Unicode characters
2054 Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
2055 created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
2056 probably be introduced at some point.
2060 Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
2061 encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
2062 character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
2064 Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
2065 hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
2066 or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
2067 encoding of the port on which the string is read.
2071 One may now use U+03BB (GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMBDA) as an identifier.
2073 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
2075 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
2076 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
2077 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
2078 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
2079 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
2082 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
2083 code. This use is now discouraged. Binary input and output is
2084 currently supported by opening ports in the ISO-8859-1 locale.
2086 ** Source files default to UTF-8.
2088 If source files do not specify their encoding via a `coding:' block,
2089 the default encoding is UTF-8, instead of being taken from the current
2092 ** Interactive Guile installs the current locale.
2094 Instead of leaving the user in the "C" locale, running the Guile REPL
2095 installs the current locale. [FIXME xref?]
2097 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
2099 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
2100 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
2101 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
2104 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
2105 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
2106 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
2108 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
2110 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
2112 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
2113 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
2114 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
2115 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
2117 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
2119 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
2120 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
2121 Unicode code points.
2123 ** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
2125 These variables contained the names of control characters and were
2126 used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
2127 never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
2130 ** EBCDIC support is removed
2132 There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
2133 processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
2134 and was unmaintained.
2136 ** Compile-time warnings
2138 Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
2139 -Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
2140 `#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
2141 invocation. Warnings are also enabled by default for expressions entered
2144 Guile can also warn when you pass the wrong number of arguments to a
2145 procedure, with -Warity-mismatch, or `arity-mismatch' in the
2146 `#:warnings' as above.
2148 Other warnings include `-Wunused-variable' and `-Wunused-toplevel', to
2149 warn about unused local or global (top-level) variables, and `-Wformat',
2150 to check for various errors related to the `format' procedure.
2152 ** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
2154 This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
2157 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
2159 This slightly improves program startup times.
2161 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
2163 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
2165 ** New threads are in `(guile-user)' by default, not `(guile)'
2167 It used to be that a new thread entering Guile would do so in the
2168 `(guile)' module, unless this was the first time Guile was initialized,
2169 in which case it was `(guile-user)'. This has been fixed to have all
2170 new threads unknown to Guile default to `(guile-user)'.
2172 ** New helpers: `print-exception', `set-exception-printer!'
2174 These functions implement an extensible exception printer. Guile
2175 registers printers for all of the exceptions it throws. Users may add
2176 their own printers. There is also `scm_print_exception', for use by C
2177 programs. Pleasantly, this allows SRFI-35 and R6RS exceptions to be
2178 printed appropriately.
2180 ** GOOPS dispatch in scheme
2182 As an implementation detail, GOOPS dispatch is no longer implemented by
2183 special evaluator bytecodes, but rather directly via a Scheme function
2184 associated with an applicable struct. There is some VM support for the
2185 underlying primitives, like `class-of'.
2187 This change will in the future allow users to customize generic function
2188 dispatch without incurring a performance penalty, and allow us to
2189 implement method combinations.
2191 ** Applicable struct support
2193 One may now make structs from Scheme that may be applied as procedures.
2194 To do so, make a struct whose vtable is `<applicable-struct-vtable>'.
2195 That struct will be the vtable of your applicable structs; instances of
2196 that new struct are assumed to have the procedure in their first slot.
2197 `<applicable-struct-vtable>' is like Common Lisp's
2198 `funcallable-standard-class'. Likewise there is
2199 `<applicable-struct-with-setter-vtable>', which looks for the setter in
2200 the second slot. This needs to be better documented.
2204 GOOPS had a number of concepts that were relevant to the days of Tcl,
2205 but not any more: operators and entities, mainly. These objects were
2206 never documented, and it is unlikely that they were ever used. Operators
2207 were a kind of generic specific to the Tcl support. Entities were
2208 replaced by applicable structs, mentioned above.
2210 ** New struct slot allocation: "hidden"
2212 A hidden slot is readable and writable, but will not be initialized by a
2213 call to make-struct. For example in your layout you would say "ph"
2214 instead of "pw". Hidden slots are useful for adding new slots to a
2215 vtable without breaking existing invocations to make-struct.
2217 ** eqv? not a generic
2219 One used to be able to extend `eqv?' as a primitive-generic, but no
2220 more. Because `eqv?' is in the expansion of `case' (via `memv'), which
2221 should be able to compile to static dispatch tables, it doesn't make
2222 sense to allow extensions that would subvert this optimization.
2224 ** `inet-ntop' and `inet-pton' are always available.
2226 Guile now use a portable implementation of `inet_pton'/`inet_ntop', so
2227 there is no more need to use `inet-aton'/`inet-ntoa'. The latter
2228 functions are deprecated.
2230 ** `getopt-long' parsing errors throw to `quit', not `misc-error'
2232 This change should inhibit backtraces on argument parsing errors.
2233 `getopt-long' has been modified to print out the error that it throws
2236 ** New primitive: `tmpfile'.
2238 See "File System" in the manual.
2240 ** Random generator state may be serialized to a datum
2242 `random-state->datum' will serialize a random state to a datum, which
2243 may be written out, read back in later, and revivified using
2244 `datum->random-state'. See "Random" in the manual, for more details.
2246 ** Fix random number generator on 64-bit platforms
2248 There was a nasty bug on 64-bit platforms in which asking for a random
2249 integer with a range between 2**32 and 2**64 caused a segfault. After
2250 many embarrassing iterations, this was fixed.
2252 ** Fast bit operations.
2254 The bit-twiddling operations `ash', `logand', `logior', and `logxor' now
2255 have dedicated bytecodes. Guile is not just for symbolic computation,
2256 it's for number crunching too.
2258 ** Faster SRFI-9 record access
2260 SRFI-9 records are now implemented directly on top of Guile's structs,
2261 and their accessors are defined in such a way that normal call-sites
2262 inline to special VM opcodes, while still allowing for the general case
2263 (e.g. passing a record accessor to `apply').
2265 ** R6RS block comment support
2267 Guile now supports R6RS nested block comments. The start of a comment is
2268 marked with `#|', and the end with `|#'.
2270 ** `guile-2' cond-expand feature
2272 To test if your code is running under Guile 2.0 (or its alpha releases),
2273 test for the `guile-2' cond-expand feature. Like this:
2275 (cond-expand (guile-2 (eval-when (compile)
2276 ;; This must be evaluated at compile time.
2277 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
2279 ;; Earlier versions of Guile do not have a
2280 ;; separate compilation phase.
2281 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
2283 ** New global variables: %load-compiled-path, %load-compiled-extensions
2285 These are analogous to %load-path and %load-extensions.
2287 ** New fluid: `%file-port-name-canonicalization'
2289 This fluid parameterizes the file names that are associated with file
2290 ports. If %file-port-name-canonicalization is 'absolute, then file names
2291 are canonicalized to be absolute paths. If it is 'relative, then the
2292 name is canonicalized, but any prefix corresponding to a member of
2293 `%load-path' is stripped off. Otherwise the names are passed through
2296 In addition, the `compile-file' and `compile-and-load' procedures bind
2297 %file-port-name-canonicalization to their `#:canonicalization' keyword
2298 argument, which defaults to 'relative. In this way, one might compile
2299 "../module/ice-9/boot-9.scm", but the path that gets residualized into
2300 the .go is "ice-9/boot-9.scm".
2302 ** New procedure, `make-promise'
2304 `(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
2306 ** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
2308 Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
2310 ** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
2312 ** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
2314 `module-bound?' was returning true if a module did have a local
2315 variable, but one that was unbound, but another imported module bound
2316 the variable. This was an error, and was fixed.
2318 ** `(ice-9 syncase)' has been deprecated.
2320 As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
2321 no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
2323 ** New readline history functions
2325 The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
2326 write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
2327 History library functions.
2329 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
2330 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
2332 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
2335 ** Deprecate the old `scm-style-repl'
2337 The following bindings from boot-9 are now found in `(ice-9
2338 scm-style-repl)': `scm-style-repl', `error-catching-loop',
2339 `error-catching-repl', `bad-throw', `scm-repl-silent'
2340 `assert-repl-silence', `repl-print-unspecified',
2341 `assert-repl-print-unspecified', `scm-repl-verbose',
2342 `assert-repl-verbosity', `scm-repl-prompt', `set-repl-prompt!', `repl',
2343 `default-pre-unwind-handler', `handle-system-error',
2345 The following bindings have been deprecated, with no replacement:
2346 `pre-unwind-handler-dispatch'.
2348 The following bindings have been totally removed:
2349 `before-signal-stack'.
2351 Deprecated forwarding shims have been installed so that users that
2352 expect these bindings in the main namespace will still work, but receive
2353 a deprecation warning.
2355 ** `set-batch-mode?!' replaced by `ensure-batch-mode!'
2357 "Batch mode" is a flag used to tell a program that it is not running
2358 interactively. One usually turns it on after a fork. It may not be
2359 turned off. `ensure-batch-mode!' deprecates the old `set-batch-mode?!',
2360 because it is a better interface, as it can only turn on batch mode, not
2363 ** Deprecate `save-stack', `the-last-stack'
2365 It used to be that the way to debug programs in Guile was to capture the
2366 stack at the time of error, drop back to the REPL, then debug that
2367 stack. But this approach didn't compose, was tricky to get right in the
2368 presence of threads, and was not very powerful.
2370 So `save-stack', `stack-saved?', and `the-last-stack' have been moved to
2371 `(ice-9 save-stack)', with deprecated bindings left in the root module.
2373 ** `top-repl' has its own module
2375 The `top-repl' binding, called with Guile is run interactively, is now
2376 is its own module, `(ice-9 top-repl)'. A deprecated forwarding shim was
2377 left in the default environment.
2379 ** `display-error' takes a frame
2381 The `display-error' / `scm_display_error' helper now takes a frame as an
2382 argument instead of a stack. Stacks are still supported in deprecated
2383 builds. Additionally, `display-error' will again source location
2384 information for the error.
2386 ** No more `(ice-9 debug)'
2388 This module had some debugging helpers that are no longer applicable to
2389 the current debugging model. Importing this module will produce a
2390 deprecation warning. Users should contact bug-guile for support.
2392 ** Remove obsolete debug-options
2394 Removed `breakpoints', `trace', `procnames', `indent', `frames',
2395 `maxdepth', and `debug' debug-options.
2397 ** `backtrace' debug option on by default
2399 Given that Guile 2.0 can always give you a backtrace, backtraces are now
2402 ** `turn-on-debugging' deprecated
2404 ** Remove obsolete print-options
2406 The `source' and `closure-hook' print options are obsolete, and have
2409 ** Remove obsolete read-options
2411 The "elisp-strings" and "elisp-vectors" read options were unused and
2412 obsolete, so they have been removed.
2414 ** Remove eval-options and trap-options
2416 Eval-options and trap-options are obsolete with the new VM and
2419 ** Remove (ice-9 debugger) and (ice-9 debugging)
2421 See "Traps" and "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for information
2422 on their replacements.
2424 ** Remove the GDS Emacs integration
2426 See "Using Guile in Emacs" in the manual, for info on how we think you
2427 should use Guile with Emacs.
2429 ** Deprecated: `lazy-catch'
2431 `lazy-catch' was a form that captured the stack at the point of a
2432 `throw', but the dynamic state at the point of the `catch'. It was a bit
2433 crazy. Please change to use `catch', possibly with a throw-handler, or
2434 `with-throw-handler'.
2436 ** Deprecated: primitive properties
2438 The `primitive-make-property', `primitive-property-set!',
2439 `primitive-property-ref', and `primitive-property-del!' procedures were
2440 crufty and only used to implement object properties, which has a new,
2441 threadsafe implementation. Use object properties or weak hash tables
2444 ** Deprecated `@bind' syntax
2446 `@bind' was part of an older implementation of the Emacs Lisp language,
2447 and is no longer used.
