1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
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12 * New modules (see the manual for details)
14 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', multithreading support
15 ** The `(ice-9 i18n)' module provides internationalization support
17 * Changes to the distribution
19 ** Guile now uses Gnulib as a portability aid
21 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
22 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
24 ** A new 'memoize-symbol evaluator trap has been added. This trap can
25 be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code coverage.
27 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
28 This slightly improves program startup times.
30 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
31 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
33 * Changes to the C interface
35 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
36 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
40 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
44 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
46 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
49 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
50 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
53 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
55 * Infrastructure changes
57 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
59 The new repository can be accessed using
60 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
61 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
63 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
65 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
67 * New modules (see the manual for details)
71 * New features (see the manual for details)
73 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
74 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
75 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
77 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
78 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
79 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
80 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
82 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
84 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
85 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
86 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
90 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
91 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
93 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
94 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
96 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
97 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
99 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
100 lead to a stack overflow.
102 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
103 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
104 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
105 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
106 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
107 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
108 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
109 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
110 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
111 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
112 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
113 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
114 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
115 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
116 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
117 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
119 * Changes to the distribution
123 We've started collecting Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), and will
124 distribute these (with answers!) in future Guile releases.
127 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
131 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
132 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
133 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
134 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
135 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
136 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
137 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
138 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
139 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
140 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
141 system and library calls.
142 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
143 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
144 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
145 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
146 uniform vectors on AIX.
147 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
148 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
149 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
150 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
151 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
153 * New modules (see the manual for details)
157 * Documentation fixes and improvements
159 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
161 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
162 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
164 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
166 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
168 * Changes to the distribution
170 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
172 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
173 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
174 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
176 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
178 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
181 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
183 * New modules (see the manual for details)
190 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
191 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
192 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
193 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
194 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
195 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
196 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
198 * Implementation improvements
200 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
201 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
205 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
207 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
209 ** set-program-arguments
214 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
215 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
216 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
217 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
218 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
219 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
221 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
222 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
223 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
224 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
225 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
226 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
227 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
228 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
229 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
230 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
231 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
232 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
233 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
234 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
235 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
236 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
239 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
241 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
243 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
245 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
246 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
247 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
248 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
249 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
250 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
256 * New `(ice-9 i18n)' module (see the manual for details)
260 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
262 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
264 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
266 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
268 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
270 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
272 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
273 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
274 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
276 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
278 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
280 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
281 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
283 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
285 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
286 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
288 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
290 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
292 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
294 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
296 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
298 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
300 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
302 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
304 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
306 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
307 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
308 file was on a different device.
311 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
313 * Changes to the distribution
315 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
317 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
319 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
321 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
323 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
325 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
328 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
330 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
331 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
332 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
333 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
334 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
335 items like the versioned share directory name
336 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
338 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
339 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
340 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
341 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
342 with each micro release during a stable series.
344 ** Thread implementation has changed.
346 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
347 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
348 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
349 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
350 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
353 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
354 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
355 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
356 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
359 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
360 in which case "null" threads are used.
362 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
363 "Blocking", and others.
365 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
367 This is a milder form of deprecation.
369 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
370 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
371 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
372 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
373 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
375 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
376 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
378 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
380 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
381 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
383 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
386 This SRFI is always available.
388 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
390 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
391 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
392 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
393 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
396 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
398 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
399 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
400 parameters without currying.
402 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
404 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
405 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
407 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
408 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
411 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
412 with a renaming import, for example.
414 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
416 The official version is good enough now.
418 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
420 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
421 provided. Use 'make html'.
423 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
425 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
426 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
427 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
428 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
430 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
432 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
435 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
437 ** New command line option `-L'.
439 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
441 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
443 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
444 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
446 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
448 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
449 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
451 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
453 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
454 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
457 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
460 (define-module (demo)
464 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
467 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
469 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
471 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
472 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
473 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
475 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
477 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
478 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
480 ** New function hashx-remove!
482 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
484 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
485 barriers and dynamic states.
487 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
488 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
489 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
492 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
493 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
494 Barriers" in the manual.
496 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
497 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
499 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
501 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
502 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
503 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
506 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
508 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
509 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
511 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
512 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
513 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
515 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
516 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
518 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
519 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
520 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
522 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
523 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
524 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
527 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
528 substrings and read-only strings.
530 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
531 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
534 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
536 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
545 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
546 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
547 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
549 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
550 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
551 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
554 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
555 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
558 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
560 See the manual for details.
562 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
564 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
567 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
569 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
570 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
571 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
572 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
574 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
575 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
576 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
579 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
581 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
582 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
593 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
597 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
602 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
606 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
610 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
613 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
614 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
615 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
616 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
618 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
619 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
622 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
625 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
629 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
631 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
632 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
633 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
636 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
639 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
641 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
644 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
645 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
653 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
654 has been detected is to
656 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
657 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
658 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
661 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
664 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
666 to your .guile init file.
668 ** New define-module option: :replace
670 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
673 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
674 for the core binding `format'.
676 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
678 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
679 a prefix to all imported bindings.
682 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
684 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
687 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
689 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
690 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
691 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
693 ** New function: effective-version
695 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
696 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
697 to the distribution" above.
699 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
701 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
702 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
704 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
706 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
707 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
709 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
711 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
712 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
715 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
717 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
719 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
721 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
722 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
723 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
726 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
727 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
728 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
731 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
732 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
734 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
735 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
736 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
739 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
741 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
742 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
745 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
746 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
748 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
749 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
750 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
751 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
752 level for the current thread.
754 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
756 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
758 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
759 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
762 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
764 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
766 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
769 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
771 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
774 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
775 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
776 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
778 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
779 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
780 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
781 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
792 ERROR: Numerical overflow
794 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
797 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
799 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
800 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
801 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
812 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
814 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
815 them is also done exactly, of course:
820 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
823 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
824 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
826 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
828 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
829 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
830 equal to a floating point number. For example:
832 (inexact->exact 1.234)
833 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
835 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
837 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
840 ** New function 'rationalize'.
842 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
843 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
845 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
848 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
849 result when both its arguments are exact.
851 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
853 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
854 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
855 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
857 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
859 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
860 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
861 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
863 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
866 ** pretty-print has more options.
868 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
869 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
870 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
872 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
874 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
875 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
876 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
878 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
880 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
881 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
883 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
885 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
886 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
889 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
891 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
892 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
893 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
894 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
895 without the soft port blocking.
897 ** Deprecated: undefine
899 There is no replacement for undefine.
901 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
902 have been discouraged.
904 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
905 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
906 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
909 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
911 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
913 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
914 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
915 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
916 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
919 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
920 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
921 be removed in the next major Guile release.
923 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
925 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
926 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
927 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
928 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
929 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
930 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
932 * Changes to the C interface
934 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
935 take a 'delete' function argument.
937 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
938 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
940 This is an incompatible change.
942 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
944 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
945 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
946 --disable-deprecated.
948 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
950 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
951 Scheme values has been added.
953 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
954 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
959 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
960 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
962 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
964 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
965 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
968 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
970 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
971 scm_from_int for ints.
973 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
974 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
975 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
977 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
979 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
980 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
981 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
984 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
986 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
988 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
990 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
991 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
992 following alternatives.
994 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
995 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
996 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
997 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
999 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
1000 do the validating for you.
1002 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
1003 have been discouraged.
1005 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
1006 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
1009 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
1011 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
1012 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
1015 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
1017 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
1020 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
1023 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
1025 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
1026 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
1028 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
1029 scm_truncate_number should have.
1031 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
1032 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
1034 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
1037 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
1038 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
1039 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
1041 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
1042 easier to use from C.
1044 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
1045 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
1047 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
1048 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
1049 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
1052 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
1053 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
1054 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
1055 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
1058 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
1059 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
1060 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
1061 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
1062 and is thus quite efficient.
1064 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
1066 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
1067 about the character encoding.
