1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
8 Changes in 2.0.8 (since 2.0.7):
12 Reorder points in order of importance and make comprehensible
26 The `guile.m4' autoconf macros have been rewritten to use `guild' and
27 `pkg-config' instead of the deprecated `guile-config' (which itself
30 There is also a new macro, `GUILE_PKG', which allows packages to select
31 the version of Guile that they want to compile against. See "Autoconf
32 Macros" in the manual, for more information.
34 ** Better Windows support.
36 Guile now correctly identifies absolute paths on Windows (MinGW), and
37 creates files on that platform according to its path conventions. See
38 XXX in the manual, for all details.
40 In addition, the new Gnulib imports provide `select' and `poll' on
43 As an incompatible change, systems that are missing <sys/select.h> were
44 previously provided a public `scm_std_select' C function that defined a
45 version of `select', but unhappily it also provided its own incompatible
46 definitions for FD_SET, FD_ZERO, and other system interface. Guile
47 should not be setting these macros in public API, so this interface was
48 removed on those plaforms (basically only MinGW).
52 Guile's copy of Gnulib was updated to XXX. The following modules were
53 imported from Gnulib: select, times, pipe-posix, fstat, getlogin, and
58 There were a number of improvements to the partial evaluator, allowing
59 complete reduction of forms such as:
61 ((let ((_ 10)) (lambda () _)))
65 (apply (lambda _) 1 2 3 4)
67 (call-with-values (lambda () (values 1 2)) (lambda _ _))
69 A number (ahem) of numeric operations on have been made faster, among
70 them GCD and logarithms.
72 Finally, `array-ref' and `array-set!' on arrays of rank 1 or 2 is now
73 faster, because it avoids building a rest list.
75 ** `include' resolves relative file names relative to including file.
77 Given a relative file name, `include' will look for it relative to the
78 directory of the including file. This harmonizes the behavior of
79 `include' with that of `load'.
81 ** SLIB compatibility restored.
83 Guile 2.0.8 is now compatible with SLIB. You will have to use a
84 development version of SLIB, however, until a new version of SLIB is
87 ** Better ,trace REPL command.
89 Sometimes the ,trace output for nested function calls could overflow the
90 terminal width, which wasn't useful. Now there is a limit to the amount
91 of space the prefix will take. See the documentation for ",trace" for
94 ** Update predefined character sets to Unicode 6.2.
98 ** Better SXML documentation.
100 The documentation for SXML modules was much improved, though there is
101 still far to go. See "SXML" in manual.
105 Use of "iff" was replaced with standard English. Keyword arguments are
106 now documented consistently, along with their default values.
108 ** An end to the generated-documentation experiment.
110 When Guile 2.0 imported some modules from Guile-Lib, they came with a
111 system that generated documentation from docstrings and module
112 commentaries. This produced terrible documentation. We finally bit the
113 bullet and incorporated these modules into the main text, and will be
114 improving them manually over time, as is the case with SXML. Help is
117 ** New documentation.
119 There is now documentation for `scm_array_type', and `scm_array_ref', as
120 well as for the new `array-length' / 'scm_c_array_length' /
121 `scm_array_length' functions. `array-in-bounds?' has better
122 documentation as well. The `program-arguments-alist' and
123 `program-lambda-list' functions are now documented. Finally, the GOOPS
124 class hierarchy diagram has been regenerated for the web and print
129 ** Deprecate generalized vector interface.
131 The generalized vector interface, introduced in 1.8.0, is simply a
132 redundant, verbose interface to arrays of rank 1. `array-ref' and
133 similar functions are entirely sufficient. Thus,
134 `scm_generalized_vector_p', `scm_generalized_vector_length',
135 `scm_generalized_vector_ref', `scm_generalized_vector_set_x', and
136 `scm_generalized_vector_to_list' are now deprecated.
138 ** Deprecate SCM_CHAR_CODE_LIMIT and char-code-limit.
140 These constants were defined to 256, which is not the highest codepoint
141 supported by Guile. Given that they were useless and incorrect, they
142 have been deprecated.
144 ** Deprecate `http-get*'.
146 The new `#:streaming?' argument to `http-get' subsumes the functionality
147 of `http-get*' (introduced in 2.0.7). Also, the `#:extra-headers'
148 argument is deprecated in favor of `#:headers'.
150 ** Deprecate (ice-9 mapping).
152 This module, present in Guile since 1996 but never used or documented,
153 has never worked in Guile 2.0. It has now been deprecated and will be
154 removed in Guile 2.2.
158 ** `round-ash', a bit-shifting operator that rounds on right-shift.
160 See "Bitwise Operations".
162 ** New environment variables: `GUILE_STACK_SIZE', `GUILE_INSTALL_LOCALE'.
164 See "Environment Variables".
166 ** New procedure `sendfile'.
170 ** New procedures for dealing with file names.
172 See XXX for documentation on `system-file-name-convention',
173 `file-name-separator?', `absolute-file-name?', and
174 `file-name-separator-string'.
176 ** `array-length', an array's first dimension.
178 See "Array Procedures".
180 ** `hash-count', for hash tables.
184 ** New foreign types: `ssize_t', `ptrdiff_t'.
188 ** New C helpers: `scm_from_ptrdiff_t', `scm_to_ptrdiff_t'.
192 ** Much more capable `xml->sxml'
194 See "Reading and Writing XML" for information on how the `xml->sxml'
195 parser deals with namespaces, processed entities, doctypes, and literal
196 strings. Incidentally, `current-ssax-error-port' is now a parameter
199 ** New command-line argument: `--language'
201 See XXX in the manual.
203 ** `current-language' in default environment.
205 Previously defined only in `(system base language)', `current-language'
206 is now defined in the default environment, and is used to determine the
207 language for the REPL, and for `compile-and-load'.
209 ** New procedure: `fluid->parameter'
211 See "Parameters", for information on how to convert a fluid to a
214 ** New procedures to read all characters from a port
216 See "Line/Delimited" in the manual for documentation on `read-string'
219 ** New HTTP client procedures.
221 See "Web Client" for documentation on the new `http-head', `http-post',
222 `http-put', `http-delete', `http-trace', and `http-options' procedures,
223 and also for more options to `http-get'.
225 ** New procedures for converting strings to and from bytevectors.
227 See "Representing Strings as Bytes" for documention on the new `(ice-9
228 iconv)' module and its `bytevector->string' and `string->bytevector'
231 ** New `print' REPL option.
233 See "REPL Commands" in the manual for information on the new
234 user-customizable REPL printer.
236 ** New variable: %site-ccache-dir.
238 The "Installing Site Packages" and "Build Config" manual sections now
239 refer to this variable to describe where users should install their
244 ** Fix compilation against libgc 7.3.
245 ** Fix cross-compilation of `c-tokenize.o'.
246 ** Fix warning when compiling against glibc 2.17.
247 ** Fix documentation build against Texinfo 5.0.
248 ** Fix building Guile from a directory with non-ASCII characters.
249 ** Fix native MinGW build.
250 ** Fix --disable-posix build.
251 ** Fix MinGW builds with networking, POSIX, and thread support.
255 ** SRFI-37: Fix infinite loop when parsing optional-argument short options
256 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13176)
257 ** web: Support non-GMT date headers in the HTTP client
258 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13544)
259 ** Avoid stack overflows with `par-map' and nested futures in general
260 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13188)
261 ** A fork when multiple threads are running will now print a warning.
262 ** Allow for spurious wakeups from pthread_cond_wait.
263 (http://bugs.gnu.org/10641)
264 ** Warn and ignore module autoload failures.
265 (http://bugs.gnu.org/12202)
266 ** Use chmod portably in (system base compile).
267 (http://bugs.gnu.org/10474)
268 ** Fix response-body-port for responses without content-length.
269 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13857)
270 ** Allow case-lambda expressions with no clauses.
271 (http://bugs.gnu.org/9776)
272 ** Improve standards conformance of string->number.
273 (http://bugs.gnu.org/11887)
274 ** Support calls and tail-calls with more than 255 formals.
275 ** ,option evaluates its right-hand-side.
276 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13076)
277 ** Structs with tail arrays are not simple.
278 (http://bugs.gnu.org/12808)
279 ** Make `SCM_LONG_BIT' usable in preprocessor conditionals.
280 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13848)
281 ** Fix thread-unsafe lazy initializations.
282 ** Allow SMOB mark procedures to be called from parallel markers.
283 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13611)
284 ** Fix later-bindings-win logic in with-fluids.
285 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13843)
286 ** Fix duplicate removal of with-fluids.
287 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13838)
288 ** Support calling foreign functions of 10 arguments or more.
289 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13809)
290 ** Let reverse! accept arbitrary types as second argument.
291 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13835)
292 ** Recognize the `x86_64.*-gnux32' triplet.
293 ** Check whether a triplet's OS part specifies an ABI.
294 ** Recognize mips64* as having 32-bit pointers by default.
295 ** Remove language/glil/decompile-assembly.scm.
296 (http://bugs.gnu.org/10622)
297 ** Use O_BINARY in `copy-file', `load-objcode', `mkstemp'.
298 ** Fix compilation of functions with more than 255 local variables.
299 ** Fix `getgroups' for when zero supplementary group IDs exist.
300 ** Allow (define-macro name (lambda ...)).
301 ** Various fixes to the (texinfo) modules.
302 ** guild: Gracefully handle failures to install the locale.
303 ** Fix format string warnings for ~!, ~|, ~/, ~q, ~Q, and ~^.
304 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13485)
305 ** Fix source annotation bug in psyntax 'expand-body'.
306 ** Ecmascript: Fix conversion to boolean for non-numbers.
307 ** A failure to find a module's file does not prevent future loading.
308 ** Many (oop goops save) fixes.
309 ** `http-get': don't shutdown write end of socket.
310 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13095)
311 ** Avoid signed integer overflow in scm_product.
312 ** http: read-response-body always returns bytevector or #f (not EOF in one case).
313 ** web: Correctly detect "No route to host" conditions.
314 ** `system*': failure to execvp no longer leaks dangling processes
315 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13166)
316 ** More sensible case-lambda* dispatch
317 (http://bugs.gnu.org/12929)
318 ** Do not defer expansion of internal define-syntax forms.
319 (http://bugs.gnu.org/13509)
323 Changes in 2.0.7 (since 2.0.6):
327 ** SRFI-105 curly infix expressions are supported
329 Curly infix expressions as described at
330 http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-105/srfi-105.html are now supported by
331 Guile's reader. This allows users to write things like {a * {b + c}}
332 instead of (* a (+ b c)). SRFI-105 support is enabled by using the
333 `#!curly-infix' directive in source code, or the `curly-infix' reader
334 option. See the manual for details.
336 ** Reader options may now be per-port
338 Historically, `read-options' and related procedures would manipulate
339 global options, affecting the `read' procedure for all threads, and all
340 current uses of `read'.
342 Guile can now associate `read' options with specific ports, allowing
343 different ports to use different options. For instance, the
344 `#!fold-case' and `#!no-fold-case' reader directives have been
345 implemented, and their effect is to modify the current read options of
346 the current port only; similarly for `#!curly-infix'. Thus, it is
347 possible, for instance, to have one port reading case-sensitive code,
348 while another port reads case-insensitive code.