2449 ** Miscellaneous other deprecations
2451 `cuserid' has been deprecated, as it only returns 8 bytes of a user's
2452 login. Use `(passwd:name (getpwuid (geteuid)))' instead.
2454 Additionally, the procedures `apply-to-args', `has-suffix?', `scheme-file-suffix'
2455 `get-option', `for-next-option', `display-usage-report',
2456 `transform-usage-lambda', `collect', and `set-batch-mode?!' have all
2459 ** Add support for unbound fluids
2461 See `make-unbound-fluid', `fluid-unset!', and `fluid-bound?' in the
2464 ** Add `variable-unset!'
2466 See "Variables" in the manual, for more details.
2468 ** Last but not least, the `λ' macro can be used in lieu of `lambda'
2470 * Changes to the C interface
2472 ** Guile now uses libgc, the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
2474 The semantics of `scm_gc_malloc ()' have been changed, in a
2475 backward-compatible way. A new allocation routine,
2476 `scm_gc_malloc_pointerless ()', was added.
2478 Libgc is a conservative GC, which we hope will make interaction with C
2479 code easier and less error-prone.
2481 ** New procedures: `scm_to_stringn', `scm_from_stringn'
2482 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,latin1}_symbol{n,}
2483 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,utf32,latin1}_string{n,}
2485 These new procedures convert to and from string representations in
2486 particular encodings.
2488 Users should continue to use locale encoding for user input, user
2489 output, or interacting with the C library.
2491 Use the Latin-1 functions for ASCII, and for literals in source code.
2493 Use UTF-8 functions for interaction with modern libraries which deal in
2494 UTF-8, and UTF-32 for interaction with utf32-using libraries.
2496 Otherwise, use scm_to_stringn or scm_from_stringn with a specific
2499 ** New type definitions for `scm_t_intptr' and friends.
2501 `SCM_T_UINTPTR_MAX', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MIN', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MAX',
2502 `SIZEOF_SCM_T_BITS', `scm_t_intptr' and `scm_t_uintptr' are now
2503 available to C. Have fun!
2505 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
2507 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
2509 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
2512 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
2513 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
2515 ** Procedures-with-setters are now implemented using applicable structs
2517 From a user's perspective this doesn't mean very much. But if, for some
2518 odd reason, you used the SCM_PROCEDURE_WITH_SETTER_P, SCM_PROCEDURE, or
2519 SCM_SETTER macros, know that they're deprecated now. Also, scm_tc7_pws
2522 ** Remove old evaluator closures
2524 There used to be ranges of typecodes allocated to interpreted data
2525 structures, but that it no longer the case, given that interpreted
2526 procedure are now just regular VM closures. As a result, there is a
2527 newly free tc3, and a number of removed macros. See the ChangeLog for
2530 ** Primitive procedures are now VM trampoline procedures
2532 It used to be that there were something like 12 different typecodes
2533 allocated to primitive procedures, each with its own calling convention.
2534 Now there is only one, the gsubr. This may affect user code if you were
2535 defining a procedure using scm_c_make_subr rather scm_c_make_gsubr. The
2536 solution is to switch to use scm_c_make_gsubr. This solution works well
2537 both with the old 1.8 and with the current 1.9 branch.
2539 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying "gsubrs",
2540 primitive procedures with specified numbers of required, optional, and
2541 rest arguments. Now, however, Guile represents gsubrs as normal VM
2542 procedures, with appropriate bytecode to parse out the correct number of
2543 arguments, including optional and rest arguments, and then with a
2544 special bytecode to apply the gsubr.
2546 This allows primitive procedures to appear on the VM stack, allowing
2547 them to be accurately counted in profiles. Also they now have more
2548 debugging information attached to them -- their number of arguments, for
2549 example. In addition, the VM can completely inline the application
2550 mechanics, allowing for faster primitive calls.
2552 However there are some changes on the C level. There is no more
2553 `scm_tc7_gsubr' or `scm_tcs_subrs' typecode for primitive procedures, as
2554 they are just VM procedures. Likewise the macros `SCM_GSUBR_TYPE',
2555 `SCM_GSUBR_MAKTYPE', `SCM_GSUBR_REQ', `SCM_GSUBR_OPT', and
2556 `SCM_GSUBR_REST' are gone, as are `SCM_SUBR_META_INFO', `SCM_SUBR_PROPS'
2557 `SCM_SET_SUBR_GENERIC_LOC', and `SCM_SUBR_ARITY_TO_TYPE'.
2559 Perhaps more significantly, `scm_c_make_subr',
2560 `scm_c_make_subr_with_generic', `scm_c_define_subr', and
2561 `scm_c_define_subr_with_generic'. They all operated on subr typecodes,
2562 and there are no more subr typecodes. Use the scm_c_make_gsubr family
2565 Normal users of gsubrs should not be affected, though, as the
2566 scm_c_make_gsubr family still is the correct way to create primitive
2569 ** Remove deprecated array C interfaces
2571 Removed the deprecated array functions `scm_i_arrayp',
2572 `scm_i_array_ndim', `scm_i_array_mem', `scm_i_array_v',
2573 `scm_i_array_base', `scm_i_array_dims', and the deprecated macros
2574 `SCM_ARRAYP', `SCM_ARRAY_NDIM', `SCM_ARRAY_CONTP', `SCM_ARRAY_MEM',
2575 `SCM_ARRAY_V', `SCM_ARRAY_BASE', and `SCM_ARRAY_DIMS'.
2577 ** Remove unused snarf macros
2579 `SCM_DEFINE1', `SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC_1', `SCM_PROC1, and `SCM_GPROC1'
2580 are no more. Use SCM_DEFINE or SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC instead.
2582 ** New functions: `scm_call_n', `scm_c_run_hookn'
2584 `scm_call_n' applies to apply a function to an array of arguments.
2585 `scm_c_run_hookn' runs a hook with an array of arguments.
2587 ** Some SMOB types changed to have static typecodes
2589 Fluids, dynamic states, and hash tables used to be SMOB objects, but now
2590 they have statically allocated tc7 typecodes.
2592 ** Preparations for changing SMOB representation
2594 If things go right, we'll be changing the SMOB representation soon. To
2595 that end, we did a lot of cleanups to calls to e.g. SCM_CELL_WORD_2(x) when
2596 the code meant SCM_SMOB_DATA_2(x); user code will need similar changes
2597 in the future. Code accessing SMOBs using SCM_CELL macros was never
2598 correct, but until now things still worked. Users should be aware of
2601 ** Changed invocation mechanics of applicable SMOBs
2603 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying SMOB
2604 objects. Now, with the VM, when Guile sees a SMOB, it looks up a VM
2605 trampoline procedure for it, and use the normal mechanics to apply the
2606 trampoline. This simplifies procedure application in the normal,
2609 The upshot is that the mechanics used to apply a SMOB are different from
2610 1.8. Descriptors no longer have `apply_0', `apply_1', `apply_2', and
2611 `apply_3' functions, and the macros SCM_SMOB_APPLY_0 and friends are now
2612 deprecated. Just use the scm_call_0 family of procedures.
2614 ** Removed support shlibs for SRFIs 1, 4, 13, 14, and 60
2616 Though these SRFI support libraries did expose API, they encoded a
2617 strange version string into their library names. That version was never
2618 programmatically exported, so there was no way people could use the
2621 This was a fortunate oversight, as it allows us to remove the need for
2622 extra, needless shared libraries --- the C support code for SRFIs 4, 13,
2623 and 14 was already in core --- and allow us to incrementally return the
2624 SRFI implementation to Scheme.
2626 ** New C function: scm_module_public_interface
2628 This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
2630 ** Undeprecate `scm_the_root_module ()'
2632 It's useful to be able to get the root module from C without doing a
2635 ** Inline vector allocation
2637 Instead of having vectors point out into the heap for their data, their
2638 data is now allocated inline to the vector object itself. The same is
2639 true for bytevectors, by default, though there is an indirection
2640 available which should allow for making a bytevector from an existing
2643 ** New struct constructors that don't involve making lists
2645 `scm_c_make_struct' and `scm_c_make_structv' are new varargs and array
2646 constructors, respectively, for structs. You might find them useful.
2650 In Guile 1.8, there were debugging frames on the C stack. Now there is
2651 no more need to explicitly mark the stack in this way, because Guile has
2652 a VM stack that it knows how to walk, which simplifies the C API
2653 considerably. See the ChangeLog for details; the relevant interface is
2654 in libguile/stacks.h. The Scheme API has not been changed significantly.
2656 ** Removal of Guile's primitive object system.
2658 There were a number of pieces in `objects.[ch]' that tried to be a
2659 minimal object system, but were never documented, and were quickly
2660 obseleted by GOOPS' merge into Guile proper. So `scm_make_class_object',
2661 `scm_make_subclass_object', `scm_metaclass_standard', and like symbols
2662 from objects.h are no more. In the very unlikely case in which these
2663 were useful to you, we urge you to contact guile-devel.
2667 Actually the future is still in the state that it was, is, and ever
2668 shall be, Amen, except that `futures.c' and `futures.h' are no longer a
2669 part of it. These files were experimental, never compiled, and would be
2670 better implemented in Scheme anyway. In the future, that is.
2672 ** Deprecate trampolines
2674 There used to be C functions `scm_trampoline_0', `scm_trampoline_1', and
2675 so on. The point was to do some precomputation on the type of the
2676 procedure, then return a specialized "call" procedure. However this
2677 optimization wasn't actually an optimization, so it is now deprecated.
2678 Just use `scm_call_0', etc instead.
2680 ** Deprecated `scm_badargsp'
2682 This function is unused in Guile, but was part of its API.
2684 ** Better support for Lisp `nil'.
2686 The bit representation of `nil' has been tweaked so that it is now very
2687 efficient to check e.g. if a value is equal to Scheme's end-of-list or
2688 Lisp's nil. Additionally there are a heap of new, specific predicates
2689 like scm_is_null_or_nil.
2691 ** Better integration of Lisp `nil'.
2693 `scm_is_boolean', `scm_is_false', and `scm_is_null' all return true now
2694 for Lisp's `nil'. This shouldn't affect any Scheme code at this point,
2695 but when we start to integrate more with Emacs, it is possible that we
2696 break code that assumes that, for example, `(not x)' implies that `x' is
2697 `eq?' to `#f'. This is not a common assumption. Refactoring affected
2698 code to rely on properties instead of identities will improve code
2699 correctness. See "Nil" in the manual, for more details.
2701 ** Support for static allocation of strings, symbols, and subrs.
2703 Calls to snarfing CPP macros like SCM_DEFINE macro will now allocate
2704 much of their associated data as static variables, reducing Guile's
2707 ** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
2708 ** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
2710 ** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
2712 Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
2713 definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
2715 ** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
2717 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
2718 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
2719 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
2720 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
2722 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
2724 * Changes to the distribution
2726 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
2728 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
2729 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
2734 Guile's build is visually quieter, due to the use of Automake 1.11's
2735 AM_SILENT_RULES. Build as `make V=1' to see all of the output.
2737 ** GOOPS documentation folded into Guile reference manual
2739 GOOPS, Guile's object system, used to be documented in separate manuals.
2740 This content is now included in Guile's manual directly.
2742 ** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
2744 `guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
2745 `pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
2746 guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
2749 ** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
2751 Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
2752 macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
2754 ** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
2756 If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
2757 to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
2759 ** Parallel installability fixes
2761 Guile now installs its header files to a effective-version-specific
2762 directory, and includes the effective version (e.g. 2.0) in the library
2763 name (e.g. libguile-2.0.so).