1069 Replace according to the following table:
1071 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
1072 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
1073 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
1074 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
1075 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
1076 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
1077 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
1078 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
1079 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
1081 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
1082 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
1084 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
1086 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
1087 now also available to C code.
1089 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
1091 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
1092 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
1093 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
1095 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
1098 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
1100 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
1101 unceremoniously removed.
1103 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
1104 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
1105 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
1107 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
1108 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
1109 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1110 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1111 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
1112 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
1115 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
1117 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
1118 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
1119 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
1120 manual for more details.
1122 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1123 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1125 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
1126 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
1127 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1129 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
1131 Migrate according to the following table:
1133 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
1134 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
1135 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
1136 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
1137 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
1138 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
1139 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
1141 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
1142 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
1143 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
1144 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
1145 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
1146 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
1147 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
1149 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
1151 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
1152 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
1154 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
1155 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
1156 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
1157 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
1159 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
1161 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
1162 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
1163 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
1165 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
1166 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
1168 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
1169 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
1170 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
1171 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
1173 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
1175 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
1176 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
1177 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
1178 prevent a potential memory leak:
1185 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
1187 mem = scm_malloc (100);
1188 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
1190 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
1191 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
1198 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
1199 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
1203 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
1205 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
1207 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
1208 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
1209 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
1211 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1212 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
1214 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
1216 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
1218 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
1219 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
1220 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
1222 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
1223 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
1225 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
1226 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
1227 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
1228 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
1231 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
1233 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
1234 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1235 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
1237 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
1239 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
1240 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
1242 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
1244 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
1245 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
1247 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
1249 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
1250 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
1251 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
1253 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
1255 You should not have used them.
1257 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
1259 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
1260 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
1262 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
1264 This macro is not intended for public use.
1266 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
1268 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
1270 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
1272 Use scm_is_real instead.
1274 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
1276 Use scm_is_complex instead.
1278 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
1280 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
1281 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
1283 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
1284 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
1286 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
1287 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
1289 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
1291 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
1294 ** New function: scm_effective_version
1296 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1297 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1298 to the distribution" above.
1300 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
1302 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
1303 arguments are now passed directly:
1305 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
1307 This is an incompatible change.
1309 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
1311 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
1312 function in the init section.
1314 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
1316 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
1318 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
1319 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
1320 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
1321 stays roughly constant.
1323 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
1324 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
1325 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
1326 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
1327 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
1330 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
1331 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
1332 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
1333 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
1335 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
1336 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
1337 objects for every type.
1340 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
1342 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
1344 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
1346 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
1347 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
1348 initializes a new cell (see below).
1350 ** New functions for memory management
1352 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
1353 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
1354 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
1355 cause aborts in long running programs.
1357 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
1358 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
1360 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
1361 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
1362 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
1363 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
1364 details and for upgrading instructions.
1366 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
1367 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
1368 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
1370 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
1372 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
1373 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
1374 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
1375 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
1376 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
1378 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
1379 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
1380 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
1382 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
1383 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
1385 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
1387 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
1388 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
1389 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
1390 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
1391 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
1393 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
1395 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
1398 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
1400 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
1402 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
1404 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
1405 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
1407 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
1409 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
1410 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
1412 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
1413 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
1415 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
1417 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
1419 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
1420 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
1421 blocking it is not well defined.
1423 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
1425 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
1426 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
1427 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
1428 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
1429 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
1430 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
1431 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
1432 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
1433 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
1434 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
1435 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1436 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
1437 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
1438 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
1439 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
1440 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
1441 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
1442 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1443 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
1444 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
1445 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
1446 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
1447 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
1448 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
1449 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
1450 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
1451 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
1452 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
1453 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
1454 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
1455 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
1457 * Changes to bundled modules
1461 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
1462 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
1463 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
1464 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
1465 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
1468 Changes since Guile 1.4:
1470 * Changes to the distribution
1472 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
1474 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
1476 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
1477 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
1478 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
1479 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
1480 indicate major changes in Guile.
1482 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
1483 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
1484 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
1485 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
1487 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
1488 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
1489 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
1490 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
1491 micro version number.
1493 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
1495 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
1497 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
1498 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
1500 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
1502 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
1503 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
1504 See INSTALL and README for more information.
1506 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
1508 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
1509 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
1510 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
1513 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
1515 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
1518 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
1520 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
1521 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
1523 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
1525 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
1526 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
1529 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
1531 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
1534 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
1537 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
1539 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
1541 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
1542 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
1543 open-output-string, get-output-string.
1545 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
1547 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
1549 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
1552 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
1554 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
1556 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1558 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1559 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1560 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1562 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1564 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1566 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1567 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1576 See README there for more info.
1578 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1579 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1582 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1584 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1586 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1588 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1589 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1590 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1592 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1594 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1595 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1596 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1598 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1599 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1601 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1604 (oop goops describe)
1606 (oop goops active-slot)
1607 (oop goops composite-slot)
1609 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1610 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1611 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1613 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1615 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1616 in the default environment:
1618 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1619 %read-line write-line
1621 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1622 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1624 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1626 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1629 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1630 can be used for similar functionality.
1632 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1634 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1635 it defines two procedures:
1637 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1639 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1640 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1641 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1644 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1646 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1647 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1648 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1649 write large strings.
1651 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1653 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1654 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1656 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1658 for complete documentation.
1660 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1662 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1663 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1664 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1665 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1667 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1668 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1672 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1673 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1674 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1677 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1680 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1681 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1683 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1684 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1687 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1690 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1692 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1694 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1696 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1698 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1699 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1700 Scheme programs easier.
1702 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1703 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1704 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1705 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1706 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1709 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1710 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1712 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1715 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1717 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1718 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1719 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1722 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1724 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1726 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1727 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1728 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1729 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1730 was also ASCII, for example.
1732 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1734 tag - no replacement.
1735 fseek - replaced by seek.
1736 list* - replaced by cons*.
1738 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1742 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1743 (define m (make-safe-module))
1744 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1745 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1746 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1748 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1750 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1751 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1752 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1754 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1756 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1757 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1758 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1759 from the issues related to the module system.
1761 *** New function: load-extension
1763 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1765 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1767 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1768 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1769 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1771 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1773 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1774 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1775 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1776 support dynamic linking).
1778 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1780 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1781 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1782 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1783 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1786 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1787 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1788 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1789 library and initialize it explicitly.
1791 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1792 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1794 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1796 (define-module (foo bar))
1798 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1800 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1802 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1803 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1805 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1806 (null-environment 5)
1807 (interaction-environment)
1813 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1815 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1816 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1817 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1818 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1820 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1821 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1822 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1823 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1824 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1825 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1826 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1827 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1828 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1829 one eval to the next.
1831 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1832 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1833 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1834 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1835 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1837 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1838 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1839 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1840 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1841 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1842 used in a lexical environment.
1844 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1845 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1846 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1847 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1848 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1849 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1851 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1853 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1854 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1855 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1856 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1857 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1859 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1860 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1861 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1863 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1864 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1866 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1867 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1868 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1870 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1871 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1873 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1874 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1875 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1876 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1879 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1880 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1881 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1882 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1884 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1885 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1886 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1888 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1889 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1890 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1891 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1892 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1894 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1896 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1897 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1898 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1900 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1901 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1902 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1904 See manual for more info.
1906 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1908 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1909 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1910 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1912 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1914 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1915 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1916 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1918 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1919 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1920 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1921 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1923 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1925 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1926 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1928 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1929 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1930 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1931 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1932 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1935 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1936 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1937 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1938 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1939 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1940 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1942 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1943 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1944 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1945 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1946 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1948 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1949 objects are usually permanent.
1951 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1952 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1954 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1956 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1957 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1960 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1964 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1969 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1971 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1972 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1973 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1974 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1976 ** New function `make-object-property'
1978 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1979 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1983 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1984 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1988 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1989 source properties eventually.