350 ** Futures may now be nested
352 Futures may now be nested: a future can itself spawn and then `touch'
353 other futures. In addition, any thread that touches a future that has
354 not completed now processes other futures while waiting for the touched
355 future to completed. This allows all threads to be kept busy, and was
356 made possible by the use of delimited continuations (see the manual for
359 Consequently, `par-map' and `par-for-each' have been rewritten and can
362 ** `GUILE_LOAD_PATH' et al can now add directories to the end of the path
364 `GUILE_LOAD_PATH' and `GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH' can now be used to add
365 directories to both ends of the load path. If the special path
366 component `...' (ellipsis) is present in these environment variables,
367 then the default path is put in place of the ellipsis, otherwise the
368 default path is placed at the end. See "Environment Variables" in the
371 ** `load-in-vicinity' search for `.go' files in `%load-compiled-path'
373 Previously, `load-in-vicinity' would look for compiled files in the
374 auto-compilation cache, but not in `%load-compiled-path'. This is now
375 fixed. This affects `load', and the `-l' command-line flag. See
376 <http://bugs.gnu.org/12519> for details.
378 ** Extension search order fixed, and LD_LIBRARY_PATH preserved
380 Up to 2.0.6, Guile would modify the `LD_LIBRARY_PATH' environment
381 variable (or whichever is relevant for the host OS) to insert its own
382 default extension directories in the search path (using GNU libltdl
383 facilities was not possible here.) This approach was problematic in two
386 First, the `LD_LIBRARY_PATH' modification would be visible to
387 sub-processes, and would also affect future calls to `dlopen', which
388 could lead to subtle bugs in the application or sub-processes. Second,
389 when the installation prefix is /usr, the `LD_LIBRARY_PATH' modification
390 would typically end up inserting /usr/lib before /usr/local/lib in the
391 search path, which is often the opposite of system-wide settings such as
394 Both issues have now been fixed.
396 ** `make-vtable-vtable' is now deprecated
398 Programs should instead use `make-vtable' and `<standard-vtable>'.
400 ** The `-Wduplicate-case-datum' and `-Wbad-case-datum' are enabled
402 These recently introduced warnings have been documented and are now
403 enabled by default when auto-compiling.
405 ** Optimize calls to `equal?' or `eqv?' with a constant argument
407 The compiler simplifies calls to `equal?' or `eqv?' with a constant
408 argument to use `eq?' instead, when applicable.
412 ** SRFI-9 records now documented under "Compound Data Types"
414 The documentation of SRFI-9 record types has been moved in the "Compound
415 Data Types", next to Guile's other record APIs. A new section
416 introduces the various record APIs, and describes the trade-offs they
417 make. These changes were made in an attempt to better guide users
418 through the maze of records API, and to recommend SRFI-9 as the main
421 The documentation of Guile's raw `struct' API has also been improved.
423 ** (ice-9 and-let-star) and (ice-9 curried-definitions) now documented
425 These modules were missing from the manual.
429 ** New "functional record setters" as a GNU extension of SRFI-9
431 The (srfi srfi-9 gnu) module now provides three new macros to deal with
432 "updates" of immutable records: `define-immutable-record-type',
433 `set-field', and `set-fields'.
435 The first one allows record type "functional setters" to be defined;
436 such setters keep the record unchanged, and instead return a new record
437 with only one different field. The remaining macros provide the same
438 functionality, and also optimize updates of multiple or nested fields.
439 See the manual for details.
441 ** web: New `http-get*', `response-body-port', and `text-content-type?'
444 These procedures return a port from which to read the response's body.
445 Unlike `http-get' and `read-response-body', they allow the body to be
446 processed incrementally instead of being stored entirely in memory.
448 The `text-content-type?' predicate allows users to determine whether the
449 content type of a response is textual.
451 See the manual for details.
453 ** `string-split' accepts character sets and predicates
455 The `string-split' procedure can now be given a SRFI-14 character set or
456 a predicate, instead of just a character.
460 Previously, in R6RS modules, Guile incorrectly ignored components of
461 SRFI module names after the SRFI number, making it impossible to specify
462 sub-libraries. This release corrects this, bringing us into accordance
465 ** `define-public' is no a longer curried definition by default
467 The (ice-9 curried-definitions) should be used for such uses. See the
472 ** Remove reference to `scm_init_popen' when `fork' is unavailable
474 This fixes a MinGW build issue (http://bugs.gnu.org/12477).
476 ** Fix race between installing `guild' and the `guile-tools' symlink
480 ** Procedures returned by `eval' now have docstrings
481 (http://bugs.gnu.org/12173)
482 ** web client: correctly handle uri-query, etc. in relative URI headers
483 (http://bugs.gnu.org/12827)
484 ** Fix docs for R6RS `hashtable-copy'
485 ** R6RS `string-for-each' now accepts multiple string arguments
486 ** Fix out-of-range error in the compiler's CSE pass
487 (http://bugs.gnu.org/12883)
488 ** Add missing R6RS `open-file-input/output-port' procedure
489 ** Futures: Avoid creating the worker pool more than once
490 ** Fix invalid assertion about mutex ownership in threads.c
491 (http://bugs.gnu.org/12719)
492 ** Have `SCM_NUM2FLOAT' and `SCM_NUM2DOUBLE' use `scm_to_double'
493 ** The `scandir' procedure now uses `lstat' instead of `stat'
494 ** Fix `generalized-vector->list' indexing bug with shared arrays
495 (http://bugs.gnu.org/12465)
496 ** web: Change `http-get' to try all the addresses for the given URI
497 ** Implement `hash' for structs
498 (http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2012-10/msg00031.html)
499 ** `read' now adds source properties for data types beyond pairs
500 ** Improve error reporting in `append!'
501 ** In fold-matches, set regexp/notbol unless matching string start
502 ** Don't stat(2) and access(2) the .go location before using it
503 ** SRFI-19: use zero padding for hours in ISO 8601 format, not blanks
504 ** web: Fix uri-encoding for strings with no unreserved chars, and octets 0-15
505 ** More robust texinfo alias handling
506 ** Optimize `format' and `simple-format'
507 (http://bugs.gnu.org/12033)
508 ** Angle of -0.0 is pi, not zero
511 Changes in 2.0.6 (since 2.0.5):
515 ** New optimization pass: common subexpression elimination (CSE)
517 Guile's optimizer will now run a CSE pass after partial evaluation.
518 This pass propagates static information about branches taken, bound
519 lexicals, and effects from an expression's dominators. It can replace
520 common subexpressions with their boolean values (potentially enabling
521 dead code elimination), equivalent bound lexicals, or it can elide them
522 entirely, depending on the context in which they are executed. This
523 pass is especially useful in removing duplicate type checks, such as
524 those produced by SRFI-9 record accessors.
526 ** Improvements to the partial evaluator
528 Peval can now hoist tests that are common to both branches of a
529 conditional into the test. This can help with long chains of
530 conditionals, such as those generated by the `match' macro. Peval can
531 now do simple beta-reductions of procedures with rest arguments. It
532 also avoids residualizing degenerate lexical aliases, even when full
533 inlining is not possible. Finally, peval now uses the effects analysis
534 introduced for the CSE pass. More precise effects analysis allows peval
537 ** Run finalizers asynchronously in asyncs
539 Finalizers are now run asynchronously, via an async. See Asyncs in the
540 manual. This allows Guile and user code to safely allocate memory while
543 ** Update SRFI-14 character sets to Unicode 6.1
545 Note that this update causes the Latin-1 characters `§' and `¶' to be
546 reclassified as punctuation. They were previously considered to be part
547 of `char-set:symbol'.
549 ** Better source information for datums
551 When the `positions' reader option is on, as it is by default, Guile's
552 reader will record source information for more kinds of datums.
554 ** Improved error and warning messages
556 `syntax-violation' errors now prefer `subform' for source info, with
557 `form' as fallback. Syntactic errors in `cond' and `case' now produce
558 better errors. `case' can now warn on duplicate datums, or datums that
559 cannot be usefully compared with `eqv?'. `-Warity-mismatch' now handles
560 applicable structs. `-Wformat' is more robust in the presence of
561 `gettext'. Finally, various exceptions thrown by the Web modules now
562 define appropriate exception printers.
564 ** A few important bug fixes in the HTTP modules.
566 Guile's web server framework now checks if an application returns a body
567 where it is not permitted, for example in response to a HEAD request,
568 and warn or truncate the response as appropriate. Bad requests now
569 cause a 400 Bad Request response to be printed before closing the port.
570 Finally, some date-printing and URL-parsing bugs were fixed.
572 ** Pretty-print improvements
574 When Guile needs to pretty-print Tree-IL, it will try to reconstruct
575 `cond', `or`, and other derived syntax forms from the primitive tree-IL
576 forms. It also uses the original names instead of the fresh unique
577 names, when it is unambiguous to do so. This can be seen in the output
578 of REPL commands like `,optimize'.
580 Also, the `pretty-print' procedure has a new keyword argument,
583 ** Fix memory leak involving applicable SMOBs
585 At some point in the 1.9.x series, Guile began leaking any applicable
586 SMOB that was actually applied. (There was a weak-key map from SMOB to
587 trampoline functions, where the value had a strong reference on the
588 key.) This has been fixed. There was much rejoicing!
590 ** Support for HTTP/1.1 chunked transfer coding
592 See "Transfer Codings" in the manual, for more.
594 ** Micro-optimizations
596 A pile of micro-optimizations: the `string-trim' function when called
597 with `char-set:whitespace'; the `(web http)' parsers; SMOB application;
598 conversion of raw UTF-8 and UTF-32 data to and from SCM strings; vlists
599 and vhashes; `read' when processing string literals.
601 ** Incompatible change to `scandir'
603 As was the original intention, `scandir' now runs the `select?'
604 procedure on all items, including subdirectories and the `.' and `..'
605 entries. It receives the basename of the file in question instead of
606 the full name. We apologize for this incompatible change to this
607 function introduced in the 2.0.4 release.
611 The manual has been made much more consistent in its naming conventions
612 with regards to formal parameters of functions. Thanks to Bake Timmons.
616 ** New C function: `scm_to_pointer'
617 ** New C inline functions: `scm_new_smob', `scm_new_double_smob'
618 ** (ice-9 format): Add ~h specifier for localized number output.
619 ** (web response): New procedure: `response-must-not-include-body?'
620 ** New predicate: 'supports-source-properties?'
621 ** New C helpers: `scm_c_values', `scm_c_nvalues'
622 ** Newly public inline C function: `scm_unget_byte'
623 ** (language tree-il): New functions: `tree-il=?', `tree-il-hash'
624 ** New fluid: `%default-port-conversion-strategy'
625 ** New syntax: `=>' within `case'
626 ** (web http): `make-chunked-input-port', `make-chunked-output-port'
627 ** (web http): `declare-opaque-header!'
629 Search the manual for these identifiers, for more information.
633 ** `close-io-port' deprecated
637 ** `scm_sym2var' deprecated
639 In most cases, replace with `scm_lookup' or `scm_module_variable'. Use
640 `scm_define' or `scm_module_ensure_local_variable' if the second
641 argument is nonzero. See "Accessing Modules from C" in the manual, for
644 ** Lookup closures deprecated
646 These were never documented. See "Module System Reflection" in the
647 manual for replacements.
651 ** Fix compilation against uninstalled Guile on non-GNU platforms.
652 ** Fix `SCM_I_ERROR' definition for MinGW without networking.
653 ** Fix compilation with the Sun C compiler.
654 ** Fix check for `clock_gettime' on OpenBSD and some other systems.
655 ** Fix build with --enable-debug-malloc.