2765 This change should be transparent to users, who should detect Guile via
2766 the guile.m4 macro, or the guile-2.0.pc pkg-config file. It will allow
2767 parallel installs for multiple versions of Guile development
2770 ** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
2772 Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
2773 (e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
2774 be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
2775 directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensiondir
2776 guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
2778 ** User Scheme code may be placed in a version-specific path
2780 Before, there was only one way to install user Scheme code to a
2781 version-specific Guile directory: install to Guile's own path,
2782 e.g. /usr/share/guile/2.0. The site directory,
2783 e.g. /usr/share/guile/site, was unversioned. This has been changed to
2784 add a version-specific site directory, e.g. /usr/share/guile/site/2.0,
2785 searched before the global site directory.
2787 ** New dependency: libgc
2789 See http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/, for more information.
2791 ** New dependency: GNU libunistring
2793 See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
2794 Unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
2796 ** New dependency: libffi
2798 See http://sourceware.org/libffi/, for more information.
2802 Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
2806 ** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
2807 ** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
2808 ** Fix `wrong type arg' exceptions with IPv6 addresses
2811 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
2813 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2815 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
2819 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
2820 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
2821 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
2822 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
2823 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
2824 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
2825 ** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
2826 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
2827 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
2828 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
2829 ** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
2831 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
2833 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
2834 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
2835 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
2838 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
2841 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
2843 * New features (see the manual for details)
2845 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
2847 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
2849 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
2850 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
2851 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
2853 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
2855 * Changes to the distribution
2857 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
2859 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
2860 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
2862 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
2864 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
2865 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
2870 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
2871 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
2872 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
2873 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
2874 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
2875 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
2876 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
2877 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
2878 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
2879 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
2880 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
2881 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
2882 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
2883 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
2885 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
2886 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
2887 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
2888 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
2889 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
2892 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
2894 * Infrastructure changes
2896 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
2898 The new repository can be accessed using
2899 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
2900 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
2902 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
2904 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
2906 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2910 * New features (see the manual for details)
2912 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
2913 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
2914 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
2916 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
2917 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
2918 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
2919 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
2921 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
2923 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
2924 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
2925 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
2929 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
2930 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
2932 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
2933 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
2935 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
2936 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
2938 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
2939 lead to a stack overflow.
2941 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
2942 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
2943 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
2944 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
2945 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
2946 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
2947 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
2948 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
2949 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
2950 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
2951 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
2952 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
2953 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
2954 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
2955 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
2956 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
2959 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
2963 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
2964 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
2965 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
2966 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
2967 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
2968 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
2969 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
2970 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
2971 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
2972 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
2973 system and library calls.
2974 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
2975 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
2976 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
2977 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
2978 uniform vectors on AIX.
2979 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
2980 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
2981 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
2982 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
2983 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
2985 * New modules (see the manual for details)
2989 * Documentation fixes and improvements
2991 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
2993 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
2994 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
2996 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
2998 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
3000 * Changes to the distribution
3002 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
3004 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
3005 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
3006 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
3008 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
3010 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
3013 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
3015 * New modules (see the manual for details)
3022 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
3023 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
3024 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
3025 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
3026 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
3027 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
3028 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
3030 * Implementation improvements
3032 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
3033 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
3036 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
3038 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
3040 ** set-program-arguments
3043 * Incompatible changes
3045 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
3047 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
3048 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
3049 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
3050 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
3055 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
3056 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
3057 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
3058 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
3059 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
3060 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
3062 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
3063 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
3064 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
3065 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
3066 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
3067 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
3068 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
3069 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
3070 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
3071 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
3072 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
3073 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
3074 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
3075 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
3076 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
3077 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
3080 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
3082 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
3084 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
3086 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
3087 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
3088 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
3089 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
3090 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
3091 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
3099 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
3101 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
3103 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
3105 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
3107 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
3109 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
3111 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
3112 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
3113 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
3115 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
3117 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
3119 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
3120 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
3122 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
3124 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
3125 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
3127 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
3129 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
3131 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
3133 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
3135 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
3137 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
3139 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
3141 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
3143 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
3145 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
3146 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
3147 file was on a different device.
3150 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
3152 * Changes to the distribution
3154 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
3156 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
3158 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
3160 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
3162 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
3164 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
3167 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
3169 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
3170 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
3171 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
3172 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
3173 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
3174 items like the versioned share directory name
3175 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
3177 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
3178 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
3179 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
3180 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
3181 with each micro release during a stable series.
3183 ** Thread implementation has changed.
3185 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
3186 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
3187 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
3188 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
3189 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
3192 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
3193 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
3194 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
3195 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
3198 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
3199 in which case "null" threads are used.
3201 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
3202 "Blocking", and others.
3204 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
3206 This is a milder form of deprecation.
3208 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
3209 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
3210 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
3211 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
3212 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
3214 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
3215 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
3217 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
3219 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
3220 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
3222 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
3225 This SRFI is always available.
3227 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
3229 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
3230 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
3231 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
3232 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
3235 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
3237 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
3238 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
3239 parameters without currying.
3241 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
3243 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
3244 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
3246 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
3247 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
3250 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
3251 with a renaming import, for example.
3253 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
3255 The official version is good enough now.
3257 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
3259 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
3260 provided. Use 'make html'.
3262 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
3264 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
3265 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
3266 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
3267 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
3269 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
3271 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
3274 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3276 ** New command line option `-L'.
3278 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
3280 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
3282 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
3283 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
3285 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
3287 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
3288 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
3290 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
3292 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
3293 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
3296 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
3299 (define-module (demo)
3303 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
3306 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3308 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
3310 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
3311 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
3312 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
3314 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
3316 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
3317 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
3319 ** New function hashx-remove!
3321 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
3323 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
3324 barriers and dynamic states.
3326 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
3327 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
3328 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
3331 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
3332 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
3333 Barriers" in the manual.
3335 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
3336 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
3338 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
3340 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
3341 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
3342 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
3343 variable %load-path.
3345 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
3347 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
3348 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
3350 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
3351 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
3352 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
3354 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
3355 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
3357 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
3358 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
3359 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
3361 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
3362 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
3363 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
3366 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
3367 substrings and read-only strings.
3369 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
3370 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
3373 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
3375 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
3384 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
3385 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
3386 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
3388 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
3389 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
3390 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
3391 on an ANSI terminal:
3393 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
3394 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
3397 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
3399 See the manual for details.
3401 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
3403 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
3406 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
3408 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
3409 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
3410 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
3411 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
3413 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
3414 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
3415 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
3418 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
3420 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
3421 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
3432 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
3436 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
3441 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
3445 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
3449 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
3452 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
3453 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
3454 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
3455 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
3457 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
3458 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
3461 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
3464 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
3468 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
3470 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
3471 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
3472 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
3475 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
3478 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
3480 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
3483 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
3484 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
3487 (define-module (foo)
3492 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
3493 has been detected is to
3495 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
3496 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
3497 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
3500 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
3503 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
3505 to your .guile init file.
3507 ** New define-module option: :replace
3509 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
3512 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
3513 for the core binding `format'.
3515 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
3517 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
3518 a prefix to all imported bindings.
3520 (define-module (foo)
3521 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
3523 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
3526 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
3528 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
3529 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
3530 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
3532 ** New function: effective-version
3534 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
3535 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
3536 to the distribution" above.
3538 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
3540 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
3541 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
3543 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
3545 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
3546 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
3548 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
3550 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
3551 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
3554 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
3556 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
3558 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
3560 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
3561 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
3562 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
3565 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
3566 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
3567 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
3568 'system-async-mark'.
3570 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
3571 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
3573 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
3574 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
3575 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
3578 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
3580 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
3581 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
3584 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
3585 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
3587 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
3588 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
3589 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
3590 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
3591 level for the current thread.
3593 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
3595 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
3597 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
3598 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
3601 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
3603 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
3605 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
3608 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
3610 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
3613 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
3614 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
3615 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
3617 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
3618 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
3619 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
3620 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
3631 ERROR: Numerical overflow
3633 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
3636 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
3638 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
3639 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
3640 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
3651 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
3653 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
3654 them is also done exactly, of course:
3659 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
3660 for exact arguments.
3662 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
3663 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
3665 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
3667 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
3668 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
3669 equal to a floating point number. For example:
3671 (inexact->exact 1.234)
3672 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
3674 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
3676 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
3679 ** New function 'rationalize'.
3681 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
3682 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
3684 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
3687 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
3688 result when both its arguments are exact.
3690 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
3692 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
3693 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
3694 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
3696 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
3698 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
3699 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
3700 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
3702 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
3705 ** pretty-print has more options.
3707 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
3708 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
3709 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
3711 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
3713 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
3714 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
3715 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
3717 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
3719 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
3720 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
3722 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
3724 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
3725 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
3728 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
3730 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
3731 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
3732 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
3733 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
3734 without the soft port blocking.
3736 ** Deprecated: undefine
3738 There is no replacement for undefine.
3740 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
3741 have been discouraged.
3743 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
3744 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
3745 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
3748 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
3750 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
3752 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
3753 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
3754 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
3755 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
3758 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
3759 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
3760 be removed in the next major Guile release.
3762 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
3764 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
3765 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
3766 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
3767 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
3768 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
3769 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
3771 * Changes to the C interface
3773 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
3774 take a 'delete' function argument.
3776 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
3777 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
3779 This is an incompatible change.
3781 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
3783 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
3784 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
3785 --disable-deprecated.
3787 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
3789 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
3790 Scheme values has been added.
3792 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
3793 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
3796 - int scm_is_* (...)
3798 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
3799 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
3801 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
3803 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
3804 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
3807 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
3809 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
3810 scm_from_int for ints.
3812 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
3813 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
3814 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
3816 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
3818 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
3819 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
3820 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
3823 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
3825 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
3827 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
3829 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
3830 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
3831 following alternatives.
3833 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
3834 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
3835 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
3836 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
3838 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
3839 do the validating for you.
3841 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
3842 have been discouraged.
3844 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
3845 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
3848 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
3850 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
3851 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
3854 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
3856 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
3859 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
3862 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
3864 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
3865 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
3867 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
3868 scm_truncate_number should have.
3870 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
3871 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
3873 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
3876 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
3877 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
3878 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
3880 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
3881 easier to use from C.
3883 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
3884 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
3886 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
3887 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
3888 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
3891 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
3892 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
3893 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
3894 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
3897 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
3898 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
3899 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
3900 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
3901 and is thus quite efficient.
3903 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
3905 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
3906 about the character encoding.
3908 Replace according to the following table:
3910 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
3911 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
3912 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
3913 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
3914 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
3915 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
3916 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
3917 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
3918 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
3920 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
3921 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
3923 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
3925 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
3926 now also available to C code.
3928 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
3930 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
3931 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
3932 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
3934 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
3937 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
3939 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
3940 unceremoniously removed.
3942 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
3943 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
3944 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
3946 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
3947 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
3948 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
3949 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
3950 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
3951 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
3954 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
3956 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
3957 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
3958 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
3959 manual for more details.
3961 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
3962 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
3964 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
3965 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
3966 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
3968 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
3970 Migrate according to the following table:
3972 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
3973 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
3974 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
3975 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
3976 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
3977 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
3978 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
3980 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
3981 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
3982 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
3983 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
3984 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
3985 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
3986 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
3988 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
3990 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
3991 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
3993 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
3994 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
3995 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
3996 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
3998 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
4000 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
4001 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
4002 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
4004 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
4005 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
4007 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
4008 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
4009 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
4010 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
4012 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
4014 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
4015 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
4016 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
4017 prevent a potential memory leak:
4024 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
4026 mem = scm_malloc (100);
4027 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
4029 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
4030 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
4037 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
4038 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
4042 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
4044 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
4046 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
4047 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
4048 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
4050 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
4051 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
4053 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
4055 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
4057 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
4058 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
4059 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
4061 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
4062 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
4064 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
4065 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
4066 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
4067 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
4070 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
4072 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
4073 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
4074 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
4076 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
4078 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
4079 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
4081 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
4083 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
4084 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
4086 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
4088 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
4089 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
4090 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
4092 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
4094 You should not have used them.
4096 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
4098 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
4099 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
4101 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
4103 This macro is not intended for public use.
4105 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
4107 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
4109 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
4111 Use scm_is_real instead.
4113 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
4115 Use scm_is_complex instead.
4117 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
4119 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
4120 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
4122 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
4123 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
4125 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
4126 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
4128 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
4130 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
4133 ** New function: scm_effective_version
4135 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
4136 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
4137 to the distribution" above.