1991 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1993 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1994 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1995 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1997 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1998 will be removed in the next release.
2000 ** New define-module option: pure
2002 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
2007 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
2010 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
2012 Export names NAME1 ...
2014 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
2015 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
2019 (define-module (foo)
2021 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
2024 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
2029 ** New function: object->string OBJ
2031 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
2033 ** New function: port? X
2035 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
2036 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
2038 ** New function: file-port?
2040 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
2042 ** New function: port-for-each proc
2044 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
2045 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
2046 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
2047 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
2048 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
2050 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
2052 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
2053 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
2054 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
2055 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
2056 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
2059 ** New function: close-fdes fd
2061 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
2062 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
2063 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
2064 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
2067 ** New function: crypt password salt
2069 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
2072 ** New function: chroot path
2074 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
2076 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
2078 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
2081 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
2083 Get or set the priority of the running process.
2085 ** New function: getpass prompt
2087 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
2090 ** New function: flock file operation
2092 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
2094 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
2096 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
2099 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
2101 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
2102 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
2103 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
2104 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
2105 of the temporary file.
2107 ** New function: open-input-string string
2109 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
2110 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
2111 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
2113 ** New function: open-output-string
2115 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
2116 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
2118 ** New function: get-output-string
2120 Return the contents of an output string port.
2122 ** New function: identity
2124 Return the argument.
2126 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
2127 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
2129 ** New function: inet-pton family address
2131 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
2132 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
2133 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2136 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
2137 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
2139 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
2141 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
2142 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
2143 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2146 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
2147 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
2148 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
2152 Use `identity' instead.
2158 ** Deprecated: return-it
2162 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
2164 Use `string-length' instead.
2166 ** Deprecated: flags
2168 Use `logior' instead.
2170 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
2172 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
2173 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
2174 port-for-each is more flexible.
2176 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
2177 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
2178 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
2180 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
2182 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
2184 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
2186 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
2188 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
2190 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
2191 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
2193 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
2194 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
2196 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
2197 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
2199 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
2201 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
2202 Removed function: builtin-bindings
2204 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
2205 Use module system operations for all variables.
2207 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
2209 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
2212 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
2214 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
2215 The following bugs have been fixed:
2217 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
2218 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
2221 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
2222 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
2223 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
2225 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
2226 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
2228 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
2229 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
2232 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
2233 The expansion used to be like so:
2235 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
2237 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
2239 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
2241 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
2242 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
2244 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
2246 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
2247 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
2248 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
2252 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
2253 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
2255 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
2260 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
2261 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
2263 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
2264 and `d', other keywords allowed.
2265 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
2267 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
2270 * Changes to the C interface
2272 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
2274 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
2275 with "_t". What a concept.
2277 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
2279 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
2281 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
2285 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
2286 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
2288 *** C Functions removed
2290 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
2291 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
2292 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
2293 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
2294 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
2295 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
2296 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
2298 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
2300 Use scm_mem2string instead.
2302 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
2304 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
2306 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
2307 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
2309 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
2311 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
2314 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
2316 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
2318 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
2320 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
2321 Evaluation" in the manual.
2323 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
2325 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
2326 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
2328 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
2330 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
2331 Constructors" in the manual.
2333 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
2335 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
2336 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
2338 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
2340 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
2342 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
2343 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
2344 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
2346 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2348 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
2350 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
2351 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
2352 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
2355 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2357 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
2359 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
2360 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
2362 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
2364 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
2365 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
2366 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
2367 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
2369 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
2370 scm_primitive_property_ref
2371 scm_primitive_property_set_x
2372 scm_primitive_property_del_x
2374 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
2375 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
2377 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
2379 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
2380 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
2381 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
2382 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
2384 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
2386 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
2387 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
2388 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
2389 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
2390 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
2391 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
2392 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
2394 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
2395 scm_remember_upto_here
2397 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
2399 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
2401 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
2402 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
2404 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
2406 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
2408 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
2410 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
2412 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
2414 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
2415 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
2416 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
2417 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
2418 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
2419 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
2421 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
2423 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2425 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
2426 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2427 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
2429 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
2431 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
2432 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2433 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
2435 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
2437 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
2438 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
2441 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
2444 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
2445 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2448 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2450 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
2452 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
2454 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2456 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
2458 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
2460 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
2461 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
2462 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
2463 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2464 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
2465 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
2466 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
2467 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2468 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
2469 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
2470 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
2471 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
2472 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
2473 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
2474 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
2476 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
2477 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
2478 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
2479 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
2480 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
2481 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
2482 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
2483 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
2484 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2485 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
2486 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
2487 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
2488 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
2489 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
2490 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
2491 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2492 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2493 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
2494 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
2495 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
2496 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
2497 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
2498 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
2499 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
2500 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
2501 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
2502 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
2503 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
2504 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
2506 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
2508 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
2510 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
2511 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
2513 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
2515 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
2517 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
2519 Use scm_string_hash instead.
2521 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
2523 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
2525 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
2527 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
2529 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
2532 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
2533 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
2535 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
2537 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
2539 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
2541 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
2543 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
2545 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
2547 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
2549 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2552 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2554 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2556 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2558 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2559 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2561 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2562 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2564 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2566 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2567 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2568 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2570 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2572 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2574 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2575 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2577 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2578 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2579 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2580 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2582 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2583 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2584 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2586 Use the new ones from above instead.
2588 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2590 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2591 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2592 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2594 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2595 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2597 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2598 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2601 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2602 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2604 Use the new functions instead.
2606 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2609 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2611 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2613 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2616 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2618 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2621 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2623 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2626 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2627 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2628 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2630 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2632 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2633 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2635 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2636 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2637 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2638 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2641 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2643 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2644 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2645 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2646 inexact for an exact.
2648 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2649 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2650 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2653 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2654 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2655 accept an inexact argument.
2657 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2658 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2660 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2663 ** New number validation macros:
2664 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2668 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2670 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2671 scm_unprotect_object.
2673 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2675 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2677 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2680 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2682 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2686 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2688 * Changes to the distribution
2690 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2692 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2693 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2694 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2695 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2696 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2697 obtain these programs.
2698 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2699 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2701 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2702 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2703 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2704 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2705 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2707 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2708 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2709 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2710 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2714 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2717 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2718 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2719 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2720 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2722 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2724 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2726 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2727 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2729 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2730 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2732 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2733 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2735 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2736 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2737 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2738 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2740 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2742 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2746 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2747 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2749 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2751 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2752 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2754 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2755 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2756 number of objects of that kind.
2758 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2760 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2761 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2762 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2763 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2764 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2766 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2768 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2770 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2772 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2775 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2777 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2779 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2781 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2783 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2785 ** New command line option --debug
2787 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2789 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2791 ** New help facility
2793 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2794 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2795 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2796 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2797 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2798 (help) gives this text
2800 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2801 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2803 Examples: (help help)
2805 (help "output-string")
2807 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2809 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2811 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2812 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2815 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2816 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2817 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2820 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2821 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2822 use absolute filenames when possible.
2824 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2825 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2826 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2829 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2831 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2832 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2833 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2834 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2836 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2838 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2840 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2841 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2842 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2844 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2845 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2846 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2848 (read-enable 'positions)
2849 (debug-enable 'debug)
2851 ** Backtraces in scripts
2853 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2857 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2859 at the top of the script.
2861 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2862 The second enables backtraces.)
2864 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2866 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2867 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2868 substantially faster than before.
2870 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2871 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2873 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2874 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2876 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2878 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2879 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2880 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2882 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2883 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2884 when this hook is run in the future.
2886 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2887 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2889 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2891 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2892 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2895 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2896 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2897 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2899 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2900 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2902 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2903 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2905 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2906 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2907 in order not to need further allocation.)