656 ** Honor $(program_transform_name) for the `guile-tools' symlink.
657 ** Fix cross-compilation of GOOPS-using code.
661 ** Fix use of unitialized stat buffer in search-path of absolute paths.
662 ** Avoid calling `freelocale' with a NULL argument.
663 ** Work around erroneous tr_TR locale in Darwin 8 in tests.
664 ** Fix `getaddrinfo' test for Darwin 8.
665 ** Use Gnulib's `regex' module for better regex portability.
666 ** `source-properties' and friends work on any object
667 ** Rewrite open-process in C, for robustness related to threads and fork
668 ** Fix <TAG>vector-length when applied to other uniform vector types
669 ** Fix escape-only prompt optimization (was disabled previously)
670 ** Fix a segfault when /dev/urandom is not accessible
671 ** Fix flush on soft ports, so that it actually runs.
672 ** Better compatibility of SRFI-9 records with core records
673 ** Fix and clarify documentation of `sorted?'.
674 ** Fix IEEE-754 endianness conversion in bytevectors.
675 ** Correct thunk check in the `wind' instruction.
676 ** Add @acronym support to texinfo modules
677 ** Fix docbook->texi for <ulink> without URL
678 ** Fix `setvbuf' to leave the line/column number unchanged.
679 ** Add missing public declaration for `scm_take_from_input_buffers'.
680 ** Fix relative file name canonicalization with empty %LOAD-PATH entries.
681 ** Import newer (ice-9 match) from Chibi-Scheme.
682 ** Fix unbound variables and unbound values in ECMAScript runtime.
683 ** Make SRFI-6 string ports Unicode-capable.
686 Changes in 2.0.5 (since 2.0.4):
688 This release fixes the binary interface information (SONAME) of
689 libguile, which was incorrect in 2.0.4. It does not contain other
693 Changes in 2.0.4 (since 2.0.3):
697 ** Better debuggability for interpreted procedures.
699 Guile 2.0 came with a great debugging experience for compiled
700 procedures, but the story for interpreted procedures was terrible. Now,
701 at least, interpreted procedures have names, and the `arity' procedure
702 property is always correct (or, as correct as it can be, in the presence
705 ** Support for cross-compilation.
707 One can now use a native Guile to cross-compile `.go' files for a
708 different architecture. See the documentation for `--target' in the
709 "Compilation" section of the manual, for information on how to use the
710 cross-compiler. See the "Cross building Guile" section of the README,
711 for more on how to cross-compile Guile itself.
713 ** The return of `local-eval'.
715 Back by popular demand, `the-environment' and `local-eval' allow the
716 user to capture a lexical environment, and then evaluate arbitrary
717 expressions in that context. There is also a new `local-compile'
718 command. See "Local Evaluation" in the manual, for more. Special
719 thanks to Mark Weaver for an initial implementation of this feature.
721 ** Fluids can now have default values.
723 Fluids are used for dynamic and thread-local binding. They have always
724 inherited their values from the context or thread that created them.
725 However, there was a case in which a new thread would enter Guile, and
726 the default values of all the fluids would be `#f' for that thread.
728 This has now been fixed so that `make-fluid' has an optional default
729 value for fluids in unrelated dynamic roots, which defaults to `#f'.
731 ** Garbage collector tuning.
733 The garbage collector has now been tuned to run more often under some
736 *** Unmanaged allocation
738 The new `scm_gc_register_allocation' function will notify the collector
739 of unmanaged allocation. This will cause the collector to run sooner.
740 Guile's `scm_malloc', `scm_calloc', and `scm_realloc' unmanaged
741 allocators eventually call this function. This leads to better
742 performance under steady-state unmanaged allocation.
744 *** Transient allocation
746 When the collector runs, it will try to record the total memory
747 footprint of a process, if the platform supports this information. If
748 the memory footprint is growing, the collector will run more frequently.
749 This reduces the increase of the resident size of a process in response
750 to a transient increase in allocation.
752 *** Management of threads, bignums
754 Creating a thread will allocate a fair amount of memory. Guile now does
755 some GC work (using `GC_collect_a_little') when allocating a thread.
756 This leads to a better memory footprint when creating many short-lived
759 Similarly, bignums can occupy a lot of memory. Guile now offers hooks
760 to enable custom GMP allocators that end up calling
761 `scm_gc_register_allocation'. These allocators are enabled by default
762 when running Guile from the command-line. To enable them in libraries,
763 set the `scm_install_gmp_memory_functions' variable to a nonzero value
764 before loading Guile.
766 ** SRFI-39 parameters are available by default.
768 Guile now includes support for parameters, as defined by SRFI-39, in the
769 default environment. See "Parameters" in the manual, for more
770 information. `current-input-port', `current-output-port', and
771 `current-error-port' are now parameters.
773 ** Add `current-warning-port'.
775 Guile now outputs warnings on a separate port, `current-warning-port',
776 initialized to the value that `current-error-port' has on startup.
778 ** Syntax parameters.
780 Following Racket's lead, Guile now supports syntax parameters. See
781 "Syntax parameters" in the manual, for more.
783 Also see Barzilay, Culpepper, and Flatt's 2011 SFP workshop paper,
784 "Keeping it Clean with syntax-parameterize".
786 ** Parse command-line arguments from the locale encoding.
788 Guile now attempts to parse command-line arguments using the user's
789 locale. However for backwards compatibility with other 2.0.x releases,
790 it does so without actually calling `setlocale'. Please report any bugs
791 in this facility to bug-guile@gnu.org.
793 ** One-armed conditionals: `when' and `unless'
795 Guile finally has `when' and `unless' in the default environment. Use
796 them whenever you would use an `if' with only one branch. See
797 "Conditionals" in the manual, for more.
799 ** `current-filename', `add-to-load-path'
801 There is a new form, `(current-filename)', which expands out to the
802 source file in which it occurs. Combined with the new
803 `add-to-load-path', this allows simple scripts to easily add nearby
804 directories to the load path. See "Load Paths" in the manual, for more.
806 ** `random-state-from-platform'
808 This procedure initializes a random seed using good random sources
809 available on your platform, such as /dev/urandom. See "Random Number
810 Generation" in the manual, for more.
812 ** Warn about unsupported `simple-format' options.
814 The `-Wformat' compilation option now reports unsupported format options
815 passed to `simple-format'.
819 Besides the sections already mentioned, the following manual sections
820 are new in this release: "Modules and the File System", "Module System
821 Reflection", "Syntax Transformer Helpers", and "Local Inclusion".
825 ** (ice-9 session): `apropos-hook'
826 ** New print option: `escape-newlines', defaults to #t.
827 ** (ice-9 ftw): `file-system-fold', `file-system-tree', `scandir'
828 ** `scm_c_value_ref': access to multiple returned values from C
829 ** scm_call (a varargs version), scm_call_7, scm_call_8, scm_call_9
830 ** Some new syntax helpers in (system syntax)
832 Search the manual for these identifiers and modules, for more.
836 ** FreeBSD build fixes.
837 ** OpenBSD compilation fixes.
838 ** Solaris 2.10 test suite fixes.
839 ** IA64 compilation fix.
840 ** MinGW build fixes.
841 ** Work around instruction reordering on SPARC and HPPA in the VM.
842 ** Gnulib updates: added `dirfd', `setenv' modules.
846 ** Add a deprecated alias for $expt.
847 ** Add an exception printer for `getaddrinfo-error'.
848 ** Add deprecated shim for `scm_display_error' with stack as first argument.
849 ** Add warnings for unsupported `simple-format' options.
850 ** Allow overlapping regions to be passed to `bytevector-copy!'.
851 ** Better function prologue disassembly
852 ** Compiler: fix miscompilation of (values foo ...) in some contexts.
853 ** Compiler: fix serialization of #nil-terminated lists.
854 ** Compiler: allow values bound in non-tail let expressions to be collected.
855 ** Deprecate SCM_ASRTGO.
856 ** Document invalidity of (begin) as expression; add back-compat shim.
857 ** Don't leak file descriptors when mmaping objcode.
858 ** Empty substrings no longer reference the original stringbuf.
859 ** FFI: Fix `set-pointer-finalizer!' to leave the type cell unchanged.
860 ** FFI: Hold a weak reference to the CIF made by `procedure->pointer'.
861 ** FFI: Hold a weak reference to the procedure passed to `procedure->pointer'.
862 ** FFI: Properly unpack small integer return values in closure call.
863 ** Fix R6RS `fold-left' so the accumulator is the first argument.
864 ** Fix bit-set*! bug from 2005.
865 ** Fix bug in `make-repl' when `lang' is actually a <language>.
866 ** Fix bugs related to mutation, the null string, and shared substrings.
867 ** Fix <dynwind> serialization.
868 ** Fix erroneous check in `set-procedure-properties!'.
869 ** Fix generalized-vector-{ref,set!} for slices.
870 ** Fix error messages involving definition forms.
871 ** Fix primitive-eval to return #<unspecified> for definitions.
872 ** HTTP: Extend handling of "Cache-Control" header.
873 ** HTTP: Fix qstring writing of cache-extension values
874 ** HTTP: Fix validators for various list-style headers.
875 ** HTTP: Permit non-date values for Expires header.
876 ** HTTP: `write-request-line' writes absolute paths, not absolute URIs.
877 ** Hack the port-column of current-output-port after printing a prompt.
878 ** Make sure `regexp-quote' tests use Unicode-capable string ports.
879 ** Peval: Fix bugs in the new optimizer.
880 ** Statistically unique marks and labels, for robust hygiene across sessions.
881 ** Web: Allow URIs with empty authorities, like "file:///etc/hosts".
882 ** `,language' at REPL sets the current-language fluid.
883 ** `primitive-load' returns the value(s) of the last expression.
884 ** `scm_from_stringn' always returns unique strings.
885 ** `scm_i_substring_copy' tries to narrow the substring.
886 ** i18n: Fix gc_malloc/free mismatch on non-GNU systems.
889 Changes in 2.0.3 (since 2.0.2):
893 ** Guile has a new optimizer, `peval'.
895 `Peval' is a partial evaluator that performs constant folding, dead code
896 elimination, copy propagation, and inlining. By default it runs on
897 every piece of code that Guile compiles, to fold computations that can
898 happen at compile-time, so they don't have to happen at runtime.
900 If we did our job right, the only impact you would see would be your
901 programs getting faster. But if you notice slowdowns or bloated code,
902 please send a mail to bug-guile@gnu.org with details.
904 Thanks to William R. Cook, Oscar Waddell, and Kent Dybvig for inspiring
905 peval and its implementation.
907 You can see what peval does on a given piece of code by running the new
908 `,optimize' REPL meta-command, and comparing it to the output of
909 `,expand'. See "Compile Commands" in the manual, for more.
911 ** Fewer calls to `stat'.
913 Guile now stats only the .go file and the .scm file when loading a fresh
918 ** New module: `(web client)', a simple synchronous web client.
920 See "Web Client" in the manual, for more.
922 ** Users can now install compiled `.go' files.
924 See "Installing Site Packages" in the manual.
926 ** Remove Front-Cover and Back-Cover text from the manual.
928 The manual is still under the GNU Free Documentation License, but no
929 longer has any invariant sections.
931 ** More helpful `guild help'.
933 `guild' is Guile's multi-tool, for use in shell scripting. Now it has a
934 nicer interface for querying the set of existing commands, and getting
935 help on those commands. Try it out and see!