4139 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
4141 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
4142 arguments are now passed directly:
4144 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
4146 This is an incompatible change.
4148 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
4150 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
4151 function in the init section.
4153 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
4155 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
4157 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
4158 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
4159 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
4160 stays roughly constant.
4162 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
4163 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
4164 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
4165 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
4166 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
4169 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
4170 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
4171 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
4172 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
4174 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
4175 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
4176 objects for every type.
4179 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
4181 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
4183 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
4185 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
4186 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
4187 initializes a new cell (see below).
4189 ** New functions for memory management
4191 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
4192 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
4193 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
4194 cause aborts in long running programs.
4196 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
4197 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
4199 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
4200 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
4201 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
4202 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
4203 details and for upgrading instructions.
4205 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
4206 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
4207 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
4209 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
4211 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
4212 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
4213 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
4214 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
4215 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
4217 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
4218 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
4219 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
4221 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
4222 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
4224 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
4226 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
4227 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
4228 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
4229 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
4230 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
4232 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
4234 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
4237 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
4239 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
4241 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
4243 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
4244 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
4246 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
4248 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
4249 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
4251 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
4252 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
4254 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
4256 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
4258 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
4259 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
4260 blocking it is not well defined.
4262 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
4264 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
4265 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
4266 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
4267 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
4268 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
4269 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
4270 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
4271 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
4272 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
4273 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
4274 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
4275 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
4276 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
4277 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
4278 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
4279 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
4280 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
4281 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
4282 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
4283 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
4284 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
4285 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
4286 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
4287 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
4288 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
4289 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
4290 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
4291 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
4292 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
4293 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
4294 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
4296 * Changes to bundled modules
4300 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
4301 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
4302 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
4303 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
4304 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
4307 Changes since Guile 1.4:
4309 * Changes to the distribution
4311 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
4313 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
4315 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
4316 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
4317 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
4318 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
4319 indicate major changes in Guile.
4321 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
4322 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
4323 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
4324 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
4326 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
4327 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
4328 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
4329 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
4330 micro version number.
4332 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
4334 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
4336 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
4337 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
4339 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
4341 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
4342 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
4343 See INSTALL and README for more information.
4345 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
4347 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
4348 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
4349 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
4352 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
4354 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
4357 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
4359 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
4360 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
4362 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
4364 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
4365 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
4368 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
4370 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
4373 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
4376 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
4378 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
4380 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
4381 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
4382 open-output-string, get-output-string.
4384 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
4386 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
4388 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
4391 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
4393 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
4395 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
4397 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
4398 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
4399 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
4401 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
4403 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
4405 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
4406 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
4415 See README there for more info.
4417 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
4418 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
4421 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
4423 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
4425 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
4427 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
4428 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
4429 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
4431 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
4433 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
4434 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
4435 to be named `and-let*', of course.
4437 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
4438 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
4440 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
4443 (oop goops describe)
4445 (oop goops active-slot)
4446 (oop goops composite-slot)
4448 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
4449 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
4450 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
4452 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
4454 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
4455 in the default environment:
4457 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
4458 %read-line write-line
4460 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
4461 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
4463 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
4465 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
4468 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
4469 can be used for similar functionality.
4471 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
4473 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
4474 it defines two procedures:
4476 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
4478 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
4479 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
4480 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
4483 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
4485 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
4486 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
4487 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
4488 write large strings.
4490 ** New module (ice-9 match)
4492 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
4493 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
4495 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
4497 for complete documentation.
4499 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
4501 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
4502 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
4503 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
4504 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
4506 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
4507 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
4511 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
4512 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
4513 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
4516 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
4519 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
4520 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
4522 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
4523 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
4526 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
4529 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
4531 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
4533 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4535 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
4537 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
4538 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
4539 Scheme programs easier.
4541 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
4542 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
4543 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
4544 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
4545 `cond-expand' when using this option.
4548 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
4549 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
4551 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
4554 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
4556 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
4557 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
4558 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
4561 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4563 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
4565 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
4566 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
4567 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
4568 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
4569 was also ASCII, for example.
4571 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
4573 tag - no replacement.
4574 fseek - replaced by seek.
4575 list* - replaced by cons*.
4577 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
4581 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
4582 (define m (make-safe-module))
4583 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
4584 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
4585 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
4587 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
4589 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
4590 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
4591 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
4593 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
4595 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
4596 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
4597 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
4598 from the issues related to the module system.
4600 *** New function: load-extension
4602 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
4604 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
4606 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
4607 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
4608 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
4610 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
4612 This function registers a initialization function for use by
4613 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
4614 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
4615 support dynamic linking).
4617 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
4619 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
4620 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
4621 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
4622 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
4625 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
4626 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
4627 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
4628 library and initialize it explicitly.
4630 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
4631 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
4633 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
4635 (define-module (foo bar))
4637 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
4639 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
4641 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
4642 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
4644 (scheme-report-environment 5)
4645 (null-environment 5)
4646 (interaction-environment)
4652 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
4654 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
4655 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
4656 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
4657 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
4659 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
4660 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
4661 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
4662 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
4663 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
4664 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
4665 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
4666 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
4667 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
4668 one eval to the next.
4670 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
4671 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
4672 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
4673 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
4674 subforms are at the top-level as well.
4676 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
4677 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
4678 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
4679 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
4680 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
4681 used in a lexical environment.
4683 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
4684 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
4685 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
4686 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
4687 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
4688 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
4690 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
4692 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
4693 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
4694 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
4695 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
4696 new facilities: selection and renaming.
4698 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
4699 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
4700 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
4702 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
4703 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
4705 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
4706 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
4707 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
4709 (remove-if . zonk-y)
4710 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
4712 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
4713 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
4714 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
4715 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
4718 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
4719 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
4720 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
4721 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
4723 (remove-if . zonk-y)
4724 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
4725 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
4727 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
4728 ;; and all four by upcasing.
4729 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
4730 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
4731 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
4733 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
4735 (remove-if . zonk-y)
4736 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
4737 :renamer upcase-symbol))
4739 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
4740 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
4741 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
4743 See manual for more info.
4745 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
4747 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
4748 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
4749 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
4751 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
4753 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
4754 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
4755 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
4757 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
4758 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
4759 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
4760 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
4762 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
4764 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
4765 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
4767 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
4768 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
4769 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
4770 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
4771 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
4774 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
4775 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
4776 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
4777 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
4778 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
4779 successful and #f if it wasn't.
4781 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
4782 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
4783 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
4784 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
4785 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
4787 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
4788 objects are usually permanent.
4790 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
4791 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
4793 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
4795 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
4796 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
4799 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
4803 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
4808 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
4810 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
4811 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
4812 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
4813 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
4815 ** New function `make-object-property'
4817 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
4818 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
4822 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
4823 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
4827 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
4828 source properties eventually.
4830 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
4832 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
4833 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
4834 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
4836 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
4837 will be removed in the next release.
4839 ** New define-module option: pure
4841 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
4846 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
4849 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
4851 Export names NAME1 ...
4853 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
4854 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
4858 (define-module (foo)
4860 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
4863 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
4868 ** New function: object->string OBJ
4870 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
4872 ** New function: port? X
4874 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
4875 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
4877 ** New function: file-port?
4879 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
4881 ** New function: port-for-each proc
4883 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
4884 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
4885 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
4886 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
4887 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
4889 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
4891 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
4892 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
4893 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
4894 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
4895 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
4898 ** New function: close-fdes fd
4900 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
4901 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
4902 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
4903 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
4906 ** New function: crypt password salt
4908 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
4911 ** New function: chroot path
4913 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
4915 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
4917 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
4920 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
4922 Get or set the priority of the running process.
4924 ** New function: getpass prompt
4926 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
4929 ** New function: flock file operation
4931 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
4933 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
4935 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
4938 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
4940 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
4941 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
4942 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
4943 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
4944 of the temporary file.
4946 ** New function: open-input-string string
4948 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
4949 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
4950 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
4952 ** New function: open-output-string
4954 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
4955 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
4957 ** New function: get-output-string
4959 Return the contents of an output string port.
4961 ** New function: identity
4963 Return the argument.
4965 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
4966 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
4968 ** New function: inet-pton family address
4970 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
4971 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
4972 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
4975 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
4976 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
4978 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
4980 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
4981 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
4982 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
4985 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
4986 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
4987 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
4991 Use `identity' instead.
4997 ** Deprecated: return-it
5001 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
5003 Use `string-length' instead.
5005 ** Deprecated: flags
5007 Use `logior' instead.
5009 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
5011 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
5012 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
5013 port-for-each is more flexible.
5015 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
5016 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
5017 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
5019 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
5021 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
5023 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
5025 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
5027 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
5029 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
5030 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
5032 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
5033 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
5035 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
5036 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
5038 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
5040 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
5041 Removed function: builtin-bindings
5043 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
5044 Use module system operations for all variables.
5046 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
5048 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
5051 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
5053 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
5054 The following bugs have been fixed:
5056 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
5057 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
5060 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
5061 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
5062 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
5064 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
5065 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
5067 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
5068 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
5071 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
5072 The expansion used to be like so:
5074 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
5076 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
5078 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
5080 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
5081 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
5083 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
5085 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
5086 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
5087 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
5091 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
5092 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
5094 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
5099 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
5100 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
5102 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
5103 and `d', other keywords allowed.
5104 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
5106 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
5109 * Changes to the C interface
5111 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
5113 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
5114 with "_t". What a concept.
5116 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
5118 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
5120 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
5124 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
5125 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
5127 *** C Functions removed
5129 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
5130 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
5131 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
5132 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
5133 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
5134 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
5135 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
5137 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
5139 Use scm_mem2string instead.
5141 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
5143 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
5145 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
5146 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
5148 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
5150 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
5153 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
5155 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
5157 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
5159 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
5160 Evaluation" in the manual.
5162 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
5164 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
5165 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
5167 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
5169 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
5170 Constructors" in the manual.
5172 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
5174 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
5175 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
5177 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
5179 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
5181 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
5182 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
5183 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
5185 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
5187 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
5189 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
5190 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
5191 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
5194 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
5196 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
5198 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
5199 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
5201 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
5203 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
5204 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
5205 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
5206 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
5208 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
5209 scm_primitive_property_ref
5210 scm_primitive_property_set_x
5211 scm_primitive_property_del_x
5213 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
5214 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
5216 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
5218 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
5219 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
5220 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
5221 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
5223 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
5225 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
5226 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
5227 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
5228 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
5229 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
5230 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
5231 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
5233 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
5234 scm_remember_upto_here
5236 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
5238 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
5240 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
5241 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
5243 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
5245 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
5247 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
5249 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
5251 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
5253 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
5254 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
5255 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
5256 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
5257 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
5258 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
5260 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
5262 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
5264 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
5265 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
5266 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
5268 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
5270 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
5271 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
5272 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
5274 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
5276 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
5277 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
5280 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
5283 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
5284 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
5287 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
5289 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
5291 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
5293 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
5295 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
5297 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
5299 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
5300 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
5301 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
5302 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
5303 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
5304 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
5305 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
5306 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
5307 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
5308 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
5309 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
5310 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
5311 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
5312 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
5313 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
5315 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
5316 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
5317 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
5318 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
5319 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
5320 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
5321 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
5322 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
5323 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
5324 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
5325 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
5326 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
5327 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
5328 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
5329 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
5330 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
5331 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
5332 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
5333 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
5334 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
5335 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
5336 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
5337 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
5338 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
5339 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
5340 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
5341 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
5342 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
5343 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
5345 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
5347 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
5349 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
5350 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
5352 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
5354 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
5356 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
5358 Use scm_string_hash instead.
5360 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
5362 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
5364 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
5366 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
5368 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
5371 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
5372 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
5374 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
5376 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
5378 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
5380 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
5382 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
5384 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
5386 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
5388 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
5391 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
5393 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
5395 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
5397 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
5398 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
5400 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
5401 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
5403 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
5405 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
5406 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
5407 scm_module_define, scm_define.