2909 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2912 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2913 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2914 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2915 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2917 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2919 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2922 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2924 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2927 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2928 GC in percent of total heap size
2931 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2932 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2934 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2936 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2937 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2939 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2941 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2942 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2944 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2946 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2947 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2951 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2952 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2954 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2956 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2958 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2960 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2962 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2964 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2965 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2967 (simple-format port message . args)
2968 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2969 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2970 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2971 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2972 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2973 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2974 Does not add a trailing newline."
2976 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2978 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2979 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2981 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2982 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2984 ** Deprecated: list*
2986 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2988 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2990 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2991 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2993 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2994 is returned as result.
2996 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2998 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
3000 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
3002 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
3003 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
3006 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
3008 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
3010 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
3011 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
3013 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3015 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
3017 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
3019 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3021 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
3023 Thanks to Greg Badros!
3025 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3027 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3028 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
3029 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
3031 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
3034 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
3036 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
3037 the readability of argument checking.
3039 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
3041 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
3043 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
3045 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
3046 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
3047 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
3048 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
3049 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
3050 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
3051 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
3053 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
3055 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
3057 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
3058 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
3060 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
3062 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
3063 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
3066 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
3068 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
3069 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
3070 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
3072 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
3073 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
3074 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
3076 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
3077 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
3078 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
3079 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
3080 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
3081 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
3082 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
3084 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
3085 scm_end_input (object);
3086 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
3087 ptob->flush (object);
3089 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
3090 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
3093 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
3095 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
3097 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
3098 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
3099 removed in a future version.
3101 ** The format of error message strings has changed
3103 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
3104 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
3105 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
3106 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
3108 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
3109 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
3111 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
3114 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
3116 in your configure.in.
3118 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
3123 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
3129 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
3131 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
3135 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
3136 (define make-message string-append)
3138 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
3140 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
3144 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
3149 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
3153 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
3155 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
3156 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
3158 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
3160 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
3161 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
3162 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
3163 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
3164 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
3165 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
3167 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
3168 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
3169 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
3171 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
3172 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
3173 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
3176 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
3177 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
3178 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
3179 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
3180 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
3182 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
3183 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
3184 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
3185 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
3186 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
3187 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
3188 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
3190 Destructors are not yet implemented.
3192 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
3193 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
3194 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
3196 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
3197 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
3198 KEY in the calling thread.
3200 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
3201 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
3202 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
3203 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
3204 associated with the key.
3206 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
3208 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
3209 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
3211 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
3213 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
3214 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
3215 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
3217 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
3219 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
3220 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
3222 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
3224 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
3226 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
3227 returned is undefined.
3229 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
3230 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
3231 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
3233 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
3234 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
3235 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
3237 ** New C level GC hooks
3239 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
3241 scm_before_gc_c_hook
3244 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
3245 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
3246 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
3248 scm_before_mark_c_hook
3249 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
3250 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
3252 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
3253 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
3256 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
3258 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
3259 allocation parameters
3261 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
3262 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
3263 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
3267 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
3268 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
3269 scm_default_max_segment_size
3271 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
3273 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
3274 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
3276 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
3278 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
3279 object and count on the object being protected until
3280 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
3282 The functions also have better time complexity.
3284 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
3285 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
3286 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
3287 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
3288 are no longer needed.
3290 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
3292 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
3293 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
3294 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
3295 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
3297 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
3299 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
3301 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
3303 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
3304 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
3305 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
3306 until this issue has been settled.
3308 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
3310 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
3312 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
3315 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
3317 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3319 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
3320 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
3321 descriptors were checked.
3323 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
3324 atomically written to a pipe.
3326 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
3327 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
3328 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
3329 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
3330 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
3331 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
3332 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
3335 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
3336 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
3337 is changed without calling tzset.
3339 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
3341 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
3342 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
3343 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
3345 (define write-network-long
3346 (lambda (value port)
3347 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3348 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
3349 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
3351 (define read-network-long
3353 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3354 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
3355 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
3357 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
3358 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
3360 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
3361 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
3362 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
3363 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
3365 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
3366 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
3367 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
3368 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
3372 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
3374 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3378 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
3379 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
3380 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
3386 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
3387 for a description of available commands.
3389 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
3390 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
3391 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
3393 (debug-enable 'backwards)
3395 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
3396 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
3398 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
3400 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
3402 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
3403 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
3404 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
3405 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
3406 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
3407 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
3410 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
3412 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
3413 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
3414 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
3415 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
3417 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
3418 the file and should not be affected by this change.
3420 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
3422 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3424 ** Readline support has changed again.
3426 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
3427 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
3428 to activate readline is now
3430 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
3433 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
3435 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
3436 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
3437 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
3440 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
3441 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
3442 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
3445 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
3446 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
3447 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
3448 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
3449 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
3450 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
3452 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
3453 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
3455 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
3457 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
3458 object it receives is the same string passed to
3459 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
3460 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
3461 string, not the suffix.
3463 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
3464 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
3465 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
3467 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
3469 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
3470 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
3471 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
3472 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
3475 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3477 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
3479 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
3480 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
3481 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
3482 appear from left to right.
3484 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
3487 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
3489 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
3490 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
3492 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3496 *** New function: hook? OBJ
3498 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
3500 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
3502 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
3503 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
3504 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
3506 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
3508 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
3510 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
3512 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
3515 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
3517 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
3518 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
3519 mentioning it here anyway.
3521 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
3523 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
3524 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
3525 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
3526 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
3529 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
3531 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
3533 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
3535 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
3536 otherwise return #f.
3538 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
3540 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
3541 returned by `opendir'.
3543 ** New function: using-readline?
3545 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
3547 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3549 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
3550 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3552 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3554 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3556 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3557 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3558 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3560 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3562 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3563 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3565 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3567 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3568 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3569 documentation slots are not yet used.
3571 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3573 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3574 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3575 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3580 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3581 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3582 (string-append x y))
3584 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3585 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3587 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3588 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3589 be made in a clean way.]
3591 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3593 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3595 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3597 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3598 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3600 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3602 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3604 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3606 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3608 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3609 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3610 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3611 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3614 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3616 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3618 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3620 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3622 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3623 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3625 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3627 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3629 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3631 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3633 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3634 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3635 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3636 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3637 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3638 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3640 This should not make any difference for most users.
3642 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3644 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3645 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3647 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3649 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3650 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3651 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3652 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3653 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3655 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3657 It is now replaced by:
3659 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3661 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3662 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3664 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3666 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3667 This might change when we get the new module system.
3669 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3673 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3675 * Changes to mailing lists
3677 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3679 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3682 * Changes to the distribution
3684 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3686 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3687 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3688 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3689 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3690 you explicitly specify it.
3692 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3693 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3694 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3695 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3696 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3699 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3700 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3701 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3702 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3704 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3705 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3706 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3709 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3711 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3714 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3716 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3718 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3719 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3720 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3721 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3723 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3724 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3727 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3729 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3730 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3731 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3732 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3733 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3734 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3735 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3736 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3748 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3749 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3750 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3751 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3752 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3757 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3758 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3766 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3771 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3772 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3775 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3776 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3777 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3778 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3780 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3782 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3784 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3785 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3787 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3789 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3791 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3792 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3794 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3797 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3799 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3801 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3803 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3805 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3807 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3809 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3810 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3811 when the hook was created.
3813 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3814 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3815 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3816 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3817 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3818 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3819 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3820 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3821 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3823 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3824 the dlopen family of functions.
3826 ** New function `provided?'
3828 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3829 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3830 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3831 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3833 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3835 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3836 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3837 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3838 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3841 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3842 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3843 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3844 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3846 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3847 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3848 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3851 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3852 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3853 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3854 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3855 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3856 but with the flag set.
3858 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3860 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3861 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3863 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3864 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3865 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3866 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3867 available Scheme format implementations.
3869 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3870 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3871 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3872 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3873 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3874 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3875 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3876 output is to the current error port if available by the
3877 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3880 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3881 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3882 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3883 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3884 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3885 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3886 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3887 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3889 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3890 be executed at a time.