937 ** New macro: `define-syntax-rule'
939 `define-syntax-rule' is a shorthand to make a `syntax-rules' macro with
940 one clause. See "Syntax Rules" in the manual, for more.
942 ** The `,time' REPL meta-command now has more precision.
944 The output of this command now has microsecond precision, instead of
945 10-millisecond precision.
947 ** `(ice-9 match)' can now match records.
949 See "Pattern Matching" in the manual, for more on matching records.
951 ** New module: `(language tree-il debug)'.
953 This module provides a tree-il verifier. This is useful for people that
954 generate tree-il, usually as part of a language compiler.
956 ** New functions: `scm_is_exact', `scm_is_inexact'.
958 These provide a nice C interface for Scheme's `exact?' and `inexact?',
963 See the git log (or the ChangeLog) for more details on these bugs.
965 ** Fix order of importing modules and resolving duplicates handlers.
966 ** Fix a number of bugs involving extended (merged) generics.
967 ** Fix invocation of merge-generics duplicate handler.
968 ** Fix write beyond array end in arrays.c.
969 ** Fix read beyond end of hashtable size array in hashtab.c.
970 ** (web http): Locale-independent parsing and serialization of dates.
971 ** Ensure presence of Host header in HTTP/1.1 requests.
972 ** Fix take-right and drop-right for improper lists.
973 ** Fix leak in get_current_locale().
974 ** Fix recursive define-inlinable expansions.
975 ** Check that srfi-1 procedure arguments are procedures.
976 ** Fix r6rs `map' for multiple returns.
977 ** Fix scm_tmpfile leak on POSIX platforms.
978 ** Fix a couple of leaks (objcode->bytecode, make-boot-program).
979 ** Fix guile-lib back-compatibility for module-stexi-documentation.
980 ** Fix --listen option to allow other ports.
981 ** Fix scm_to_latin1_stringn for substrings.
982 ** Fix compilation of untyped arrays of rank not 1.
983 ** Fix unparse-tree-il of <dynset>.
984 ** Fix reading of #||||#.
985 ** Fix segfault in GOOPS when class fields are redefined.
986 ** Prefer poll(2) over select(2) to allow file descriptors above FD_SETSIZE.
989 Changes in 2.0.2 (since 2.0.1):
993 ** `guile-tools' renamed to `guild'
995 The new name is shorter. Its intended future use is for a CPAN-like
996 system for Guile wizards and journeyfolk to band together to share code;
997 hence the name. `guile-tools' is provided as a backward-compatible
998 symbolic link. See "Using Guile Tools" in the manual, for more.
1000 ** New control operators: `shift' and `reset'
1002 See "Shift and Reset" in the manual, for more information.
1004 ** `while' as an expression
1006 Previously the return value of `while' was unspecified. Now its
1007 values are specified both in the case of normal termination, and via
1008 termination by invoking `break', possibly with arguments. See "while
1009 do" in the manual for more.
1011 ** Disallow access to handles of weak hash tables
1013 `hash-get-handle' and `hash-create-handle!' are no longer permitted to
1014 be called on weak hash tables, because the fields in a weak handle could
1015 be nulled out by the garbage collector at any time, but yet they are
1016 otherwise indistinguishable from pairs. Use `hash-ref' and `hash-set!'
1019 ** More precision for `get-internal-run-time', `get-internal-real-time'
1021 On 64-bit systems which support POSIX clocks, Guile's internal timing
1022 procedures offer nanosecond resolution instead of the 10-millisecond
1023 resolution previously available. 32-bit systems now use 1-millisecond
1026 ** Guile now measures time spent in GC
1028 `gc-stats' now returns a meaningful value for `gc-time-taken'.
1032 The statprof profiler now exports a `gcprof' procedure, driven by the
1033 `after-gc-hook', to see which parts of your program are causing GC. Let
1034 us know if you find it useful.
1036 ** `map', `for-each' and some others now implemented in Scheme
1038 We would not mention this in NEWS, as it is not a user-visible change,
1039 if it were not for one thing: `map' and `for-each' are no longer
1040 primitive generics. Instead they are normal bindings, which can be
1041 wrapped by normal generics. This fixes some modularity issues between
1042 core `map', SRFI-1 `map', and GOOPS.
1044 Also it's pretty cool that we can do this without a performance impact.
1046 ** Add `scm_peek_byte_or_eof'.
1048 This helper is like `scm_peek_char_or_eof', but for bytes instead of
1051 ** Implement #:stop-at-first-non-option option for getopt-long
1053 See "getopt-long Reference" in the manual, for more information.
1055 ** Improve R6RS conformance for conditions in the I/O libraries
1057 The `(rnrs io simple)' module now raises the correct R6RS conditions in
1058 error cases. `(rnrs io ports)' is also more correct now, though it is
1059 still a work in progress.
1061 ** All deprecated routines emit warnings
1063 A few deprecated routines were lacking deprecation warnings. This has
1066 * Speed improvements
1068 ** Constants in compiled code now share state better
1070 Constants with shared state, like `("foo")' and `"foo"', now share state
1071 as much as possible, in the entire compilation unit. This cuts compiled
1072 `.go' file sizes in half, generally, and speeds startup.
1074 ** VLists: optimize `vlist-fold-right', and add `vhash-fold-right'
1076 These procedures are now twice as fast as they were.
1078 ** UTF-8 ports to bypass `iconv' entirely
1080 This reduces memory usage in a very common case.
1082 ** Compiler speedups
1084 The compiler is now about 40% faster. (Note that this is only the case
1085 once the compiler is itself compiled, so the build still takes as long
1090 Some assertions that were mostly useful for sanity-checks on the
1091 bytecode compiler are now off for both "regular" and "debug" engines.
1092 This together with a fix to cache a TLS access and some other tweaks
1093 improve the VM's performance by about 20%.
1095 ** SRFI-1 list-set optimizations
1097 lset-adjoin and lset-union now have fast paths for eq? sets.
1099 ** `memq', `memv' optimizations
1101 These procedures are now at least twice as fast than in 2.0.1.
1105 ** Deprecate scm_whash API
1107 `scm_whash_get_handle', `SCM_WHASHFOUNDP', `SCM_WHASHREF',
1108 `SCM_WHASHSET', `scm_whash_create_handle', `scm_whash_lookup', and
1109 `scm_whash_insert' are now deprecated. Use the normal hash table API
1112 ** Deprecate scm_struct_table
1114 `SCM_STRUCT_TABLE_NAME', `SCM_SET_STRUCT_TABLE_NAME',
1115 `SCM_STRUCT_TABLE_CLASS', `SCM_SET_STRUCT_TABLE_CLASS',
1116 `scm_struct_table', and `scm_struct_create_handle' are now deprecated.
1117 These routines formed part of the internals of the map between structs
1120 ** Deprecate scm_internal_dynamic_wind
1122 The `scm_t_inner' type and `scm_internal_dynamic_wind' are deprecated,
1123 as the `scm_dynwind' API is better, and this API encourages users to
1124 stuff SCM values into pointers.
1126 ** Deprecate scm_immutable_cell, scm_immutable_double_cell
1128 These routines are deprecated, as the GC_STUBBORN API doesn't do
1133 Andreas Rottman kindly transcribed the missing parts of the `(rnrs io
1134 ports)' documentation from the R6RS documentation. Thanks Andreas!
1138 ** Fix double-loading of script in -ds case
1139 ** -x error message fix
1140 ** iconveh-related cross-compilation fixes
1141 ** Fix small integer return value packing on big endian machines.
1142 ** Fix hash-set! in weak-value table from non-immediate to immediate
1143 ** Fix call-with-input-file & relatives for multiple values
1144 ** Fix `hash' for inf and nan
1145 ** Fix libguile internal type errors caught by typing-strictness==2
1146 ** Fix compile error in MinGW fstat socket detection
1147 ** Fix generation of auto-compiled file names on MinGW
1148 ** Fix multithreaded access to internal hash tables
1149 ** Emit a 1-based line number in error messages
1150 ** Fix define-module ordering
1151 ** Fix several POSIX functions to use the locale encoding
1152 ** Add type and range checks to the complex generalized vector accessors
1153 ** Fix unaligned accesses for bytevectors of complex numbers
1155 ** Fix erroneous VM stack overflow for canceled threads
1158 Changes in 2.0.1 (since 2.0.0):
1162 ** guile.m4 supports linking with rpath
1164 The GUILE_FLAGS macro now sets GUILE_LIBS and GUILE_LTLIBS, which
1165 include appropriate directives to the linker to include libguile-2.0.so
1166 in the runtime library lookup path.
1168 ** `begin' expands macros in its body before other expressions
1170 This enables support for programs like the following:
1175 (or (= x 0) (odd? (- x 1)))))
1178 ((odd? x) (not (even? x)))))
1181 ** REPL reader usability enhancements
1183 The REPL now flushes input after a read error, which should prevent one
1184 error from causing other errors. The REPL also now interprets comments
1187 ** REPL output has configurable width
1189 The REPL now defaults to output with the current terminal's width, in
1190 columns. See "Debug Commands" in the manual for more information on
1193 ** Better C access to the module system
1195 Guile now has convenient C accessors to look up variables or values in
1196 modules and their public interfaces. See `scm_c_public_ref' and friends
1197 in "Accessing Modules from C" in the manual.
1199 ** Added `scm_call_5', `scm_call_6'
1201 See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
1203 ** Added `scm_from_latin1_keyword', `scm_from_utf8_keyword'
1205 See "Keyword Procedures" in the manual, for more. Note that
1206 `scm_from_locale_keyword' should not be used when the name is a C string
1209 ** R6RS unicode and string I/O work
1211 Added efficient implementations of `get-string-n' and `get-string-n!'
1212 for binary ports. Exported `current-input-port', `current-output-port'
1213 and `current-error-port' from `(rnrs io ports)', and enhanced support
1216 ** Added `pointer->scm', `scm->pointer' to `(system foreign)'
1218 These procedure are useful if one needs to pass and receive SCM values
1219 to and from foreign functions. See "Foreign Variables" in the manual,
1222 ** Added `heap-allocated-since-gc' to `(gc-stats)'
1224 Also fixed the long-standing bug in the REPL `,stat' command.
1226 ** Add `on-error' REPL option
1228 This option controls what happens when an error occurs at the REPL, and
1229 defaults to `debug', indicating that Guile should enter the debugger.
1230 Other values include `report', which will simply print a backtrace
1231 without entering the debugger. See "System Commands" in the manual.
1233 ** Enforce immutability of string literals
1235 Attempting to mutate a string literal now causes a runtime error.
1237 ** Fix pthread redirection
1239 Guile 2.0.0 shipped with headers that, if configured with pthread
1240 support, would re-define `pthread_create', `pthread_join', and other API
1241 to redirect to the BDW-GC wrappers, `GC_pthread_create', etc. This was
1242 unintended, and not necessary: because threads must enter Guile with
1243 `scm_with_guile', Guile can handle thread registration itself, without
1244 needing to make the GC aware of all threads. This oversight has been
1247 ** `with-continuation-barrier' now unwinds on `quit'
1249 A throw to `quit' in a continuation barrier will cause Guile to exit.
1250 Before, it would do so before unwinding to the barrier, which would
1251 prevent cleanup handlers from running. This has been fixed so that it
1252 exits only after unwinding.