5409 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
5411 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
5413 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
5414 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
5416 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
5417 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
5418 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
5419 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
5421 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
5422 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
5423 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
5425 Use the new ones from above instead.
5427 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
5429 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
5430 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
5431 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
5433 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
5434 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
5436 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
5437 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
5440 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
5441 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
5443 Use the new functions instead.
5445 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
5448 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
5450 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
5452 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
5455 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
5457 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
5460 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
5462 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
5465 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
5466 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
5467 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
5469 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
5471 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
5472 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
5474 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
5475 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
5476 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
5477 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
5480 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
5482 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
5483 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
5484 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
5485 inexact for an exact.
5487 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
5488 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
5489 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
5492 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
5493 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
5494 accept an inexact argument.
5496 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
5497 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
5499 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
5502 ** New number validation macros:
5503 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
5507 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
5509 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
5510 scm_unprotect_object.
5512 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
5514 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
5516 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
5519 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
5521 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
5525 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
5527 * Changes to the distribution
5529 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
5531 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
5532 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
5533 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
5534 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
5535 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
5536 obtain these programs.
5537 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
5538 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
5540 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
5541 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
5542 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
5543 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
5544 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
5546 However, this approach means that minor differences between
5547 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
5548 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
5549 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
5553 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
5556 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
5557 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
5558 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
5559 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
5561 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
5563 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
5565 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
5566 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
5568 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
5569 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
5571 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
5572 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
5574 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
5575 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
5576 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
5577 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
5579 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
5581 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
5585 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
5586 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
5588 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
5590 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
5591 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
5593 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
5594 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
5595 number of objects of that kind.
5597 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
5599 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
5600 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
5601 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
5602 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
5603 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
5605 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
5607 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
5609 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
5611 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
5614 ** New module (ice-9 time)
5616 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
5618 ** New module (ice-9 history)
5620 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
5622 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5624 ** New command line option --debug
5626 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
5628 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
5630 ** New help facility
5632 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
5633 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
5634 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
5635 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
5636 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
5637 (help) gives this text
5639 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
5640 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
5642 Examples: (help help)
5644 (help "output-string")
5646 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
5648 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
5650 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
5651 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
5654 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
5655 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
5656 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
5659 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
5660 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
5661 use absolute filenames when possible.
5663 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
5664 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
5665 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
5668 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
5670 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
5671 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
5672 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
5673 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
5675 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
5677 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
5679 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
5680 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
5681 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
5683 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
5684 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
5685 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
5687 (read-enable 'positions)
5688 (debug-enable 'debug)
5690 ** Backtraces in scripts
5692 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
5696 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
5698 at the top of the script.
5700 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
5701 The second enables backtraces.)
5703 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
5705 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
5706 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
5707 substantially faster than before.
5709 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
5710 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
5712 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
5713 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
5715 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
5717 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
5718 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
5719 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
5721 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
5722 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
5723 when this hook is run in the future.
5725 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
5726 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
5728 ** Improvements to garbage collector
5730 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
5731 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
5734 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
5735 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
5736 more and more memory for certain programs.)
5738 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
5739 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
5741 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
5742 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
5744 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
5745 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
5746 in order not to need further allocation.)
5748 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
5751 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
5752 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
5753 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
5754 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
5756 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
5758 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
5761 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
5763 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
5766 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
5767 GC in percent of total heap size
5770 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
5771 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
5773 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
5775 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
5776 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
5778 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
5780 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
5781 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
5783 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
5785 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
5786 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
5790 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
5791 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
5793 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
5795 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5797 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
5799 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
5801 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
5803 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
5804 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
5806 (simple-format port message . args)
5807 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
5808 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
5809 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
5810 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
5811 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
5812 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
5813 Does not add a trailing newline."
5815 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
5817 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
5818 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
5820 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
5821 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
5823 ** Deprecated: list*
5825 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
5827 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
5829 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
5830 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
5832 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
5833 is returned as result.
5835 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
5837 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
5839 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
5841 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
5842 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
5845 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
5847 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
5849 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
5850 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
5852 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5854 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
5856 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
5858 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5860 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
5862 Thanks to Greg Badros!
5864 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
5866 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
5867 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
5868 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
5870 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
5873 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
5875 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
5876 the readability of argument checking.
5878 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
5880 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
5882 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
5884 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
5885 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
5886 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
5887 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
5888 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
5889 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
5890 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
5892 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
5894 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
5896 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
5897 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
5899 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
5901 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
5902 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
5905 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
5907 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
5908 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
5909 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
5911 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
5912 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
5913 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
5915 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
5916 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
5917 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
5918 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
5919 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
5920 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
5921 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
5923 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
5924 scm_end_input (object);
5925 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
5926 ptob->flush (object);
5928 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
5929 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
5932 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
5934 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
5936 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
5937 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
5938 removed in a future version.
5940 ** The format of error message strings has changed
5942 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
5943 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
5944 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
5945 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
5947 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
5948 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
5950 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
5953 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
5955 in your configure.in.
5957 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
5962 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
5968 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
5970 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
5974 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
5975 (define make-message string-append)
5977 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
5979 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
5983 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
5988 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
5992 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
5994 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
5995 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
5997 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
5999 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
6000 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
6001 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
6002 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
6003 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
6004 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
6006 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
6007 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
6008 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
6010 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
6011 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
6012 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
6015 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
6016 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
6017 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
6018 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
6019 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
6021 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
6022 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
6023 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
6024 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
6025 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
6026 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
6027 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
6029 Destructors are not yet implemented.
6031 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
6032 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
6033 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
6035 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
6036 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
6037 KEY in the calling thread.
6039 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
6040 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
6041 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
6042 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
6043 associated with the key.
6045 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
6047 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
6048 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
6050 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
6052 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
6053 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
6054 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
6056 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
6058 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
6059 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
6061 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
6063 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
6065 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
6066 returned is undefined.
6068 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
6069 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
6070 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
6072 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
6073 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
6074 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
6076 ** New C level GC hooks
6078 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
6080 scm_before_gc_c_hook
6083 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
6084 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
6085 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
6087 scm_before_mark_c_hook
6088 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
6089 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
6091 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
6092 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
6095 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
6097 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
6098 allocation parameters
6100 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
6101 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
6102 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
6106 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
6107 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
6108 scm_default_max_segment_size
6110 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
6112 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
6113 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
6115 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
6117 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
6118 object and count on the object being protected until
6119 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
6121 The functions also have better time complexity.
6123 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
6124 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
6125 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
6126 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
6127 are no longer needed.
6129 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
6131 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
6132 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
6133 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
6134 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
6136 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
6138 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
6140 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
6142 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
6143 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
6144 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
6145 until this issue has been settled.
6147 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
6149 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
6151 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
6154 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
6156 * Changes to system call interfaces:
6158 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
6159 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
6160 descriptors were checked.
6162 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
6163 atomically written to a pipe.
6165 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
6166 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
6167 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
6168 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
6169 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
6170 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
6171 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
6174 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
6175 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
6176 is changed without calling tzset.
6178 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
6180 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
6181 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
6182 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
6184 (define write-network-long
6185 (lambda (value port)
6186 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
6187 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
6188 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
6190 (define read-network-long
6192 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
6193 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
6194 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
6196 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
6197 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
6199 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
6200 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
6201 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
6202 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
6204 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
6205 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
6206 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
6207 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
6211 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
6213 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6217 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
6218 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
6219 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
6225 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
6226 for a description of available commands.
6228 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
6229 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
6230 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
6232 (debug-enable 'backwards)
6234 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
6235 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
6237 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
6239 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
6241 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
6242 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
6243 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
6244 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
6245 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
6246 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
6249 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
6251 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
6252 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
6253 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
6254 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
6256 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
6257 the file and should not be affected by this change.
6259 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
6261 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6263 ** Readline support has changed again.
6265 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
6266 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
6267 to activate readline is now
6269 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
6272 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
6274 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
6275 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
6276 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
6279 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
6280 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
6281 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
6284 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
6285 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
6286 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
6287 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
6288 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
6289 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
6291 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
6292 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
6294 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
6296 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
6297 object it receives is the same string passed to
6298 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
6299 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
6300 string, not the suffix.
6302 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
6303 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
6304 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
6306 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
6308 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
6309 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
6310 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
6311 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
6314 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
6316 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
6318 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
6319 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
6320 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
6321 appear from left to right.
6323 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
6326 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
6328 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
6329 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
6331 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
6335 *** New function: hook? OBJ
6337 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
6339 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
6341 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
6342 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
6343 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
6345 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
6347 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
6349 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
6351 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
6354 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
6356 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
6357 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
6358 mentioning it here anyway.
6360 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
6362 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
6363 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
6364 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
6365 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
6368 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
6370 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
6372 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
6374 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
6375 otherwise return #f.
6377 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
6379 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
6380 returned by `opendir'.
6382 ** New function: using-readline?
6384 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
6386 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
6388 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
6389 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
6391 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6393 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
6395 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
6396 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
6397 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
6399 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
6401 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
6402 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
6404 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
6406 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
6407 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
6408 documentation slots are not yet used.
6410 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
6412 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
6413 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
6414 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
6419 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
6420 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
6421 (string-append x y))
6423 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
6424 can also be used for concatenating strings.
6426 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
6427 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
6428 be made in a clean way.]
6430 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
6432 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
6434 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
6436 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
6437 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
6439 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6441 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
6443 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
6445 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
6447 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
6448 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
6449 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
6450 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
6453 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6455 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
6457 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
6459 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
6461 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
6462 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
6464 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6466 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
6468 Evaluates the body of a special form.
6470 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
6472 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
6473 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
6474 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
6475 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
6476 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
6477 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
6479 This should not make any difference for most users.
6481 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
6483 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
6484 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
6486 *** New functions for applying generic functions
6488 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
6489 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
6490 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
6491 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
6492 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
6494 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
6496 It is now replaced by:
6498 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
6500 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
6501 binds a variable named NAME to it.
6503 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
6505 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
6506 This might change when we get the new module system.
6508 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
6512 Changes since Guile 1.3:
6514 * Changes to mailing lists
6516 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
6518 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
6521 * Changes to the distribution
6523 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
6525 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
6526 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
6527 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
6528 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
6529 you explicitly specify it.
6531 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
6532 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
6533 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
6534 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
6535 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
6538 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
6539 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
6540 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
6541 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
6543 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
6544 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
6545 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
6548 You can activate the readline support by issuing
6550 (use-modules (readline-activator))
6553 from your ".guile" file, for example.
6555 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6557 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
6558 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
6559 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
6560 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
6562 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
6563 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
6566 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6568 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
6569 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
6570 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
6571 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
6572 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
6573 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
6574 the Guile interpreter or other unwanted results. An example of
6575 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
6587 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
6588 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
6589 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
6590 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
6591 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
6596 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
6597 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
6605 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
6610 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
6611 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
6614 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
6615 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
6616 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
6617 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
6619 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
6621 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
6623 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
6624 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
6626 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
6628 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
6630 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
6631 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
6633 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
6636 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
6638 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
6640 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
6642 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
6644 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
6646 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
6648 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
6649 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
6650 when the hook was created.