3893 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3895 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3896 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3897 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3899 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3900 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3901 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3902 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3903 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3904 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3905 general form of a directive is:
3907 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3909 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3911 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3913 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3914 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3915 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3918 Any (print as `display' does).
3922 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3926 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3930 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3936 print number sign always.
3939 print comma separated.
3941 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3947 print number sign always.
3950 print comma separated.
3952 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3958 print number sign always.
3961 print comma separated.
3963 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3969 print number sign always.
3972 print comma separated.
3974 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3979 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3983 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3986 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3989 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3992 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3997 prints `y' and `ies'.
4000 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4003 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4008 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
4012 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
4015 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
4016 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
4018 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4021 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
4022 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
4024 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4027 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
4029 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
4031 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4034 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
4036 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
4038 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4041 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
4044 The sign appears before the padding.
4052 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
4054 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
4059 print N page separators.
4069 newline is ignored, white space left.
4072 newline is left, white space ignored.
4077 relative tabulation.
4083 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
4085 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
4088 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
4090 converts by `string-capitalize'.
4093 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
4096 converts by `string-upcase'.
4099 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
4101 jumps N arguments forward.
4104 jumps 1 argument backward.
4107 jumps N arguments backward.
4110 jumps to the 0th argument.
4113 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
4115 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
4116 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
4118 take argument from N.
4121 true test conditional.
4124 if-else-then conditional.
4130 default clause follows.
4133 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
4135 at most N iterations.
4138 args from next arg (a list of lists).
4141 args from the rest of arguments.
4144 args from the rest args (lists).
4155 aborts if N <= M <= K
4157 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
4160 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4163 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4169 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
4171 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
4173 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
4174 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
4175 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
4176 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
4177 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
4178 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
4182 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
4186 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
4192 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
4195 Print a `#\space' character
4197 print N `#\space' characters.
4200 Print a `#\tab' character
4202 print N `#\tab' characters.
4205 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
4206 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
4207 must be a positive decimal number.
4210 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4211 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4212 be processed by `read'.
4215 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4216 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4217 be processed by `read'.
4220 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
4223 prints format version.
4226 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
4227 and format it accordingly.
4229 *** Configuration Variables
4231 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
4232 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
4233 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
4234 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
4237 format:symbol-case-conv
4238 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
4239 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
4240 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
4241 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
4242 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
4244 format:iobj-case-conv
4245 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
4246 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
4249 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
4252 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
4258 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
4259 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
4260 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
4261 `format' padding style.
4264 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
4265 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
4266 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
4267 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
4271 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
4272 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
4273 directive parameters or modifiers)).
4276 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
4277 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
4278 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
4279 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
4280 parameters or modifiers)).
4283 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
4285 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
4287 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
4288 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
4290 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
4291 string-downcase! functions.
4293 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
4294 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
4296 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
4299 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
4302 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
4303 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
4305 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
4307 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
4308 the symbol had be read by `read'.
4310 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
4311 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
4312 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
4313 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
4314 would if STRING were input.
4316 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
4318 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
4319 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
4320 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
4321 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
4324 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
4326 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
4327 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
4330 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
4332 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
4333 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
4335 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
4336 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
4338 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
4339 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
4340 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
4341 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
4343 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
4344 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
4346 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
4347 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
4348 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
4350 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
4351 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
4353 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
4354 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
4355 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
4356 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
4357 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
4359 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
4360 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
4361 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
4362 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
4363 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
4364 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
4366 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
4367 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
4368 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
4371 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
4372 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
4373 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
4374 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
4375 the following grammar:
4376 ((apples (single-char #\a))
4377 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
4378 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
4379 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
4380 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
4381 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
4382 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
4383 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
4384 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
4385 last option in its combination)
4387 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
4388 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
4389 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
4390 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
4392 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
4393 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
4394 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
4396 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4397 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4398 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
4400 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
4401 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
4402 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
4403 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
4404 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
4405 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
4406 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
4407 ordinary argument strings.
4409 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
4410 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
4411 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
4412 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
4414 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
4415 as a list, associated with the empty list.
4417 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
4418 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
4419 - a required option is omitted
4420 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
4421 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
4422 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
4423 - an option predicate fails
4428 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
4431 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
4432 (verbose (required? #f)
4435 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
4436 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
4437 (predicate ,string?))))
4439 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
4440 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4442 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4443 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
4444 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
4445 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
4448 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
4450 It will be removed in a few releases.
4452 ** New syntax: lambda*
4453 ** New syntax: define*
4454 ** New syntax: define*-public
4455 ** New syntax: defmacro*
4456 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
4457 Guile now supports optional arguments.
4459 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
4460 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
4461 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
4462 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
4463 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
4465 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
4466 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
4467 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
4469 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
4471 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
4472 and examples for `lambda*':
4475 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
4477 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
4478 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
4479 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
4480 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
4481 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
4482 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
4483 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
4484 can be checked with the bound? macro.
4486 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
4488 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
4489 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
4490 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
4491 are given as keywords are bound to values.
4493 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
4494 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
4495 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
4496 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
4497 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
4498 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
4499 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
4500 and until the procedure is called.
4502 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
4504 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
4505 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
4506 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
4507 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
4508 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
4509 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
4510 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
4511 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
4512 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
4513 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
4515 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
4516 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
4517 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
4518 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
4521 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
4523 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
4524 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
4525 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
4526 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
4528 ** New syntax: and-let*
4529 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
4531 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
4532 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
4533 (<variable> <expression>)
4536 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
4537 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
4538 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
4541 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
4542 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
4543 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
4544 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
4545 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
4546 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
4547 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
4549 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
4550 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
4551 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4552 shadow earlier bindings.
4554 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4556 ** New sorting functions
4558 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4559 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4560 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4561 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4563 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4564 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4567 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4568 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4569 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4571 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4572 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4573 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4574 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4576 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4577 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4578 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4579 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4580 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4583 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4584 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4585 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4586 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4587 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4588 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4590 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4591 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4592 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4594 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4595 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4596 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4599 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4600 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4601 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4603 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4604 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4606 ** New built-in random number support
4608 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4609 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4610 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4611 returned have a uniform distribution.
4613 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4614 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4615 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4616 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4617 effect of the `random' operation.
4619 *** New variable: *random-state*
4620 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4621 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4622 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4623 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4624 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4627 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4628 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4629 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4630 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4631 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4633 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4634 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4635 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4636 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4637 initialized using SEED.
4639 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4640 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4641 range between 0 and 1.
4643 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4644 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4645 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4646 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4647 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4648 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4649 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4651 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4652 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4653 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4654 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4655 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4656 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4658 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4659 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4660 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4661 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4663 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4664 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4665 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4666 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4668 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4669 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4670 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4672 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4674 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4677 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4678 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4681 ** New function: make-guardian
4682 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4683 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4684 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4685 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4686 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4688 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4689 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4690 one object if at all.
4692 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4693 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4694 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4696 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4697 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4698 read again in last-in first-out order.
4700 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4701 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4703 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4705 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4706 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4707 file position is used.
4709 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4710 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4711 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4713 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4714 redefined using seek.
4716 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4717 size is not supplied.
4719 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4720 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4722 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4723 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4725 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4727 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4728 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4729 and returns the contents as a single string.
4731 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4732 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4733 lists in serial order.
4735 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4736 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4737 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4739 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4740 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4741 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4742 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4744 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4745 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4746 and #f if an error occured.
4748 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4750 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4751 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4752 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4753 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4755 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4757 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4760 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4762 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4765 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4769 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4770 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4772 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4773 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4777 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4779 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4781 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4782 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4784 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4786 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4787 might change when we get the new module system.
4789 ** The smob interface
4791 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4792 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4794 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4796 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4800 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4801 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4802 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4803 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4804 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4805 will be freed by the default free function.