1254 ** `string->pointer' and `pointer->string' have optional encoding arg
1256 This allows users of the FFI to more easily deal in strings with
1257 particular (non-locale) encodings, like "utf-8". See "Void Pointers and
1258 Byte Access" in the manual, for more.
1260 ** R6RS fixnum arithmetic optimizations
1262 R6RS fixnum operations are are still slower than generic arithmetic,
1265 ** New procedure: `define-inlinable'
1267 See "Inlinable Procedures" in the manual, for more.
1269 ** New procedure: `exact-integer-sqrt'
1271 See "Integer Operations" in the manual, for more.
1273 ** "Extended read syntax" for symbols parses better
1275 In #{foo}# symbols, backslashes are now treated as escapes, as the
1276 symbol-printing code intended. Additionally, "\x" within #{foo}# is now
1277 interpreted as starting an R6RS hex escape. This is backward compatible
1278 because the symbol printer would never produce a "\x" before. The
1279 printer also works better too.
1281 ** Added `--fresh-auto-compile' option
1283 This allows a user to invalidate the auto-compilation cache. It's
1284 usually not needed. See "Compilation" in the manual, for a discussion.
1288 ** GOOPS documentation updates
1292 Thanks to Mark Harig for improvements to guile.1.
1294 ** SRFI-23 documented
1296 The humble `error' SRFI now has an entry in the manual.
1300 ** `(ice-9 binary-ports)': "R6RS I/O Ports", in the manual
1301 ** `(ice-9 eval-string)': "Fly Evaluation", in the manual
1302 ** `(ice-9 command-line)', not documented yet
1306 ** Fixed `iconv_t' memory leak on close-port
1307 ** Fixed some leaks with weak hash tables
1308 ** Export `vhash-delq' and `vhash-delv' from `(ice-9 vlist)'
1309 ** `after-gc-hook' works again
1310 ** `define-record-type' now allowed in nested contexts
1311 ** `exact-integer-sqrt' now handles large integers correctly
1312 ** Fixed C extension examples in manual
1313 ** `vhash-delete' honors HASH argument
1314 ** Make `locale-digit-grouping' more robust
1315 ** Default exception printer robustness fixes
1316 ** Fix presence of non-I CPPFLAGS in `guile-2.0.pc'
1317 ** `read' updates line/column numbers when reading SCSH block comments
1318 ** Fix imports of multiple custom interfaces of same module
1319 ** Fix encoding scanning for non-seekable ports
1320 ** Fix `setter' when called with a non-setter generic
1321 ** Fix f32 and f64 bytevectors to not accept rationals
1322 ** Fix description of the R6RS `finite?' in manual
1323 ** Quotient, remainder and modulo accept inexact integers again
1324 ** Fix `continue' within `while' to take zero arguments
1325 ** Fix alignment for structures in FFI
1326 ** Fix port-filename of stdin, stdout, stderr to match the docs
1327 ** Fix weak hash table-related bug in `define-wrapped-pointer-type'
1328 ** Fix partial continuation application with pending procedure calls
1329 ** scm_{to,from}_locale_string use current locale, not current ports
1330 ** Fix thread cleanup, by using a pthread_key destructor
1331 ** Fix `quit' at the REPL
1332 ** Fix a failure to sync regs in vm bytevector ops
1333 ** Fix (texinfo reflection) to handle nested structures like syntax patterns
1334 ** Fix stexi->html double translation
1335 ** Fix tree-il->scheme fix for <prompt>
1336 ** Fix compilation of <prompt> in <fix> in single-value context
1337 ** Fix race condition in ensure-writable-dir
1338 ** Fix error message on ,disassemble "non-procedure"
1339 ** Fix prompt and abort with the boot evaluator
1340 ** Fix `procedure->pointer' for functions returning `void'
1341 ** Fix error reporting in dynamic-pointer
1342 ** Fix problems detecting coding: in block comments
1343 ** Fix duplicate load-path and load-compiled-path in compilation environment
1344 ** Add fallback read(2) suppport for .go files if mmap(2) unavailable
1345 ** Fix c32vector-set!, c64vector-set!
1346 ** Fix mistakenly deprecated read syntax for uniform complex vectors
1347 ** Fix parsing of exact numbers with negative exponents
1348 ** Ignore SIGPIPE in (system repl server)
1349 ** Fix optional second arg to R6RS log function
1350 ** Fix R6RS `assert' to return true value.
1351 ** Fix fencepost error when seeking in bytevector input ports
1352 ** Gracefully handle `setlocale' errors when starting the REPL
1353 ** Improve support of the `--disable-posix' configure option
1354 ** Make sure R6RS binary ports pass `binary-port?' regardless of the locale
1355 ** Gracefully handle unterminated UTF-8 sequences instead of hitting an `assert'
1359 Changes in 2.0.0 (changes since the 1.8.x series):
1361 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1363 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
1364 ** `(srfi srfi-27)', sources of random bits
1365 ** `(srfi srfi-38)', External Representation for Data With Shared Structure
1366 ** `(srfi srfi-42)', eager comprehensions
1367 ** `(srfi srfi-45)', primitives for expressing iterative lazy algorithms
1368 ** `(srfi srfi-67)', compare procedures
1369 ** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
1370 ** `(ice-9 futures)', fine-grain parallelism
1371 ** `(rnrs bytevectors)', the R6RS bytevector API
1372 ** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
1373 ** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
1374 ** `(ice-9 vlist)', lists with constant-time random access; hash lists
1375 ** `(system foreign)', foreign function interface
1376 ** `(sxml match)', a pattern matcher for SXML
1377 ** `(srfi srfi-9 gnu)', extensions to the SRFI-9 record library
1378 ** `(system vm coverage)', a line-by-line code coverage library
1379 ** `(web uri)', URI data type, parser, and unparser
1380 ** `(web http)', HTTP header parsers and unparsers
1381 ** `(web request)', HTTP request data type, reader, and writer
1382 ** `(web response)', HTTP response data type, reader, and writer
1383 ** `(web server)', Generic HTTP server
1384 ** `(ice-9 poll)', a poll wrapper
1385 ** `(web server http)', HTTP-over-TCP web server implementation
1387 ** Replaced `(ice-9 match)' with Alex Shinn's compatible, hygienic matcher.
1389 Guile's copy of Andrew K. Wright's `match' library has been replaced by
1390 a compatible hygienic implementation by Alex Shinn. It is now
1391 documented, see "Pattern Matching" in the manual.
1393 Compared to Andrew K. Wright's `match', the new `match' lacks
1394 `match-define', `match:error-control', `match:set-error-control',
1395 `match:error', `match:set-error', and all structure-related procedures.
1397 ** Imported statprof, SSAX, and texinfo modules from Guile-Lib
1399 The statprof statistical profiler, the SSAX XML toolkit, and the texinfo
1400 toolkit from Guile-Lib have been imported into Guile proper. See
1401 "Standard Library" in the manual for more details.
1403 ** Integration of lalr-scm, a parser generator
1405 Guile has included Dominique Boucher's fine `lalr-scm' parser generator
1406 as `(system base lalr)'. See "LALR(1) Parsing" in the manual, for more
1409 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1411 ** Guile now can compile Scheme to bytecode for a custom virtual machine.
1413 Compiled code loads much faster than Scheme source code, and runs around
1414 3 or 4 times as fast, generating much less garbage in the process.
1416 ** Evaluating Scheme code does not use the C stack.
1418 Besides when compiling Guile itself, Guile no longer uses a recursive C
1419 function as an evaluator. This obviates the need to check the C stack
1420 pointer for overflow. Continuations still capture the C stack, however.
1422 ** New environment variables: GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH,
1423 GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH
1425 GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is for compiled files what GUILE_LOAD_PATH is
1426 for source files. It is a different path, however, because compiled
1427 files are architecture-specific. GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is like
1430 ** New read-eval-print loop (REPL) implementation
1432 Running Guile with no arguments drops the user into the new REPL. See
1433 "Using Guile Interactively" in the manual, for more information.
1435 ** Remove old Emacs interface
1437 Guile had an unused `--emacs' command line argument that was supposed to
1438 help when running Guile inside Emacs. This option has been removed, and
1439 the helper functions `named-module-use!' and `load-emacs-interface' have
1442 ** Add `(system repl server)' module and `--listen' command-line argument
1444 The `(system repl server)' module exposes procedures to listen on
1445 sockets for connections, and serve REPLs to those clients. The --listen
1446 command-line argument allows any Guile program to thus be remotely
1449 See "Invoking Guile" for more information on `--listen'.
1451 ** Command line additions
1453 The guile binary now supports a new switch "-x", which can be used to
1454 extend the list of filename extensions tried when loading files
1457 ** New reader options: `square-brackets', `r6rs-hex-escapes',
1458 `hungry-eol-escapes'
1460 The reader supports a new option (changeable via `read-options'),
1461 `square-brackets', which instructs it to interpret square brackets as
1462 parentheses. This option is on by default.
1464 When the new `r6rs-hex-escapes' reader option is enabled, the reader
1465 will recognize string escape sequences as defined in R6RS. R6RS string
1466 escape sequences are incompatible with Guile's existing escapes, though,
1467 so this option is off by default.
1469 Additionally, Guile follows the R6RS newline escaping rules when the
1470 `hungry-eol-escapes' option is enabled.
1472 See "String Syntax" in the manual, for more information.
1474 ** Function profiling and tracing at the REPL
1476 The `,profile FORM' REPL meta-command can now be used to statistically
1477 profile execution of a form, to see which functions are taking the most
1478 time. See `,help profile' for more information.
1480 Similarly, `,trace FORM' traces all function applications that occur
1481 during the execution of `FORM'. See `,help trace' for more information.
1483 ** Recursive debugging REPL on error
1485 When Guile sees an error at the REPL, instead of saving the stack, Guile
1486 will directly enter a recursive REPL in the dynamic context of the
1487 error. See "Error Handling" in the manual, for more information.
1489 A recursive REPL is the same as any other REPL, except that it
1490 has been augmented with debugging information, so that one can inspect
1491 the context of the error. The debugger has been integrated with the REPL
1492 via a set of debugging meta-commands.
1494 For example, one may access a backtrace with `,backtrace' (or
1495 `,bt'). See "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for more
1498 ** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
1500 Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
1503 ** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
1505 Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
1506 `/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
1507 include `/path/to/lib'.
1509 ** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
1511 Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
1514 ** Load path change: search in version-specific paths before site paths
1516 When looking for a module, Guile now searches first in Guile's
1517 version-specific path (the library path), *then* in the site dir. This
1518 allows Guile's copy of SSAX to override any Guile-Lib copy the user has
1519 installed. Also it should cut the number of `stat' system calls by half,
1522 ** Value history in the REPL on by default
1524 By default, the REPL will save computed values in variables like `$1',
1525 `$2', and the like. There are programmatic and interactive interfaces to
1526 control this. See "Value History" in the manual, for more information.
1528 ** Readline tab completion for arguments
1530 When readline is enabled, tab completion works for arguments too, not
1531 just for the operator position.
1533 ** Expression-oriented readline history
1535 Guile's readline history now tries to operate on expressions instead of
1536 input lines. Let us know what you think!
1538 ** Interactive Guile follows GNU conventions
1540 As recommended by the GPL, Guile now shows a brief copyright and
1541 warranty disclaimer on startup, along with pointers to more information.