6652 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
6653 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
6654 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
6655 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
6656 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
6657 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
6658 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
6659 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
6660 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
6662 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
6663 the dlopen family of functions.
6665 ** New function `provided?'
6667 - Function: provided? FEATURE
6668 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
6669 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
6670 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
6672 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
6674 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
6675 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
6676 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
6677 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
6680 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
6681 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
6682 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
6683 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
6685 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
6686 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
6687 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
6690 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
6691 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
6692 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
6693 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
6694 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
6695 but with the flag set.
6697 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
6699 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
6700 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
6702 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
6703 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
6704 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
6705 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
6706 available Scheme format implementations.
6708 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
6709 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
6710 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
6711 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
6712 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
6713 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
6714 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
6715 output is to the current error port if available by the
6716 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
6719 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
6720 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
6721 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
6722 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
6723 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
6724 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
6725 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
6726 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
6728 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
6729 be executed at a time.
6732 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
6734 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
6735 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
6736 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
6738 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
6739 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
6740 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
6741 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
6742 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
6743 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
6744 general form of a directive is:
6746 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
6748 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
6750 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
6752 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
6753 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
6754 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
6757 Any (print as `display' does).
6761 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
6765 S-expression (print as `write' does).
6769 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
6775 print number sign always.
6778 print comma separated.
6780 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
6786 print number sign always.
6789 print comma separated.
6791 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
6797 print number sign always.
6800 print comma separated.
6802 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
6808 print number sign always.
6811 print comma separated.
6813 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
6818 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
6822 print a number as a Roman numeral.
6825 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
6828 print a number as an ordinal English number.
6831 print a number as a cardinal English number.
6836 prints `y' and `ies'.
6839 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
6842 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
6847 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
6851 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
6854 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
6855 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
6857 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6860 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
6861 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
6863 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6866 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
6868 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
6870 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6873 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
6875 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
6877 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
6880 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
6883 The sign appears before the padding.
6891 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
6893 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
6898 print N page separators.
6908 newline is ignored, white space left.
6911 newline is left, white space ignored.
6916 relative tabulation.
6922 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
6924 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
6927 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
6929 converts by `string-capitalize'.
6932 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
6935 converts by `string-upcase'.
6938 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
6940 jumps N arguments forward.
6943 jumps 1 argument backward.
6946 jumps N arguments backward.
6949 jumps to the 0th argument.
6952 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
6954 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
6955 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
6957 take argument from N.
6960 true test conditional.
6963 if-else-then conditional.
6969 default clause follows.
6972 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
6974 at most N iterations.
6977 args from next arg (a list of lists).
6980 args from the rest of arguments.
6983 args from the rest args (lists).
6994 aborts if N <= M <= K
6996 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
6999 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
7002 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
7008 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
7010 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
7012 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
7013 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
7014 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
7015 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
7016 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
7017 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
7021 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
7025 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
7031 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
7034 Print a `#\space' character
7036 print N `#\space' characters.
7039 Print a `#\tab' character
7041 print N `#\tab' characters.
7044 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
7045 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
7046 must be a positive decimal number.
7049 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
7050 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
7051 be processed by `read'.
7054 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
7055 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
7056 be processed by `read'.
7059 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
7062 prints format version.
7065 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
7066 and format it accordingly.
7068 *** Configuration Variables
7070 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
7071 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
7072 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
7073 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
7076 format:symbol-case-conv
7077 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
7078 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
7079 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
7080 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
7081 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
7083 format:iobj-case-conv
7084 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
7085 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
7088 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
7091 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
7097 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
7098 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
7099 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
7100 `format' padding style.
7103 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
7104 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
7105 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
7106 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
7110 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
7111 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
7112 directive parameters or modifiers)).
7115 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
7116 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
7117 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
7118 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
7119 parameters or modifiers)).
7122 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
7124 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
7126 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
7127 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
7129 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
7130 string-downcase! functions.
7132 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
7133 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
7135 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
7138 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
7141 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
7142 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
7144 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
7146 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
7147 the symbol had be read by `read'.
7149 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
7150 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
7151 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
7152 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
7153 would if STRING were input.
7155 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
7157 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
7158 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
7159 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
7160 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
7163 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
7165 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
7166 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
7169 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
7171 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
7172 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
7174 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
7175 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
7177 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
7178 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
7179 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
7180 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
7182 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
7183 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
7185 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
7186 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
7187 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
7189 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
7190 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
7192 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
7193 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
7194 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
7195 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
7196 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
7198 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
7199 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
7200 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
7201 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
7202 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
7203 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
7205 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
7206 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
7207 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
7210 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
7211 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
7212 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
7213 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
7214 the following grammar:
7215 ((apples (single-char #\a))
7216 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
7217 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
7218 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
7219 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
7220 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
7221 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
7222 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
7223 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
7224 last option in its combination)
7226 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
7227 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
7228 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
7229 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
7231 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
7232 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
7233 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
7235 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
7236 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
7237 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
7239 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
7240 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
7241 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
7242 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
7243 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
7244 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
7245 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
7246 ordinary argument strings.
7248 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
7249 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
7250 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
7251 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
7253 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
7254 as a list, associated with the empty list.
7256 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
7257 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
7258 - a required option is omitted
7259 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
7260 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
7261 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
7262 - an option predicate fails
7267 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
7270 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
7271 (verbose (required? #f)
7274 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
7275 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
7276 (predicate ,string?))))
7278 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
7279 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
7281 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
7282 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
7283 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
7284 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
7287 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
7289 It will be removed in a few releases.
7291 ** New syntax: lambda*
7292 ** New syntax: define*
7293 ** New syntax: define*-public
7294 ** New syntax: defmacro*
7295 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
7296 Guile now supports optional arguments.
7298 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
7299 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
7300 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
7301 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
7302 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
7304 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
7305 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
7306 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
7308 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
7310 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
7311 and examples for `lambda*':
7314 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
7316 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
7317 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
7318 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
7319 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
7320 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
7321 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
7322 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
7323 can be checked with the bound? macro.
7325 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
7327 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
7328 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
7329 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
7330 are given as keywords are bound to values.
7332 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
7333 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
7334 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
7335 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
7336 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
7337 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
7338 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
7339 and until the procedure is called.
7341 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
7343 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
7344 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
7345 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
7346 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
7347 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
7348 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
7349 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
7350 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
7351 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
7352 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
7354 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
7355 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
7356 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
7357 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
7360 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
7362 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
7363 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
7364 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
7365 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
7367 ** New syntax: and-let*
7368 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
7370 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
7371 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
7372 (<variable> <expression>)
7375 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
7376 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
7377 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
7380 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
7381 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
7382 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
7383 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
7384 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
7385 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
7386 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
7388 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
7389 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
7390 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
7391 shadow earlier bindings.
7393 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
7395 ** New sorting functions
7397 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
7398 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
7399 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
7400 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
7402 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
7403 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
7406 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
7407 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
7408 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
7410 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
7411 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
7412 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
7413 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
7415 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
7416 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
7417 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
7418 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
7419 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
7422 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
7423 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
7424 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
7425 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
7426 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
7427 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
7429 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
7430 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
7431 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
7433 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
7434 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
7435 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
7438 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
7439 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
7440 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
7442 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
7443 Added for compatibility with scsh.
7445 ** New built-in random number support
7447 *** New function: random N [STATE]
7448 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
7449 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
7450 returned have a uniform distribution.
7452 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
7453 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
7454 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
7455 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
7456 effect of the `random' operation.
7458 *** New variable: *random-state*
7459 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
7460 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
7461 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
7462 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
7463 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
7466 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
7467 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
7468 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
7469 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
7470 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
7472 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
7473 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
7474 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
7475 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
7476 initialized using SEED.
7478 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
7479 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
7480 range between 0 and 1.
7482 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
7483 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
7484 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
7485 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
7486 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
7487 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
7488 or a uniform vector of doubles.
7490 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
7491 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
7492 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
7493 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
7494 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
7495 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
7497 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
7498 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
7499 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
7500 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
7502 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
7503 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
7504 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
7505 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
7507 *** New function: random:exp STATE
7508 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
7509 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
7511 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
7513 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
7516 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
7517 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
7520 ** New function: make-guardian
7521 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
7522 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
7523 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
7524 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
7525 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
7527 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
7528 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
7529 one object if at all.
7531 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
7532 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
7533 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
7535 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
7536 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
7537 read again in last-in first-out order.
7539 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
7540 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
7542 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
7544 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
7545 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
7546 file position is used.
7548 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
7549 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
7550 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
7552 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
7553 redefined using seek.
7555 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
7556 size is not supplied.
7558 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
7559 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
7561 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
7562 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
7564 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
7566 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
7567 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
7568 and returns the contents as a single string.
7570 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
7571 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
7572 lists in serial order.
7574 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
7575 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
7576 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
7578 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
7579 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
7580 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
7581 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
7583 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
7584 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
7585 and #f if an error occured.
7587 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
7589 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
7590 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
7591 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
7592 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
7594 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
7596 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
7599 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
7601 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
7604 * Changes to the gh_ interface
7608 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
7609 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
7611 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
7612 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
7616 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7618 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
7620 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
7621 binds a variable named NAME to it.
7623 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
7625 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
7626 might change when we get the new module system.
7628 ** The smob interface
7630 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
7631 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
7633 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
7635 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
7639 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
7640 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
7641 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
7642 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
7643 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
7644 will be freed by the default free function.
7646 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
7647 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
7648 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7649 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7651 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
7652 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
7653 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7654 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7656 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
7658 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
7659 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
7663 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
7664 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7665 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7667 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
7668 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
7669 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
7670 `scm_make_smob_type'.
7672 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
7673 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
7674 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
7676 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
7677 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
7678 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
7679 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
7681 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
7682 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
7683 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
7685 *** scm_newptob has been removed
7689 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
7691 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
7692 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
7693 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
7695 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
7696 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
7697 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
7699 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
7700 a string port's buffer.
7702 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
7703 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
7704 function pointers which together define the current random number
7705 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
7706 number library functions.
7708 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
7711 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
7712 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
7715 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
7716 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
7718 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
7719 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
7721 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
7722 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
7725 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
7726 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
7727 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
7728 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
7730 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
7731 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
7732 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
7733 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
7734 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
7735 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
7736 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
7738 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
7739 by libguile and the application.
7741 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
7742 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
7743 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
7744 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
7746 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
7747 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
7749 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
7750 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
7751 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
7753 ** Random number library functions
7754 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
7755 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
7756 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
7758 The default random state is stored in:
7760 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
7761 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
7762 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
7767 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
7769 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
7770 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
7771 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
7772 isn't a random state.
7774 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
7775 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
7777 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
7778 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
7779 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
7780 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
7782 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7783 Return 32 random bits.
7785 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7786 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
7788 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7789 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
7791 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
7792 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
7794 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
7795 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
7797 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
7798 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
7799 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
7803 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
7805 * Changes to the distribution
7807 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
7808 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
7809 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
7812 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
7813 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
7814 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
7816 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
7817 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
7818 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
7819 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
7822 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
7823 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
7824 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
7826 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
7828 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
7830 *** Function: batch-mode?
7832 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
7835 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
7837 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
7838 case has not been implemented.
7840 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
7841 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
7842 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
7845 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
7846 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
7848 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
7850 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7852 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
7854 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
7855 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
7858 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
7859 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
7860 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
7861 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
7864 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
7866 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
7867 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
7868 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
7869 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
7870 find those libraries.