4807 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4808 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4809 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4810 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4812 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4813 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4814 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4815 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4817 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4819 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4820 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4824 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4825 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4826 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4828 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4829 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4830 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4831 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4833 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4834 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4835 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4837 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4838 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4839 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4840 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4842 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4843 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4844 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4846 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4850 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4852 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4853 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4854 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4856 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4857 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4858 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4860 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4861 a string port's buffer.
4863 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4864 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4865 function pointers which together define the current random number
4866 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4867 number library functions.
4869 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4872 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4873 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4876 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4877 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4879 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4880 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4882 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4883 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4886 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4887 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4888 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4889 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4891 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4892 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4893 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4894 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4895 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4896 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4897 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4899 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4900 by libguile and the application.
4902 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4903 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4904 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4905 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4907 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4908 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4910 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4911 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4912 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4914 ** Random number library functions
4915 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4916 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4917 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4919 The default random state is stored in:
4921 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4922 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4923 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4928 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4930 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4931 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4932 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4933 isn't a random state.
4935 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4936 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4938 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4939 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4940 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4941 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4943 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4944 Return 32 random bits.
4946 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4947 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4949 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4950 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4952 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4953 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4955 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4956 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4958 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4959 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4960 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4964 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4966 * Changes to the distribution
4968 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4969 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4970 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4973 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4974 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4975 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4977 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4978 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4979 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4980 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4983 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4984 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4985 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4987 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4989 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4991 *** Function: batch-mode?
4993 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4996 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4998 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4999 case has not been implemented.
5001 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
5002 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
5003 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
5006 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
5007 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
5009 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
5011 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5013 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
5015 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
5016 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
5019 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
5020 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
5021 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
5022 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
5025 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
5027 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
5028 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
5029 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
5030 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
5031 find those libraries.
5033 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
5034 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
5037 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
5039 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
5040 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
5041 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
5042 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
5044 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
5045 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
5046 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
5050 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
5052 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
5053 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
5054 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
5057 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
5058 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
5059 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
5060 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
5062 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
5063 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
5066 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
5067 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
5068 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
5069 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
5070 compiler where to find the libraries.
5072 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
5073 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
5074 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
5076 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
5077 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
5078 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
5079 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
5080 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
5084 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5086 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
5087 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
5088 internationalization support.
5090 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
5091 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
5092 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
5093 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
5094 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
5096 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
5097 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
5098 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
5099 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
5100 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
5102 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
5103 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
5104 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
5105 any GNU mirror site.
5107 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
5109 ** New function: add-history STRING
5110 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
5111 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
5112 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
5114 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
5116 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
5117 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
5118 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
5121 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
5122 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
5123 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
5125 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
5127 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
5130 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
5131 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
5134 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
5135 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
5136 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
5137 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
5138 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
5139 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
5141 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
5142 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
5143 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
5144 of the form mentioned above.
5146 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
5147 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
5148 returned in the special `rest' list.
5150 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
5151 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
5153 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
5155 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
5157 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
5159 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
5160 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
5161 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
5162 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
5163 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
5164 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
5165 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
5166 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
5169 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
5171 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
5173 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
5174 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
5177 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
5178 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
5179 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
5183 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
5184 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
5185 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
5186 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
5187 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
5188 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
5189 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
5190 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
5193 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
5195 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
5196 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
5197 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
5199 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
5201 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
5202 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
5204 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
5205 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
5206 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
5208 Why do we have this function?
5209 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
5210 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
5211 primitive, and display it differently, and
5212 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
5213 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
5216 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
5217 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
5220 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
5221 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
5222 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
5223 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
5225 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
5226 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
5229 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
5230 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
5232 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
5234 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
5235 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
5236 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
5237 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
5238 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
5239 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
5240 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
5243 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
5245 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
5246 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
5248 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
5249 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
5250 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
5251 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
5252 properly continue the print chain.
5254 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
5255 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
5256 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
5257 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
5258 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
5259 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
5260 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
5261 print-state, it is simply ignored.
5263 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
5264 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
5265 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
5266 safest to not check for these pairs.
5268 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
5269 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
5270 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
5271 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
5273 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
5275 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
5276 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
5278 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
5280 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
5282 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
5283 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
5284 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
5286 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
5287 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
5288 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
5290 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
5291 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
5292 the following functions and macros:
5294 Function: make-fluid
5296 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
5297 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
5298 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
5299 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
5300 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
5302 Function: fluid? OBJ
5304 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
5306 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
5307 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
5309 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
5310 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
5312 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
5314 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
5315 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
5316 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
5317 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
5318 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
5319 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
5320 modified by `with-fluids*'.
5322 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
5324 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
5325 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
5326 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
5327 should evaluate to a fluid.
5329 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
5331 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
5332 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
5333 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
5334 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
5335 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
5337 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
5340 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
5342 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
5344 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
5346 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
5349 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
5350 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
5351 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
5352 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
5353 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
5356 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
5357 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
5358 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
5360 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
5361 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
5362 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
5364 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
5365 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
5366 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5367 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
5369 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
5370 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
5371 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5372 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
5374 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
5375 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
5376 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
5377 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
5379 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
5380 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
5381 their revealed counts set to zero.
5383 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5384 Returns an integer file descriptor.
5386 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5387 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
5389 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5390 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
5392 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5393 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
5394 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
5396 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
5397 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
5398 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
5400 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
5401 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
5402 default environment inherited by child processes.
5404 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
5405 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
5406 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
5408 The return value is unspecified.
5410 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
5411 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
5412 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
5413 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
5414 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
5416 The return value is unspecified.
5418 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
5419 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
5427 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
5428 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
5431 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
5434 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
5435 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
5436 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
5438 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
5439 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
5440 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
5441 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
5444 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
5445 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
5447 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
5448 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
5449 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
5450 the `environ' procedure.
5452 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
5453 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
5456 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
5457 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
5459 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
5460 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
5461 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
5462 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
5464 *** procedure: times
5465 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
5466 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
5467 return a selected component:
5470 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
5474 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
5477 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
5481 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
5482 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
5486 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
5487 terminated child processes.
5489 ** Removed: list-length
5490 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
5491 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
5493 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
5495 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
5497 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
5499 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
5500 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
5501 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
5502 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
5504 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
5505 extra complexity it introduces.
5507 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
5508 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
5510 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
5511 variable to any non-empty value.
5513 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
5514 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
5516 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5518 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
5519 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
5521 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
5523 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
5524 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
5526 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
5528 ** vector handling routines
5530 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
5531 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
5532 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
5533 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
5534 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
5536 ** pair and list routines
5538 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
5541 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
5543 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
5546 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5548 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
5550 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
5551 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5552 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5553 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5554 site-specific initialization code.
5556 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5557 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5558 initialization processes.
5560 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5561 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5562 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5563 initialized properly.
5565 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5566 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5567 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5569 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5570 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5571 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5572 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5573 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5575 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5577 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5578 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5579 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5580 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5581 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5583 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5584 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5585 which look like this:
5588 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5590 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5591 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5594 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5595 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5598 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5600 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5601 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5602 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5604 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5605 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5606 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5607 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5608 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5610 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5611 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5613 int (*free) (SCM port);
5614 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5615 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5616 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5620 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5621 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5622 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5624 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5627 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5628 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5629 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5631 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5632 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5633 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5636 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5640 struct timeval *timeout);
5642 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5643 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5644 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5645 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5646 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5647 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5649 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5650 scm_catch_body_t body,
5652 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5655 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5656 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5657 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5658 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5659 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5660 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5662 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5664 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5667 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5668 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5669 spawning threads from application C code.
5671 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5672 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5673 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5674 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5675 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5676 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5678 ** Removed functions:
5680 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5681 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5683 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5685 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5686 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5688 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5690 ** mbstrings are now removed
5692 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5693 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5695 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5697 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5698 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5699 their new names and arguments:
5701 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5702 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5703 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5704 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5707 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5709 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5711 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5714 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5716 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5717 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5718 pass a #f arg to catch.