1543 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1545 ** Support for R6RS libraries
1547 The `library' and `import' forms from the latest Scheme report have been
1548 added to Guile, in such a way that R6RS libraries share a namespace with
1549 Guile modules. R6RS modules may import Guile modules, and are available
1550 for Guile modules to import via use-modules and all the rest. See "R6RS
1551 Libraries" in the manual for more information.
1553 ** Implementations of R6RS libraries
1555 Guile now has implementations for all of the libraries defined in the
1556 R6RS. Thanks to Julian Graham for this excellent hack. See "R6RS
1557 Standard Libraries" in the manual for a full list of libraries.
1559 ** Partial R6RS compatibility
1561 Guile now has enough support for R6RS to run a reasonably large subset
1564 Guile is not fully R6RS compatible. Many incompatibilities are simply
1565 bugs, though some parts of Guile will remain R6RS-incompatible for the
1566 foreseeable future. See "R6RS Incompatibilities" in the manual, for more
1569 Please contact bug-guile@gnu.org if you have found an issue not
1570 mentioned in that compatibility list.
1572 ** New implementation of `primitive-eval'
1574 Guile's `primitive-eval' is now implemented in Scheme. Actually there is
1575 still a C evaluator, used when building a fresh Guile to interpret the
1576 compiler, so we can compile eval.scm. Thereafter all calls to
1577 primitive-eval are implemented by VM-compiled code.
1579 This allows all of Guile's procedures, be they interpreted or compiled,
1580 to execute on the same stack, unifying multiple-value return semantics,
1581 providing for proper tail recursion between interpreted and compiled
1582 code, and simplifying debugging.
1584 As part of this change, the evaluator no longer mutates the internal
1585 representation of the code being evaluated in a thread-unsafe manner.
1587 There are two negative aspects of this change, however. First, Guile
1588 takes a lot longer to compile now. Also, there is less debugging
1589 information available for debugging interpreted code. We hope to improve
1590 both of these situations.
1592 There are many changes to the internal C evalator interface, but all
1593 public interfaces should be the same. See the ChangeLog for details. If
1594 we have inadvertantly changed an interface that you were using, please
1595 contact bug-guile@gnu.org.
1597 ** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
1599 This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
1600 not apply to the compiler.
1602 ** No more `local-eval'
1604 `local-eval' used to exist so that one could evaluate code in the
1605 lexical context of a function. Since there is no way to get the lexical
1606 environment any more, as that concept has no meaning for the compiler,
1607 and a different meaning for the interpreter, we have removed the
1610 If you think you need `local-eval', you should probably implement your
1611 own metacircular evaluator. It will probably be as fast as Guile's
1614 ** Scheme source files will now be compiled automatically.
1616 If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
1617 not fresh, the .scm file will be compiled on the fly, and the resulting
1618 .go file stored away. An advisory note will be printed on the console.
1620 Note that this mechanism depends on the timestamp of the .go file being
1621 newer than that of the .scm file; if the .scm or .go files are moved
1622 after installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
1625 Auto-compiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
1626 directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
1627 will be created if needed.
1629 To inhibit automatic compilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
1630 variable to 0, or pass --no-auto-compile on the Guile command line.
1632 ** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
1634 Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
1635 in the next prerelease.
1637 ** New POSIX procedure: `getsid'
1639 Scheme binding for the `getsid' C library call.
1641 ** New POSIX procedure: `getaddrinfo'
1643 Scheme binding for the `getaddrinfo' C library function.
1645 ** Multicast socket options
1647 Support was added for the IP_MULTICAST_TTL and IP_MULTICAST_IF socket
1648 options. See "Network Sockets and Communication" in the manual, for
1651 ** `recv!', `recvfrom!', `send', `sendto' now deal in bytevectors
1653 These socket procedures now take bytevectors as arguments, instead of
1654 strings. There is some deprecated string support, however.
1656 ** New GNU procedures: `setaffinity' and `getaffinity'.
1658 See "Processes" in the manual, for more information.
1660 ** New procedures: `compose', `negate', and `const'
1662 See "Higher-Order Functions" in the manual, for more information.
1664 ** New procedure in `(oops goops)': `method-formals'
1666 ** New procedures in (ice-9 session): `add-value-help-handler!',
1667 `remove-value-help-handler!', `add-name-help-handler!'
1668 `remove-name-help-handler!', `procedure-arguments'
1670 The value and name help handlers provide some minimal extensibility to
1671 the help interface. Guile-lib's `(texinfo reflection)' uses them, for
1672 example, to make stexinfo help documentation available. See those
1673 procedures' docstrings for more information.
1675 `procedure-arguments' describes the arguments that a procedure can take,
1676 combining arity and formals. For example:
1678 (procedure-arguments resolve-interface)
1679 => ((required . (name)) (rest . args))
1681 Additionally, `module-commentary' is now publically exported from
1684 ** Removed: `procedure->memoizing-macro', `procedure->syntax'
1686 These procedures created primitive fexprs for the old evaluator, and are
1687 no longer supported. If you feel that you need these functions, you
1688 probably need to write your own metacircular evaluator (which will
1689 probably be as fast as Guile's, anyway).
1691 ** New language: ECMAScript
1693 Guile now ships with one other high-level language supported,
1694 ECMAScript. The goal is to support all of version 3.1 of the standard,
1695 but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
1696 documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
1698 ** New language: Brainfuck
1700 Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
1701 brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
1702 languages. See the manual for details, or
1703 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
1704 Brainfuck language itself.
1706 ** New language: Elisp
1708 Guile now has an experimental Emacs Lisp compiler and runtime. You can
1709 now switch to Elisp at the repl: `,language elisp'. All kudos to Daniel
1710 Kraft and Brian Templeton, and all bugs to bug-guile@gnu.org.
1712 ** Better documentation infrastructure for macros
1714 It is now possible to introspect on the type of a macro, e.g.
1715 syntax-rules, identifier-syntax, etc, and extract information about that
1716 macro, such as the syntax-rules patterns or the defmacro arguments.
1717 `(texinfo reflection)' takes advantage of this to give better macro
1720 ** Support for arbitrary procedure metadata
1722 Building on its support for docstrings, Guile now supports multiple
1723 docstrings, adding them to the tail of a compiled procedure's
1724 properties. For example:
1730 (procedure-properties foo)
1731 => ((name . foo) (documentation . "one") (documentation . "two"))
1733 Also, vectors of pairs are now treated as additional metadata entries:
1736 #((quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
1738 (procedure-properties bar)
1739 => ((name . bar) (quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
1741 This allows arbitrary literals to be embedded as metadata in a compiled
1744 ** The psyntax expander now knows how to interpret the @ and @@ special
1747 ** The psyntax expander is now hygienic with respect to modules.
1749 Free variables in a macro are scoped in the module that the macro was
1750 defined in, not in the module the macro is used in. For example, code
1751 like this works now:
1753 (define-module (foo) #:export (bar))
1754 (define (helper x) ...)
1756 (syntax-rules () ((_ x) (helper x))))
1758 (define-module (baz) #:use-module (foo))
1761 It used to be you had to export `helper' from `(foo)' as well.
1762 Thankfully, this has been fixed.
1764 ** Support for version information in Guile's `module' form
1766 Guile modules now have a `#:version' field. See "R6RS Version
1767 References", "General Information about Modules", "Using Guile Modules",
1768 and "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual for more information.
1770 ** Support for renaming bindings on module export
1772 Wherever Guile accepts a symbol as an argument to specify a binding to
1773 export, it now also accepts a pair of symbols, indicating that a binding
1774 should be renamed on export. See "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual
1775 for more information.
1777 ** New procedure: `module-export-all!'
1779 This procedure exports all current and future bindings from a module.
1780 Use as `(module-export-all! (current-module))'.
1782 ** New procedure `reload-module', and `,reload' REPL command
1784 See "Module System Reflection" and "Module Commands" in the manual, for
1787 ** `eval-case' has been deprecated, and replaced by `eval-when'.
1789 The semantics of `eval-when' are easier to understand. See "Eval When"
1790 in the manual, for more information.
1792 ** Guile is now more strict about prohibiting definitions in expression
1795 Although previous versions of Guile accepted it, the following
1796 expression is not valid, in R5RS or R6RS:
1798 (if test (define foo 'bar) (define foo 'baz))
1800 In this specific case, it would be better to do:
1802 (define foo (if test 'bar 'baz))
1804 It is possible to circumvent this restriction with e.g.
1805 `(module-define! (current-module) 'foo 'baz)'. Contact the list if you
1808 ** Support for `letrec*'
1810 Guile now supports `letrec*', a recursive lexical binding operator in
1811 which the identifiers are bound in order. See "Local Bindings" in the
1812 manual, for more details.
1814 ** Internal definitions now expand to `letrec*'
1816 Following the R6RS, internal definitions now expand to letrec* instead
1817 of letrec. The following program is invalid for R5RS, but valid for
1822 (define baz (+ bar 20))
1825 ;; R5RS and Guile <= 1.8:
1826 (foo) => Unbound variable: bar
1827 ;; R6RS and Guile >= 2.0:
1830 This change should not affect correct R5RS programs, or programs written
1831 in earlier Guile dialects.
1833 ** Macro expansion produces structures instead of s-expressions
1835 In the olden days, macroexpanding an s-expression would yield another
1836 s-expression. Though the lexical variables were renamed, expansions of
1837 core forms like `if' and `begin' were still non-hygienic, as they relied
1838 on the toplevel definitions of `if' et al being the conventional ones.
1840 The solution is to expand to structures instead of s-expressions. There
1841 is an `if' structure, a `begin' structure, a `toplevel-ref' structure,
1842 etc. The expander already did this for compilation, producing Tree-IL
1843 directly; it has been changed now to do so when expanding for the
1846 ** Defmacros must now produce valid Scheme expressions.
1848 It used to be that defmacros could unquote in Scheme values, as a way of
1849 supporting partial evaluation, and avoiding some hygiene issues. For
1852 (define (helper x) ...)
1853 (define-macro (foo bar)
1856 Assuming this macro is in the `(baz)' module, the direct translation of
1859 (define (helper x) ...)
1860 (define-macro (foo bar)
1861 `((@@ (baz) helper) ,bar))
1863 Of course, one could just use a hygienic macro instead:
1867 ((_ bar) (helper bar))))
1869 ** Guile's psyntax now supports docstrings and internal definitions.
1871 The following Scheme is not strictly legal:
1878 However its intent is fairly clear. Guile interprets "bar" to be the
1879 docstring of `foo', and the definition of `baz' is still in definition
1882 ** Support for settable identifier syntax
1884 Following the R6RS, "variable transformers" are settable
1885 identifier-syntax. See "Identifier macros" in the manual, for more
1888 ** syntax-case treats `_' as a placeholder
1890 Following R6RS, a `_' in a syntax-rules or syntax-case pattern matches
1891 anything, and binds no pattern variables. Unlike the R6RS, Guile also
1892 permits `_' to be in the literals list for a pattern.
1894 ** Macros need to be defined before their first use.
1896 It used to be that with lazy memoization, this might work:
1900 (define-macro (ref x) x)
1903 But now, the body of `foo' is interpreted to mean a call to the toplevel
1904 `ref' function, instead of a macro expansion. The solution is to define
1905 macros before code that uses them.
1907 ** Functions needed by macros at expand-time need to be present at
1910 For example, this code will work at the REPL:
1912 (define (double-helper x) (* x x))
1913 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
1914 (double-literal 2) => 4
1916 But it will not work when a file is compiled, because the definition of
1917 `double-helper' is not present at expand-time. The solution is to wrap
1918 the definition of `double-helper' in `eval-when':
1920 (eval-when (load compile eval)
1921 (define (double-helper x) (* x x)))
1922 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
1923 (double-literal 2) => 4
1925 See the documentation for eval-when for more information.
1927 ** `macroexpand' produces structures, not S-expressions.