7872 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
7873 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
7876 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
7878 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
7879 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
7880 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
7881 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
7883 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
7884 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
7885 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
7889 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
7891 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
7892 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
7893 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
7896 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
7897 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
7898 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
7899 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
7901 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
7902 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
7905 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
7906 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
7907 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
7908 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
7909 compiler where to find the libraries.
7911 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
7912 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
7913 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
7915 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
7916 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
7917 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
7918 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
7919 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
7923 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7925 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
7926 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
7927 internationalization support.
7929 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
7930 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
7931 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
7932 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
7933 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
7935 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
7936 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
7937 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
7938 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
7939 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
7941 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
7942 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
7943 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
7944 any GNU mirror site.
7946 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
7948 ** New function: add-history STRING
7949 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
7950 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
7951 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
7953 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
7955 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
7956 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
7957 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
7960 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
7961 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
7962 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
7964 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
7966 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
7969 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
7970 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
7973 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
7974 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
7975 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
7976 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
7977 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
7978 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
7980 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
7981 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
7982 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
7983 of the form mentioned above.
7985 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
7986 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
7987 returned in the special `rest' list.
7989 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
7990 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
7992 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
7994 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
7996 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
7998 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
7999 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
8000 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
8001 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
8002 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
8003 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
8004 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
8005 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
8008 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
8010 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
8012 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
8013 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
8016 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
8017 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
8018 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
8022 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
8023 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
8024 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
8025 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
8026 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
8027 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
8028 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
8029 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
8032 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
8034 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
8035 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
8036 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
8038 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
8040 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
8041 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
8043 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
8044 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
8045 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
8047 Why do we have this function?
8048 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
8049 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
8050 primitive, and display it differently, and
8051 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
8052 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
8055 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
8056 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
8059 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
8060 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
8061 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
8062 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
8064 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
8065 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
8068 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
8069 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
8071 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
8073 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
8074 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
8075 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
8076 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
8077 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
8078 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
8079 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
8082 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
8084 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
8085 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
8087 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
8088 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
8089 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
8090 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
8091 properly continue the print chain.
8093 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
8094 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
8095 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
8096 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
8097 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
8098 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
8099 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
8100 print-state, it is simply ignored.
8102 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
8103 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
8104 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
8105 safest to not check for these pairs.
8107 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
8108 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
8109 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
8110 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
8112 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
8114 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
8115 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
8117 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
8119 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
8121 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
8122 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
8123 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
8125 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
8126 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
8127 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
8129 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
8130 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
8131 the following functions and macros:
8133 Function: make-fluid
8135 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
8136 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
8137 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
8138 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
8139 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
8141 Function: fluid? OBJ
8143 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
8145 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
8146 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
8148 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
8149 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
8151 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
8153 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
8154 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
8155 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
8156 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
8157 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
8158 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
8159 modified by `with-fluids*'.
8161 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
8163 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
8164 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
8165 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
8166 should evaluate to a fluid.
8168 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
8170 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
8171 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
8172 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
8173 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
8174 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
8176 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
8179 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
8181 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
8183 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
8185 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
8188 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
8189 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
8190 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
8191 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
8192 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
8195 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
8196 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
8197 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
8199 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
8200 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
8201 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
8203 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
8204 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
8205 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
8206 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
8208 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
8209 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
8210 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
8211 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
8213 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
8214 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
8215 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
8216 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
8218 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
8219 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
8220 their revealed counts set to zero.
8222 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8223 Returns an integer file descriptor.
8225 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8226 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
8228 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8229 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
8231 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8232 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
8233 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
8235 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
8236 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
8237 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
8239 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
8240 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
8241 default environment inherited by child processes.
8243 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
8244 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
8245 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
8247 The return value is unspecified.
8249 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
8250 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
8251 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
8252 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
8253 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
8255 The return value is unspecified.
8257 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
8258 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
8266 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
8267 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
8270 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
8273 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
8274 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
8275 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
8277 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
8278 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
8279 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
8280 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
8283 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
8284 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
8286 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
8287 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
8288 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
8289 the `environ' procedure.
8291 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
8292 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
8295 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
8296 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
8298 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
8299 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
8300 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
8301 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
8303 *** procedure: times
8304 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
8305 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
8306 return a selected component:
8309 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
8313 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
8316 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
8320 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
8321 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
8325 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
8326 terminated child processes.
8328 ** Removed: list-length
8329 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
8330 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
8332 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
8334 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
8336 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
8338 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
8339 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
8340 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
8341 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
8343 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
8344 extra complexity it introduces.
8346 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
8347 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
8349 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
8350 variable to any non-empty value.
8352 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
8353 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
8355 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8357 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
8358 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
8360 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
8362 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
8363 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
8365 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
8367 ** vector handling routines
8369 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
8370 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
8371 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
8372 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
8373 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
8375 ** pair and list routines
8377 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
8380 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
8382 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
8385 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8387 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
8389 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
8390 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
8391 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
8392 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
8393 site-specific initialization code.
8395 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
8396 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
8397 initialization processes.
8399 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
8400 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
8401 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
8402 initialized properly.
8404 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
8405 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
8406 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
8408 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
8409 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
8410 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
8411 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
8412 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
8414 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
8416 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
8417 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
8418 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
8419 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
8420 objects the smob refers to get marked.
8422 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
8423 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
8424 which look like this:
8427 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
8429 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
8430 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
8433 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
8434 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
8437 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
8439 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
8440 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
8441 you will need to change your functions slightly.
8443 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
8444 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
8445 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
8446 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
8447 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
8449 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
8450 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
8452 int (*free) (SCM port);
8453 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
8454 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
8455 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
8459 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
8460 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
8461 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
8463 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
8466 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
8467 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
8468 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
8470 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
8471 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
8472 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
8475 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
8479 struct timeval *timeout);
8481 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
8482 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
8483 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
8484 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
8485 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
8486 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
8488 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
8489 scm_catch_body_t body,
8491 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
8494 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
8495 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
8496 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
8497 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
8498 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
8499 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
8501 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
8503 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
8506 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
8507 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
8508 spawning threads from application C code.
8510 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
8511 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
8512 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
8513 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
8514 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
8515 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
8517 ** Removed functions:
8519 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
8520 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
8522 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
8524 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
8525 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
8527 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
8529 ** mbstrings are now removed
8531 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
8532 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
8534 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
8536 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
8537 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
8538 their new names and arguments:
8540 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
8541 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
8542 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
8543 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
8546 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
8548 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
8550 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
8553 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
8555 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
8556 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
8557 pass a #f arg to catch.
8559 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
8561 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
8562 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
8565 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
8566 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
8567 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
8568 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
8569 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
8570 reclaim its storage.
8572 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
8573 worrying that some other function you call will call
8574 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
8575 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
8576 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
8577 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
8580 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
8582 * Changes to the distribution
8584 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
8585 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
8588 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
8589 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
8591 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
8592 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
8594 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
8596 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
8597 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
8598 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
8600 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
8602 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
8603 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
8604 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
8605 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
8606 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
8607 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
8609 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
8610 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
8611 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
8614 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
8615 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
8616 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
8617 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
8619 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
8620 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
8621 libraries to your link command:
8623 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
8624 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
8625 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
8626 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
8628 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
8629 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
8630 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
8632 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
8634 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
8635 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
8638 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
8640 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
8641 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
8642 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
8643 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
8644 searched is system dependent.
8646 (dynamic-object? VAL)
8648 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
8650 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
8652 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
8653 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
8655 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
8657 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
8658 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
8659 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
8660 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
8661 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
8664 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
8666 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
8667 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
8668 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
8669 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
8670 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
8672 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
8674 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
8675 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
8677 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
8679 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
8680 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
8681 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
8684 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
8686 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
8687 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
8688 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
8689 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
8691 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
8692 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
8694 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
8696 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
8697 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
8699 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
8701 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
8702 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
8710 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
8712 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
8713 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
8714 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
8715 a more informative way.
8717 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
8718 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
8719 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
8720 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
8721 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
8722 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
8724 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
8725 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
8728 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
8729 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
8730 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
8733 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
8734 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
8735 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
8736 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
8737 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
8738 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
8740 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
8741 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
8742 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
8743 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
8746 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
8747 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
8748 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
8749 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
8750 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
8751 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
8753 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
8754 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
8755 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
8756 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
8757 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
8759 *** regexp functions
8761 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
8762 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
8763 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
8765 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
8766 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
8767 with SCSH regular expressions.
8769 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
8770 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
8771 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
8772 position of STR at which to begin matching.
8774 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
8775 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
8776 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
8777 `string-match' returns `#f'.
8779 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
8780 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
8781 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
8782 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
8783 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
8784 match strings against the compiled regexp.
8786 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
8787 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
8788 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
8789 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
8790 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
8792 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
8794 **** Constant: regexp/extended
8795 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
8796 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
8797 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
8799 **** Constant: regexp/icase
8800 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
8801 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
8803 **** Constant: regexp/newline
8804 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
8806 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
8809 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
8810 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
8811 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
8813 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
8814 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
8815 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
8817 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
8818 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
8819 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
8820 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
8821 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
8824 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
8826 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
8827 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
8828 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
8829 used when different portions of a string are passed to
8830 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
8831 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
8833 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
8834 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
8835 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
8837 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
8838 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
8841 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
8842 and replace them with the contents of another string.
8844 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
8845 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
8846 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
8847 may be one of the following arguments:
8849 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
8851 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
8853 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
8854 the regexp match is written.
8856 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
8857 following the regexp match is written.
8859 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
8860 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
8863 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
8864 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
8865 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
8866 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
8867 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
8868 which should be matched against this regular expression.
8870 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
8873 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
8874 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
8875 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
8876 written out to PORT.
8878 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
8879 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
8880 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
8881 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
8882 will return after processing a single match.
8884 *** Match Structures
8886 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
8887 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
8888 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
8889 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
8890 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
8891 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
8894 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
8895 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
8896 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
8897 information about the original target string that was matched against a
8898 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
8900 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
8901 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
8902 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
8904 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
8905 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
8906 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
8907 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
8908 number N did not match, return `#f'.
8910 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
8911 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
8913 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
8914 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
8916 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
8917 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
8919 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
8920 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
8922 **** Function: match:count MATCH
8923 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
8924 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
8925 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
8927 **** Function: match:string MATCH
8928 Return the original TARGET string.
8930 *** Backslash Escapes
8932 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
8933 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
8934 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
8935 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
8936 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
8937 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
8939 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
8940 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
8941 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
8942 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
8943 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
8944 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
8945 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
8946 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
8948 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
8949 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
8950 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
8951 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
8952 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
8953 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
8954 each match a single backslash in the target string.
8956 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
8957 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
8958 return the resulting string.
8960 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
8961 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
8962 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
8963 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
8964 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
8965 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
8966 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
8967 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
8968 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
8969 translated to the single character `*'.
8971 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
8972 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
8973 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
8974 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
8975 consecutive backslashes:
8977 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
8979 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
8980 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
8981 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
8983 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
8984 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
8985 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
8986 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
8987 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
8988 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
8990 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
8992 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
8993 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
8994 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
8995 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
8996 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
8997 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
8998 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
8999 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
9000 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
9001 cumbersome escape syntax.
9003 * Changes to the gh_ interface
9005 * Changes to the scm_ interface
9007 * Changes to system call interfaces:
9009 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
9012 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
9014 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
9016 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
9019 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
9020 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
9021 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
9022 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
9023 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
9025 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
9026 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
9027 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
9028 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
9029 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
9030 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
9031 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
9034 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
9035 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
9036 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
9039 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
9040 `force-output' on every port open for output.
9042 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
9043 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
9044 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
9045 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
9046 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
9047 installed, you can say:
9049 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
9052 * Changes to the scm_ interface
9054 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
9055 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
9056 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
9057 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
9058 new dynamic roots and threads.