5720 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5722 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5723 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5726 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5727 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5728 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5729 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5730 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5731 reclaim its storage.
5733 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5734 worrying that some other function you call will call
5735 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5736 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5737 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5738 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5741 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5743 * Changes to the distribution
5745 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5746 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5749 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5750 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5752 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5753 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5755 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5757 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5758 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5759 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5761 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5763 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5764 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5765 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5766 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5767 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5768 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5770 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5771 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5772 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5775 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5776 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5777 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5778 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5780 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5781 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5782 libraries to your link command:
5784 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5785 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5786 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5787 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5789 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5790 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5791 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5793 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5795 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5796 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5799 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5801 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5802 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5803 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5804 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5805 searched is system dependent.
5807 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5809 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5811 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5813 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5814 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5816 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5818 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5819 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5820 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5821 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5822 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5825 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5827 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5828 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5829 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5830 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5831 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5833 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5835 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5836 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5838 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5840 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5841 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5842 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5845 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5847 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5848 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5849 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5850 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5852 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5853 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5855 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5857 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5858 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5860 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5862 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5863 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5871 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5873 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5874 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5875 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5876 a more informative way.
5878 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5879 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5880 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5881 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5882 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5883 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5885 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5886 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5889 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5890 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5891 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5894 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5895 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5896 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5897 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5898 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5899 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5901 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5902 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5903 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5904 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5907 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5908 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5909 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5910 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5911 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5912 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5914 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5915 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5916 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5917 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5918 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5920 *** regexp functions
5922 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5923 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5924 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5926 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5927 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5928 with SCSH regular expressions.
5930 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5931 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5932 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5933 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5935 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5936 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5937 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5938 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5940 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5941 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5942 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5943 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5944 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5945 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5947 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5948 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5949 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5950 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5951 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5953 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5955 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5956 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5957 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5958 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5960 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5961 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5962 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5964 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5965 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5967 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5970 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5971 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5972 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5974 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5975 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5976 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5978 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5979 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5980 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5981 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5982 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5985 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5987 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5988 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5989 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5990 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5991 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5992 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5994 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5995 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5996 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5998 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5999 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
6002 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
6003 and replace them with the contents of another string.
6005 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
6006 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
6007 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
6008 may be one of the following arguments:
6010 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
6012 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
6014 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
6015 the regexp match is written.
6017 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
6018 following the regexp match is written.
6020 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
6021 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
6024 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
6025 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
6026 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
6027 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
6028 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
6029 which should be matched against this regular expression.
6031 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
6034 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
6035 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
6036 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
6037 written out to PORT.
6039 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
6040 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
6041 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
6042 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
6043 will return after processing a single match.
6045 *** Match Structures
6047 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
6048 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
6049 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
6050 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
6051 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
6052 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
6055 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
6056 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
6057 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
6058 information about the original target string that was matched against a
6059 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
6061 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
6062 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
6063 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
6065 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
6066 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
6067 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
6068 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
6069 number N did not match, return `#f'.
6071 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
6072 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
6074 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
6075 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
6077 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
6078 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
6080 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
6081 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
6083 **** Function: match:count MATCH
6084 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
6085 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
6086 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
6088 **** Function: match:string MATCH
6089 Return the original TARGET string.
6091 *** Backslash Escapes
6093 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
6094 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
6095 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
6096 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
6097 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
6098 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
6100 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
6101 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
6102 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
6103 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
6104 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
6105 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
6106 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
6107 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
6109 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
6110 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
6111 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
6112 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
6113 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
6114 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
6115 each match a single backslash in the target string.
6117 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
6118 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
6119 return the resulting string.
6121 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
6122 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
6123 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
6124 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
6125 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
6126 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
6127 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
6128 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
6129 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
6130 translated to the single character `*'.
6132 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
6133 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
6134 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
6135 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
6136 consecutive backslashes:
6138 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
6140 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
6141 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
6142 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
6144 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
6145 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
6146 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
6147 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
6148 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
6149 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
6151 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
6153 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
6154 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
6155 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
6156 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
6157 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
6158 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
6159 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
6160 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
6161 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
6162 cumbersome escape syntax.
6164 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6166 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6168 * Changes to system call interfaces:
6170 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
6173 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
6175 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
6177 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
6180 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
6181 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
6182 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
6183 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
6184 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
6186 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
6187 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
6188 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
6189 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
6190 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
6191 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
6192 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
6195 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
6196 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
6197 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
6200 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
6201 `force-output' on every port open for output.
6203 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
6204 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
6205 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
6206 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
6207 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
6208 installed, you can say:
6210 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
6213 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6215 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
6216 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
6217 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
6218 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
6219 new dynamic roots and threads.
6222 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
6224 * Changes to the distribution.
6226 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
6228 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
6229 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
6230 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
6231 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
6232 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
6233 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
6234 programming language. These are packaged together because the
6235 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
6237 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
6240 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
6241 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
6246 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6248 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
6249 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
6251 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
6252 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
6253 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
6254 the (command-line) function.
6255 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
6256 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
6257 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
6259 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
6260 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
6261 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
6262 command line arguments
6263 -ds do -s script at this point
6264 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
6265 -h, --help display this help and exit
6266 -v, --version display version information and exit
6267 \ read arguments from following script lines
6269 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
6270 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
6272 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6275 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6279 (main (command-line))
6281 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
6283 ekko a speckled gecko
6285 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
6286 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
6287 following list of command-line arguments:
6289 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
6291 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
6292 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
6293 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
6294 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
6295 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6297 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
6299 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
6301 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
6302 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
6305 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
6306 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
6307 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
6308 SCSH) for circumventing them.
6310 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
6311 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
6312 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
6313 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
6315 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
6319 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6323 If the user invokes this script as follows:
6325 ekko a speckled gecko
6327 Unix expands this into
6329 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
6331 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
6332 read from the second line of the script, producing:
6334 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6336 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
6337 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6339 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
6340 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
6341 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
6342 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
6343 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
6344 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
6345 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
6346 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
6347 it only terminates the argument list.)
6348 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
6349 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
6350 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
6351 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
6352 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
6353 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
6354 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
6355 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
6357 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6359 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
6360 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
6361 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
6362 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
6363 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
6365 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
6366 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
6367 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
6369 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
6371 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
6372 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
6373 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
6374 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
6377 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
6378 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6379 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6381 * Changes to Scheme functions
6383 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
6384 and disabled by default.
6386 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
6387 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
6388 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
6389 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
6391 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
6393 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
6395 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
6396 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
6398 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
6399 (read-set! keywords #f)
6401 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
6402 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
6403 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
6406 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
6407 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
6408 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
6411 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
6412 support for Scheme functions.
6414 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6415 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
6416 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
6417 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
6420 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6421 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
6422 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
6425 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
6426 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
6427 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
6430 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
6431 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
6432 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
6433 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
6434 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
6435 display the result as a prompt.
6436 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
6438 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
6439 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
6440 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
6443 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
6444 procedure of zero arguments.
6446 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
6447 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
6448 argument is bound in the current module.
6450 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
6451 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
6452 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
6453 public bindings into the current module.
6455 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
6456 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
6458 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
6459 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
6461 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
6462 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
6464 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
6465 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
6467 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
6468 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
6470 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
6471 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
6472 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
6473 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
6474 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
6476 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
6477 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
6478 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
6479 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
6481 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
6484 ** Changes to I/O functions
6486 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
6487 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
6488 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
6490 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
6491 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
6492 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
6494 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
6495 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
6497 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
6498 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
6499 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
6500 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
6502 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
6504 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
6505 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
6507 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
6508 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
6509 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
6510 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
6511 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
6514 'trim omit delimiter from result
6515 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
6516 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
6517 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
6519 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
6521 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
6522 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
6524 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
6525 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
6526 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
6527 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
6528 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
6530 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
6531 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
6532 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
6534 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
6535 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
6536 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
6537 above, and defaults to 'peek.