1929 Given the need to maintain referential transparency, both lexically and
1930 modular, the result of expanding Scheme expressions is no longer itself
1931 an s-expression. If you want a human-readable approximation of the
1932 result of `macroexpand', call `tree-il->scheme' from `(language
1935 ** Removed function: `macroexpand-1'
1937 It is unclear how to implement `macroexpand-1' with syntax-case, though
1938 PLT Scheme does prove that it is possible.
1940 ** New reader macros: #' #` #, #,@
1942 These macros translate, respectively, to `syntax', `quasisyntax',
1943 `unsyntax', and `unsyntax-splicing'. See the R6RS for more information.
1944 These reader macros may be overridden by `read-hash-extend'.
1946 ** Incompatible change to #'
1948 Guile did have a #' hash-extension, by default, which just returned the
1949 subsequent datum: #'foo => foo. In the unlikely event that anyone
1950 actually used this, this behavior may be reinstated via the
1951 `read-hash-extend' mechanism.
1953 ** `unquote' and `unquote-splicing' accept multiple expressions
1955 As per the R6RS, these syntax operators can now accept any number of
1956 expressions to unquote.
1958 ** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
1960 #; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
1963 ** Prompts: Delimited, composable continuations
1965 Guile now has prompts as part of its primitive language. See "Prompts"
1966 in the manual, for more information.
1968 Expressions entered in at the REPL, or from the command line, are
1969 surrounded by a prompt with the default prompt tag.
1971 ** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
1972 works (with compiled procedures)
1974 It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
1975 calls only up to or from a certain procedure, even if that procedure
1976 already tail-called another procedure. This was because the debug
1977 information from the original procedure was kept on the stack.
1979 Now with the new compiler, the stack only contains active frames from
1980 the current continuation. A narrow to a procedure that is not in the
1981 stack will result in an empty stack. To fix this, narrow to a procedure
1982 that is active in the current continuation, or narrow to a specific
1983 number of stack frames.
1985 ** Backtraces through compiled procedures only show procedures that are
1986 active in the current continuation
1988 Similarly to the previous issue, backtraces in compiled code may be
1989 different from backtraces in interpreted code. There are no semantic
1990 differences, however. Please mail bug-guile@gnu.org if you see any
1991 deficiencies with Guile's backtraces.
1993 ** `positions' reader option enabled by default
1995 This change allows primitive-load without --auto-compile to also
1996 propagate source information through the expander, for better errors and
1997 to let macros know their source locations. The compiler was already
1998 turning it on anyway.
2000 ** New macro: `current-source-location'
2002 The macro returns the current source location (to be documented).
2004 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case macros now propagate source information
2005 through to the expanded code
2007 This should result in better backtraces.
2009 ** The currying behavior of `define' has been removed.
2011 Before, `(define ((f a) b) (* a b))' would translate to
2013 (define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
2015 Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
2016 default. Use the `(ice-9 curried-definitions)' module to get back the
2019 ** New procedure, `define!'
2021 `define!' is a procedure that takes two arguments, a symbol and a value,
2022 and binds the value to the symbol in the current module. It's useful to
2023 programmatically make definitions in the current module, and is slightly
2024 less verbose than `module-define!'.
2026 ** All modules have names now
2028 Before, you could have anonymous modules: modules without names. Now,
2029 because of hygiene and macros, all modules have names. If a module was
2030 created without a name, the first time `module-name' is called on it, a
2031 fresh name will be lazily generated for it.
2033 ** The module namespace is now separate from the value namespace
2035 It was a little-known implementation detail of Guile's module system
2036 that it was built on a single hierarchical namespace of values -- that
2037 if there was a module named `(foo bar)', then in the module named
2038 `(foo)' there was a binding from `bar' to the `(foo bar)' module.
2040 This was a neat trick, but presented a number of problems. One problem
2041 was that the bindings in a module were not apparent from the module
2042 itself; perhaps the `(foo)' module had a private binding for `bar', and
2043 then an external contributor defined `(foo bar)'. In the end there can
2044 be only one binding, so one of the two will see the wrong thing, and
2045 produce an obtuse error of unclear provenance.
2047 Also, the public interface of a module was also bound in the value
2048 namespace, as `%module-public-interface'. This was a hack from the early
2049 days of Guile's modules.
2051 Both of these warts have been fixed by the addition of fields in the
2052 `module' data type. Access to modules and their interfaces from the
2053 value namespace has been deprecated, and all accessors use the new
2054 record accessors appropriately.
2056 When Guile is built with support for deprecated code, as is the default,
2057 the value namespace is still searched for modules and public interfaces,
2058 and a deprecation warning is raised as appropriate.
2060 Finally, to support lazy loading of modules as one used to be able to do
2061 with module binder procedures, Guile now has submodule binders, called
2062 if a given submodule is not found. See boot-9.scm for more information.
2064 ** New procedures: module-ref-submodule, module-define-submodule,
2065 nested-ref-module, nested-define-module!, local-ref-module,
2068 These new accessors are like their bare variants, but operate on
2069 namespaces instead of values.
2071 ** The (app modules) module tree is officially deprecated
2073 It used to be that one could access a module named `(foo bar)' via
2074 `(nested-ref the-root-module '(app modules foo bar))'. The `(app
2075 modules)' bit was a never-used and never-documented abstraction, and has
2076 been deprecated. See the following mail for a full discussion:
2078 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2010-04/msg00168.html
2080 The `%app' binding is also deprecated.
2082 ** `module-filename' field and accessor
2084 Modules now record the file in which they are defined. This field may be
2085 accessed with the new `module-filename' procedure.
2087 ** Modules load within a known environment
2089 It takes a few procedure calls to define a module, and those procedure
2090 calls need to be in scope. Now we ensure that the current module when
2091 loading a module is one that has the needed bindings, instead of relying
2094 ** `load' is a macro (!) that resolves paths relative to source file dir
2096 The familiar Schem `load' procedure is now a macro that captures the
2097 name of the source file being expanded, and dispatches to the new
2098 `load-in-vicinity'. Referencing `load' by bare name returns a closure
2099 that embeds the current source file name.
2101 This fix allows `load' of relative paths to be resolved with respect to
2102 the location of the file that calls `load'.
2104 ** Many syntax errors have different texts now
2106 Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
2107 are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
2108 using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
2110 ** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
2111 values to the expected number
2113 For example, the interpreter would raise an error evaluating the form,
2114 `(+ (values 1 2) (values 3 4))', because it would see the operands as
2115 being two compound "values" objects, to which `+' does not apply.
2117 The compiler, on the other hand, receives multiple values on the stack,
2118 not as a compound object. Given that it must check the number of values
2119 anyway, if too many values are provided for a continuation, it chooses
2120 to truncate those values, effectively evaluating `(+ 1 3)' instead.
2122 The idea is that the semantics that the compiler implements is more
2123 intuitive, and the use of the interpreter will fade out with time.
2124 This behavior is allowed both by the R5RS and the R6RS.
2126 ** Multiple values in compiled code are not represented by compound
2129 This change may manifest itself in the following situation:
2131 (let ((val (foo))) (do-something) val)
2133 In the interpreter, if `foo' returns multiple values, multiple values
2134 are produced from the `let' expression. In the compiler, those values
2135 are truncated to the first value, and that first value is returned. In
2136 the compiler, if `foo' returns no values, an error will be raised, while
2137 the interpreter would proceed.
2139 Both of these behaviors are allowed by R5RS and R6RS. The compiler's
2140 behavior is more correct, however. If you wish to preserve a potentially
2141 multiply-valued return, you will need to set up a multiple-value
2142 continuation, using `call-with-values'.
2144 ** Defmacros are now implemented in terms of syntax-case.
2146 The practical ramification of this is that the `defmacro?' predicate has
2147 been removed, along with `defmacro-transformer', `macro-table',
2148 `xformer-table', `assert-defmacro?!', `set-defmacro-transformer!' and
2149 `defmacro:transformer'. This is because defmacros are simply macros. If
2150 any of these procedures provided useful facilities to you, we encourage
2151 you to contact the Guile developers.
2153 ** Hygienic macros documented as the primary syntactic extension mechanism.
2155 The macro documentation was finally fleshed out with some documentation
2156 on `syntax-rules' and `syntax-case' macros, and other parts of the macro
2157 expansion process. See "Macros" in the manual, for details.
2159 ** psyntax is now the default expander
2161 Scheme code is now expanded by default by the psyntax hygienic macro
2162 expander. Expansion is performed completely before compilation or
2165 Notably, syntax errors will be signalled before interpretation begins.
2166 In the past, many syntax errors were only detected at runtime if the
2167 code in question was memoized.
2169 As part of its expansion, psyntax renames all lexically-bound
2170 identifiers. Original identifier names are preserved and given to the
2171 compiler, but the interpreter will see the renamed variables, e.g.,
2172 `x432' instead of `x'.
2174 Note that the psyntax that Guile uses is a fork, as Guile already had
2175 modules before incompatible modules were added to psyntax -- about 10
2176 years ago! Thus there are surely a number of bugs that have been fixed
2177 in psyntax since then. If you find one, please notify bug-guile@gnu.org.
2179 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case are available by default.
2181 There is no longer any need to import the `(ice-9 syncase)' module
2182 (which is now deprecated). The expander may be invoked directly via
2183 `macroexpand', though it is normally searched for via the current module
2186 Also, the helper routines for syntax-case are available in the default
2187 environment as well: `syntax->datum', `datum->syntax',
2188 `bound-identifier=?', `free-identifier=?', `generate-temporaries',
2189 `identifier?', and `syntax-violation'. See the R6RS for documentation.
2191 ** Tail patterns in syntax-case
2193 Guile has pulled in some more recent changes from the psyntax portable
2194 syntax expander, to implement support for "tail patterns". Such patterns
2195 are supported by syntax-rules and syntax-case. This allows a syntax-case
2196 match clause to have ellipses, then a pattern at the end. For example:
2199 (syntax-rules (else)
2200 ((_ val match-clause ... (else e e* ...))
2203 Note how there is MATCH-CLAUSE, which is ellipsized, then there is a
2204 tail pattern for the else clause. Thanks to Andreas Rottmann for the
2205 patch, and Kent Dybvig for the code.
2207 ** Lexical bindings introduced by hygienic macros may not be referenced
2208 by nonhygienic macros.
2210 If a lexical binding is introduced by a hygienic macro, it may not be
2211 referenced by a nonhygienic macro. For example, this works:
2214 (define-macro (bind-x val body)
2215 `(let ((x ,val)) ,body))
2216 (define-macro (ref x)
2218 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
2223 (define-syntax bind-x
2225 ((_ val body) (let ((x val)) body))))
2226 (define-macro (ref x)
2228 (bind-x 10 (ref x)))
2230 It is not normal to run into this situation with existing code. However,
2231 if you have defmacros that expand to hygienic macros, it is possible to
2232 run into situations like this. For example, if you have a defmacro that
2233 generates a `while' expression, the `break' bound by the `while' may not
2234 be visible within other parts of your defmacro. The solution is to port
2235 from defmacros to syntax-rules or syntax-case.
2237 ** Macros may no longer be referenced as first-class values.
2239 In the past, you could evaluate e.g. `if', and get its macro value. Now,
2240 expanding this form raises a syntax error.