9061 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
9063 * Changes to the distribution.
9065 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
9067 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
9068 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
9069 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
9070 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
9071 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
9072 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
9073 programming language. These are packaged together because the
9074 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
9076 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
9079 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
9080 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
9085 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
9087 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
9088 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
9090 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
9091 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
9092 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
9093 the (command-line) function.
9094 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
9095 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
9096 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
9098 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
9099 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
9100 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
9101 command line arguments
9102 -ds do -s script at this point
9103 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
9104 -h, --help display this help and exit
9105 -v, --version display version information and exit
9106 \ read arguments from following script lines
9108 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
9109 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
9111 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9114 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
9118 (main (command-line))
9120 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
9122 ekko a speckled gecko
9124 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
9125 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
9126 following list of command-line arguments:
9128 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
9130 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
9131 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
9132 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
9133 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
9134 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
9136 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
9138 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
9140 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
9141 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
9144 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
9145 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
9146 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
9147 SCSH) for circumventing them.
9149 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
9150 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
9151 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
9152 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
9154 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
9158 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
9162 If the user invokes this script as follows:
9164 ekko a speckled gecko
9166 Unix expands this into
9168 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
9170 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
9171 read from the second line of the script, producing:
9173 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
9175 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
9176 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
9178 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
9179 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
9180 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
9181 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
9182 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
9183 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
9184 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
9185 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
9186 it only terminates the argument list.)
9187 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
9188 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
9189 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
9190 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
9191 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
9192 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
9193 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
9194 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
9196 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
9198 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
9199 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
9200 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
9201 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
9202 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
9204 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
9205 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
9206 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
9208 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
9210 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
9211 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
9212 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
9213 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
9216 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
9217 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
9218 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
9220 * Changes to Scheme functions
9222 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
9223 and disabled by default.
9225 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
9226 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
9227 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
9228 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
9230 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
9232 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
9234 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
9235 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
9237 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
9238 (read-set! keywords #f)
9240 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
9241 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
9242 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
9245 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
9246 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
9247 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
9250 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
9251 support for Scheme functions.
9253 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
9254 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
9255 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
9256 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
9259 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
9260 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
9261 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
9264 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
9265 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
9266 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
9269 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
9270 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
9271 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
9272 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
9273 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
9274 display the result as a prompt.
9275 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
9277 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
9278 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
9279 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
9282 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
9283 procedure of zero arguments.
9285 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
9286 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
9287 argument is bound in the current module.
9289 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
9290 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
9291 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
9292 public bindings into the current module.
9294 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
9295 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
9297 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
9298 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
9300 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
9301 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
9303 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
9304 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
9306 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
9307 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
9309 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
9310 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
9311 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
9312 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
9313 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
9315 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
9316 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
9317 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
9318 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
9320 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
9323 ** Changes to I/O functions
9325 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
9326 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
9327 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
9329 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
9330 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
9331 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
9333 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
9334 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
9336 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
9337 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
9338 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
9339 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
9341 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
9343 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
9344 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
9346 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
9347 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
9348 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
9349 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
9350 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
9353 'trim omit delimiter from result
9354 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
9355 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
9356 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
9358 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
9360 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
9361 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
9363 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
9364 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
9365 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
9366 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
9367 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
9369 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
9370 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
9371 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
9373 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
9374 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
9375 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
9376 above, and defaults to 'peek.
9378 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
9379 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
9381 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
9382 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
9384 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
9386 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
9387 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
9388 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
9389 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
9390 a delimiting character.
9391 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
9393 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
9394 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
9395 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
9396 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
9397 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
9398 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
9400 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
9401 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
9403 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
9404 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
9405 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
9407 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
9408 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
9409 the array to read and write.
9411 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
9412 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
9415 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
9417 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
9420 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
9421 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
9422 Values for COMMAND are:
9424 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
9425 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
9426 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
9427 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
9428 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
9429 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
9430 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
9431 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
9433 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
9435 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
9436 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
9437 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
9438 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
9439 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
9440 corresponding return set will be the same.
9442 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
9445 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
9446 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
9447 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
9448 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
9449 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
9450 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
9451 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
9452 special file being created.
9454 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
9455 clashing with various SCSH forks.
9457 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
9458 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
9459 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
9460 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
9461 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
9462 and originating address.
9464 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
9465 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
9466 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
9468 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
9471 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
9472 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
9475 (status:exit-val STATUS)
9476 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
9477 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
9478 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
9479 this function returns #f.
9481 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
9482 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
9483 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
9486 (status:term-sig STATUS)
9487 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
9488 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
9491 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
9492 a valid STATUS value.
9494 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
9496 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
9497 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
9499 Component Accessor Setter
9500 ========================= ============ ============
9501 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
9502 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
9503 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
9504 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
9505 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
9506 year tm:year set-tm:year
9507 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
9508 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
9509 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
9510 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
9511 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
9513 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
9514 describing the host system:
9517 ============================================== ================
9518 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
9519 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
9520 release level of the operating system utsname:release
9521 version level of the operating system utsname:version
9522 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
9524 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
9525 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
9526 system's user database:
9529 ====================== =================
9530 user name passwd:name
9531 user password passwd:passwd
9534 real name passwd:gecos
9535 home directory passwd:dir
9536 shell program passwd:shell
9538 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
9539 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
9540 system's group database:
9543 ======================= ============
9544 group name group:name
9545 group password group:passwd
9547 group members group:mem
9549 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
9550 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
9554 ========================= ===============
9555 official name of host hostent:name
9556 alias list hostent:aliases
9557 host address type hostent:addrtype
9558 length of address hostent:length
9559 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
9561 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
9562 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
9566 ========================= ===============
9567 official name of net netent:name
9568 alias list netent:aliases
9569 net number type netent:addrtype
9570 net number netent:net
9572 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
9573 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
9577 ========================= ===============
9578 official protocol name protoent:name
9579 alias list protoent:aliases
9580 protocol number protoent:proto
9582 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
9583 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
9587 ========================= ===============
9588 official service name servent:name
9589 alias list servent:aliases
9590 port number servent:port
9591 protocol to use servent:proto
9593 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
9594 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
9597 ======================================== ===============
9598 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
9599 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
9600 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
9601 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
9603 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
9604 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
9605 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
9607 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
9608 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
9610 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
9611 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
9613 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
9614 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
9616 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
9618 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
9620 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
9621 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
9622 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
9624 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
9625 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
9626 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
9627 return the remaining characters as a string.
9629 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
9630 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
9631 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
9633 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
9635 * Changes to the gh_ interface
9637 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
9640 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
9643 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
9644 and returns the array
9646 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
9647 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
9648 the user to interpret the data both ways.
9650 * Changes to the scm_ interface
9652 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
9653 symbol's value from C code:
9655 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
9656 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
9657 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
9658 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
9660 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
9661 without assigning them a value.
9663 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
9664 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
9665 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
9667 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
9668 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
9669 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
9671 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
9672 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
9674 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
9675 doesn't actually care about that.
9677 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
9678 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
9679 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
9681 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
9682 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
9683 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
9684 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
9685 which we have just created and initialized.
9687 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
9688 should one occur. We call it like this:
9689 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
9691 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
9692 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
9693 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
9694 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
9695 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
9696 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
9699 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
9700 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
9701 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
9702 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
9703 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
9704 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
9705 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
9708 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
9709 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
9710 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
9711 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
9712 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
9715 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
9716 scm_internal_catch, except:
9718 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
9719 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
9720 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
9721 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
9724 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
9725 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
9726 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
9728 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
9729 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
9730 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
9731 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
9734 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
9735 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
9736 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
9738 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
9739 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
9740 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
9741 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
9742 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
9744 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
9745 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
9746 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
9748 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
9749 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
9750 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
9752 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
9753 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
9755 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
9756 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
9757 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
9760 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
9761 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
9762 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
9763 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
9764 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
9765 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
9766 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
9769 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
9770 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
9772 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
9773 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
9774 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
9775 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
9776 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
9779 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
9780 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
9782 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
9783 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
9786 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
9787 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
9789 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
9792 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
9793 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
9794 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
9795 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
9796 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
9797 given the following arguments:
9799 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
9801 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
9803 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
9805 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
9808 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
9809 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
9810 command-line arguments.
9812 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
9813 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
9814 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
9815 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
9816 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
9817 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
9820 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
9823 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
9824 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
9826 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
9827 rearranged slightly. They are now:
9829 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9830 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
9831 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
9832 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
9834 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9835 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
9837 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9838 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
9839 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
9840 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
9842 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
9843 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
9845 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
9846 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
9848 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
9850 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
9851 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
9852 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
9855 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
9856 returns a port instead of an FD object.
9858 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
9859 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
9864 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
9867 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
9869 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
9870 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
9871 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
9872 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
9874 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
9876 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
9878 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
9879 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
9880 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
9881 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
9882 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
9883 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
9884 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
9885 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
9886 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
9887 for more information.
9889 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
9890 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
9892 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
9893 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
9894 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
9895 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
9896 following two lines at the top of the file:
9898 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9901 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
9902 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
9903 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
9905 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
9907 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9909 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
9912 (display (car args))
9913 (if (pair? (cdr args))
9915 (loop (cdr args)))))
9918 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
9919 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
9920 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
9921 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
9922 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
9923 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
9927 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
9930 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
9933 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
9935 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
9936 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
9937 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
9938 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
9939 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
9942 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
9943 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
9944 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
9945 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
9946 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
9949 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
9952 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
9953 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
9954 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
9957 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
9958 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
9959 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
9961 to see a backtrace, and
9962 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
9963 to see them by default.
9967 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
9969 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
9971 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
9972 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
9975 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
9976 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
9977 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
9978 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
9981 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
9982 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
9983 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
9984 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
9985 functions which inspired them.
9987 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
9988 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
9992 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
9994 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
9996 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
9997 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
10000 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
10001 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
10002 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
10004 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
10005 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
10006 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
10007 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
10008 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
10010 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
10012 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
10013 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
10014 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
10017 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
10020 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
10022 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
10023 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
10024 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
10025 above should serve their purposes.
10027 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
10028 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
10029 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
10030 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
10032 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
10035 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
10036 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
10037 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
10038 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
10040 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
10041 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
10042 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
10043 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
10045 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
10046 for the `read' function.
10049 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
10050 to that of `integer?'.
10052 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
10053 use the R4RS names for these functions.
10055 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
10056 it simply returns the object's property list.
10058 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
10059 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
10060 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
10061 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
10063 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
10065 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
10068 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
10070 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
10071 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
10073 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
10075 void (*main_func) (),
10078 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
10079 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
10080 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
10081 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
10082 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
10084 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
10085 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
10086 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
10087 know which arguments have been processed.
10089 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
10090 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
10091 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
10092 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
10093 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
10095 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
10096 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
10097 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
10098 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
10099 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
10100 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
10101 people from making that mistake.
10103 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
10104 convenient ways to override these when desired.
10106 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
10108 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
10112 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
10115 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
10116 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
10117 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
10118 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
10121 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
10122 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
10123 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
10124 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
10127 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
10128 have been added to the Guile library.
10130 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
10131 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
10132 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
10135 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
10136 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
10137 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
10139 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
10140 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
10141 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
10142 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
10143 argument from the list.
10146 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
10149 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
10150 null-terminated string, and returns it.
10152 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
10153 to a Scheme port object.
10155 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
10156 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
10161 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
10163 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
10164 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
10165 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
10166 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
10167 code as a special datatype.
10169 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
10170 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
10171 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
10172 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
10173 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
10176 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
10177 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
10178 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
10179 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
10180 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
10182 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
10185 Copyright information:
10187 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
10189 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
10190 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
10191 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
10192 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
10194 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
10195 of this document, or of portions of it,
10196 under the above conditions, provided also that they
10197 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
10202 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"