6539 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
6540 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6542 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
6543 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
6545 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
6547 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
6548 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
6549 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
6550 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
6551 a delimiting character.
6552 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6554 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6555 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6556 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6557 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6558 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6559 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6561 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6562 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6564 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6565 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6566 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6568 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6569 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6570 the array to read and write.
6572 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6573 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6576 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6578 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6581 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6582 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6583 Values for COMMAND are:
6585 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6586 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6587 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6588 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6589 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6590 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6591 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6592 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6594 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6596 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6597 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6598 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6599 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6600 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6601 corresponding return set will be the same.
6603 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6606 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6607 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6608 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6609 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6610 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6611 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6612 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6613 special file being created.
6615 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6616 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6618 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6619 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6620 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6621 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6622 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6623 and originating address.
6625 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6626 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6627 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6629 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6632 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6633 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6636 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6637 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6638 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6639 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6640 this function returns #f.
6642 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6643 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6644 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6647 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6648 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6649 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6652 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6653 a valid STATUS value.
6655 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6657 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6658 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6660 Component Accessor Setter
6661 ========================= ============ ============
6662 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6663 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6664 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6665 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6666 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6667 year tm:year set-tm:year
6668 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6669 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6670 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6671 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6672 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6674 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6675 describing the host system:
6678 ============================================== ================
6679 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6680 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6681 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6682 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6683 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6685 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6686 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6687 system's user database:
6690 ====================== =================
6691 user name passwd:name
6692 user password passwd:passwd
6695 real name passwd:gecos
6696 home directory passwd:dir
6697 shell program passwd:shell
6699 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6700 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6701 system's group database:
6704 ======================= ============
6705 group name group:name
6706 group password group:passwd
6708 group members group:mem
6710 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6711 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6715 ========================= ===============
6716 official name of host hostent:name
6717 alias list hostent:aliases
6718 host address type hostent:addrtype
6719 length of address hostent:length
6720 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6722 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6723 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6727 ========================= ===============
6728 official name of net netent:name
6729 alias list netent:aliases
6730 net number type netent:addrtype
6731 net number netent:net
6733 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6734 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6738 ========================= ===============
6739 official protocol name protoent:name
6740 alias list protoent:aliases
6741 protocol number protoent:proto
6743 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6744 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6748 ========================= ===============
6749 official service name servent:name
6750 alias list servent:aliases
6751 port number servent:port
6752 protocol to use servent:proto
6754 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6755 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6758 ======================================== ===============
6759 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6760 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6761 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6762 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6764 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6765 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6766 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6768 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6769 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6771 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6772 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6774 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6775 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6777 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6779 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6781 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6782 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6783 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6785 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6786 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6787 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6788 return the remaining characters as a string.
6790 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6791 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6792 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6794 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6796 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6798 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6801 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6804 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6805 and returns the array
6807 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6808 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6809 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6811 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6813 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6814 symbol's value from C code:
6816 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6817 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6818 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6819 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6821 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6822 without assigning them a value.
6824 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6825 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6826 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6828 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6829 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6830 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6832 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6833 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6835 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6836 doesn't actually care about that.
6838 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6839 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6840 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6842 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6843 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6844 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6845 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6846 which we have just created and initialized.
6848 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6849 should one occur. We call it like this:
6850 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6852 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6853 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6854 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6855 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6856 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6857 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6860 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6861 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6862 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6863 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6864 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6865 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6866 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6869 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6870 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6871 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6872 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6873 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6876 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6877 scm_internal_catch, except:
6879 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6880 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6881 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6882 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6885 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6886 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6887 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6889 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6890 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6891 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6892 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6895 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6896 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6897 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6899 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6900 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6901 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6902 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6903 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6905 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6906 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6907 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6909 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6910 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6911 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6913 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6914 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6916 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6917 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6918 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6921 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6922 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6923 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6924 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6925 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6926 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6927 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6930 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6931 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6933 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6934 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6935 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6936 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6937 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6940 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6941 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6943 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6944 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6947 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6948 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6950 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6953 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6954 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6955 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6956 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6957 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6958 given the following arguments:
6960 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6962 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6964 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6966 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6969 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6970 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6971 command-line arguments.
6973 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6974 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6975 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6976 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6977 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6978 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6981 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6984 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6985 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6987 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6988 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6990 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6991 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6992 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6993 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6995 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6996 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6998 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6999 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
7000 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
7001 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
7003 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7004 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
7006 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
7007 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
7009 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
7011 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
7012 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
7013 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
7016 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
7017 returns a port instead of an FD object.
7019 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
7020 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
7025 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
7028 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
7030 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
7031 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
7032 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
7033 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
7035 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
7037 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
7039 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
7040 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
7041 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
7042 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
7043 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
7044 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
7045 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
7046 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
7047 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
7048 for more information.
7050 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
7051 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
7053 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
7054 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
7055 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
7056 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
7057 following two lines at the top of the file:
7059 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7062 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
7063 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
7064 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
7066 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
7068 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7070 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
7073 (display (car args))
7074 (if (pair? (cdr args))
7076 (loop (cdr args)))))
7079 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
7080 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
7081 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
7082 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
7083 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
7084 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
7088 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
7091 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
7094 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
7096 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
7097 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
7098 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
7099 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
7100 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
7103 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
7104 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
7105 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
7106 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
7107 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
7110 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
7113 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
7114 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
7115 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
7118 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
7119 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
7120 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
7122 to see a backtrace, and
7123 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
7124 to see them by default.
7128 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
7130 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
7132 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
7133 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
7136 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
7137 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
7138 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
7139 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
7142 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
7143 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
7144 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
7145 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
7146 functions which inspired them.
7148 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
7149 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
7153 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
7155 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
7157 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
7158 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
7161 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
7162 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
7163 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
7165 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
7166 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
7167 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
7168 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
7169 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
7171 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
7173 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
7174 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
7175 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
7178 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
7181 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
7183 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
7184 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
7185 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
7186 above should serve their purposes.
7188 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
7189 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
7190 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
7191 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
7193 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
7196 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
7197 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
7198 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
7199 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
7201 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
7202 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
7203 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
7204 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
7206 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
7207 for the `read' function.
7210 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
7211 to that of `integer?'.
7213 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
7214 use the R4RS names for these functions.
7216 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
7217 it simply returns the object's property list.
7219 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
7220 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
7221 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
7222 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
7224 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
7226 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
7229 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
7231 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
7232 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
7234 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
7236 void (*main_func) (),
7239 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
7240 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
7241 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
7242 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
7243 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
7245 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
7246 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
7247 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
7248 know which arguments have been processed.
7250 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
7251 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
7252 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
7253 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
7254 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
7256 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
7257 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
7258 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
7259 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
7260 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
7261 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
7262 people from making that mistake.
7264 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
7265 convenient ways to override these when desired.
7267 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
7269 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
7273 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
7276 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
7277 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
7278 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
7279 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
7282 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
7283 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
7284 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
7285 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
7288 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
7289 have been added to the Guile library.
7291 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
7292 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
7293 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
7296 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
7297 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
7298 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
7300 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
7301 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
7302 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
7303 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
7304 argument from the list.
7307 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
7310 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
7311 null-terminated string, and returns it.
7313 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
7314 to a Scheme port object.
7316 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
7317 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
7322 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
7324 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
7325 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
7326 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
7327 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
7328 code as a special datatype.
7330 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
7331 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
7332 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
7333 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
7334 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
7337 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
7338 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
7339 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
7340 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
7341 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
7343 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
7346 Copyright information:
7348 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7350 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7351 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7352 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7353 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7355 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7356 of this document, or of portions of it,
7357 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7358 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7363 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"