2242 Macros still /exist/ as first-class values, but they must be
2243 /referenced/ via the module system, e.g. `(module-ref (current-module)
2246 ** Macros may now have docstrings.
2248 `object-documentation' from `(ice-9 documentation)' may be used to
2249 retrieve the docstring, once you have a macro value -- but see the above
2250 note about first-class macros. Docstrings are associated with the syntax
2251 transformer procedures.
2253 ** `case-lambda' is now available in the default environment.
2255 The binding in the default environment is equivalent to the one from the
2256 `(srfi srfi-16)' module. Use the srfi-16 module explicitly if you wish
2257 to maintain compatibility with Guile 1.8 and earlier.
2259 ** Procedures may now have more than one arity.
2261 This can be the case, for example, in case-lambda procedures. The
2262 arities of compiled procedures may be accessed via procedures from the
2263 `(system vm program)' module; see "Compiled Procedures", "Optional
2264 Arguments", and "Case-lambda" in the manual.
2266 ** Deprecate arity access via (procedure-properties proc 'arity)
2268 Instead of accessing a procedure's arity as a property, use the new
2269 `procedure-minimum-arity' function, which gives the most permissive
2270 arity that the function has, in the same format as the old arity
2273 ** `lambda*' and `define*' are now available in the default environment
2275 As with `case-lambda', `(ice-9 optargs)' continues to be supported, for
2276 compatibility purposes. No semantic change has been made (we hope).
2277 Optional and keyword arguments now dispatch via special VM operations,
2278 without the need to cons rest arguments, making them very fast.
2280 ** New syntax: define-once
2282 `define-once' is like Lisp's `defvar': it creates a toplevel binding,
2283 but only if one does not exist already.
2285 ** New function, `truncated-print', with `format' support
2287 `(ice-9 pretty-print)' now exports `truncated-print', a printer that
2288 will ensure that the output stays within a certain width, truncating the
2289 output in what is hopefully an intelligent manner. See the manual for
2292 There is a new `format' specifier, `~@y', for doing a truncated
2293 print (as opposed to `~y', which does a pretty-print). See the `format'
2294 documentation for more details.
2296 ** Better pretty-printing
2298 Indentation recognizes more special forms, like `syntax-case', and read
2299 macros like `quote' are printed better.
2301 ** Passing a number as the destination of `format' is deprecated
2303 The `format' procedure in `(ice-9 format)' now emits a deprecation
2304 warning if a number is passed as its first argument.
2306 Also, it used to be that you could omit passing a port to `format', in
2307 some cases. This still works, but has been formally deprecated.
2309 ** SRFI-4 vectors reimplemented in terms of R6RS bytevectors
2311 Guile now implements SRFI-4 vectors using bytevectors. Often when you
2312 have a numeric vector, you end up wanting to write its bytes somewhere,
2313 or have access to the underlying bytes, or read in bytes from somewhere
2314 else. Bytevectors are very good at this sort of thing. But the SRFI-4
2315 APIs are nicer to use when doing number-crunching, because they are
2316 addressed by element and not by byte.
2318 So as a compromise, Guile allows all bytevector functions to operate on
2319 numeric vectors. They address the underlying bytes in the native
2320 endianness, as one would expect.
2322 Following the same reasoning, that it's just bytes underneath, Guile
2323 also allows uniform vectors of a given type to be accessed as if they
2324 were of any type. One can fill a u32vector, and access its elements with
2325 u8vector-ref. One can use f64vector-ref on bytevectors. It's all the
2328 In this way, uniform numeric vectors may be written to and read from
2329 input/output ports using the procedures that operate on bytevectors.
2331 Calls to SRFI-4 accessors (ref and set functions) from Scheme are now
2332 inlined to the VM instructions for bytevector access.
2334 See "SRFI-4" in the manual, for more information.
2336 ** Nonstandard SRFI-4 procedures now available from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'
2338 Guile's `(srfi srfi-4)' now only exports those srfi-4 procedures that
2339 are part of the standard. Complex uniform vectors and the
2340 `any->FOOvector' family are now available only from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'.
2342 Guile's default environment imports `(srfi srfi-4)', and probably should
2343 import `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)' as well.
2345 See "SRFI-4 Extensions" in the manual, for more information.
2347 ** New syntax: include-from-path.
2349 `include-from-path' is like `include', except it looks for its file in
2350 the load path. It can be used to compile other files into a file.
2352 ** New syntax: quasisyntax.
2354 `quasisyntax' is to `syntax' as `quasiquote' is to `quote'. See the R6RS
2355 documentation for more information. Thanks to Andre van Tonder for the
2358 ** `*unspecified*' is identifier syntax
2360 `*unspecified*' is no longer a variable, so it is optimized properly by
2361 the compiler, and is not `set!'-able.
2363 ** Changes and bugfixes in numerics code
2365 *** Added six new sets of fast quotient and remainder operators
2367 Added six new sets of fast quotient and remainder operator pairs with
2368 different semantics than the R5RS operators. They support not only
2369 integers, but all reals, including exact rationals and inexact
2370 floating point numbers.
2372 These procedures accept two real numbers N and D, where the divisor D
2373 must be non-zero. Each set of operators computes an integer quotient
2374 Q and a real remainder R such that N = Q*D + R and |R| < |D|. They
2375 differ only in how N/D is rounded to produce Q.
2377 `euclidean-quotient' returns the integer Q and `euclidean-remainder'
2378 returns the real R such that N = Q*D + R and 0 <= R < |D|. `euclidean/'
2379 returns both Q and R, and is more efficient than computing each
2380 separately. Note that when D > 0, `euclidean-quotient' returns
2381 floor(N/D), and when D < 0 it returns ceiling(N/D).
2383 `centered-quotient', `centered-remainder', and `centered/' are similar
2384 except that the range of remainders is -abs(D/2) <= R < abs(D/2), and
2385 `centered-quotient' rounds N/D to the nearest integer. Note that these
2386 operators are equivalent to the R6RS integer division operators `div',
2387 `mod', `div-and-mod', `div0', `mod0', and `div0-and-mod0'.
2389 `floor-quotient' and `floor-remainder' compute Q and R, respectively,
2390 where Q has been rounded toward negative infinity. `floor/' returns
2391 both Q and R, and is more efficient than computing each separately.
2392 Note that when applied to integers, `floor-remainder' is equivalent to
2393 the R5RS integer-only `modulo' operator. `ceiling-quotient',
2394 `ceiling-remainder', and `ceiling/' are similar except that Q is
2395 rounded toward positive infinity.
2397 For `truncate-quotient', `truncate-remainder', and `truncate/', Q is
2398 rounded toward zero. Note that when applied to integers,
2399 `truncate-quotient' and `truncate-remainder' are equivalent to the
2400 R5RS integer-only operators `quotient' and `remainder'.
2402 For `round-quotient', `round-remainder', and `round/', Q is rounded to
2403 the nearest integer, with ties going to the nearest even integer.
2405 *** Complex number changes
2407 Guile is now able to represent non-real complex numbers whose
2408 imaginary part is an _inexact_ zero (0.0 or -0.0), per R6RS.
2409 Previously, such numbers were immediately changed into inexact reals.
2411 (real? 0.0+0.0i) now returns #f, per R6RS, although (zero? 0.0+0.0i)
2412 still returns #t, per R6RS. (= 0 0.0+0.0i) and (= 0.0 0.0+0.0i) are
2413 #t, but the same comparisons using `eqv?' or `equal?' are #f.
2415 Like other non-real numbers, these complex numbers with inexact zero
2416 imaginary part will raise exceptions is passed to procedures requiring
2417 reals, such as `<', `>', `<=', `>=', `min', `max', `positive?',
2418 `negative?', `inf?', `nan?', `finite?', etc.
2420 **** `make-rectangular' changes
2422 scm_make_rectangular `make-rectangular' now returns a real number only
2423 if the imaginary part is an _exact_ 0. Previously, it would return a
2424 real number if the imaginary part was an inexact zero.
2426 scm_c_make_rectangular now always returns a non-real complex number,
2427 even if the imaginary part is zero. Previously, it would return a
2428 real number if the imaginary part was zero.
2430 **** `make-polar' changes
2432 scm_make_polar `make-polar' now returns a real number only if the
2433 angle or magnitude is an _exact_ 0. If the magnitude is an exact 0,
2434 it now returns an exact 0. Previously, it would return a real
2435 number if the imaginary part was an inexact zero.
2437 scm_c_make_polar now always returns a non-real complex number, even if
2438 the imaginary part is 0.0. Previously, it would return a real number
2439 if the imaginary part was 0.0.
2441 **** `imag-part' changes
2443 scm_imag_part `imag-part' now returns an exact 0 if applied to an
2444 inexact real number. Previously it returned an inexact zero in this
2447 *** `eqv?' and `equal?' now compare numbers equivalently
2449 scm_equal_p `equal?' now behaves equivalently to scm_eqv_p `eqv?' for
2450 numeric values, per R5RS. Previously, equal? worked differently,
2451 e.g. `(equal? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #t but `(eqv? 0.0 -0.0)' returned #f,
2452 and `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f but `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
2455 *** `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' now returns #t
2457 Previously, `(equal? +nan.0 +nan.0)' returned #f, although
2458 `(let ((x +nan.0)) (equal? x x))' and `(eqv? +nan.0 +nan.0)'
2459 both returned #t. R5RS requires that `equal?' behave like
2460 `eqv?' when comparing numbers.
2462 *** Change in handling products `*' involving exact 0
2464 scm_product `*' now handles exact 0 differently. A product containing
2465 an exact 0 now returns an exact 0 if and only if the other arguments
2466 are all exact. An inexact zero is returned if and only if the other
2467 arguments are all finite but not all exact. If an infinite or NaN
2468 value is present, a NaN value is returned. Previously, any product
2469 containing an exact 0 yielded an exact 0, regardless of the other
2472 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' changes when the base is 0
2474 While `(expt 0 0)' is still 1, and `(expt 0 N)' for N > 0 is still
2475 zero, `(expt 0 N)' for N < 0 is now a NaN value, and likewise for
2476 integer-expt. This is more correct, and conforming to R6RS, but seems
2477 to be incompatible with R5RS, which would return 0 for all non-zero
2480 *** `expt' and `integer-expt' are more generic, less strict
2482 When raising to an exact non-negative integer exponent, `expt' and
2483 `integer-expt' are now able to exponentiate any object that can be
2484 multiplied using `*'. They can also raise an object to an exact
2485 negative integer power if its reciprocal can be taken using `/'.
2486 In order to allow this, the type of the first argument is no longer
2487 checked when raising to an exact integer power. If the exponent is 0
2488 or 1, the first parameter is not manipulated at all, and need not
2489 even support multiplication.
2491 *** Infinities are no longer integers, nor rationals
2493 scm_integer_p `integer?' and scm_rational_p `rational?' now return #f
2494 for infinities, per R6RS. Previously they returned #t for real
2495 infinities. The real infinities and NaNs are still considered real by
2496 scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
2498 *** NaNs are no longer rationals
2500 scm_rational_p `rational?' now returns #f for NaN values, per R6RS.
2501 Previously it returned #t for real NaN values. They are still
2502 considered real by scm_real `real?' however, per R6RS.
2504 *** `inf?' and `nan?' now throw exceptions for non-reals
2506 The domain of `inf?' and `nan?' is the real numbers. Guile now signals
2507 an error when a non-real number or non-number is passed to these
2508 procedures. (Note that NaNs _are_ considered numbers by scheme, despite
2511 *** `rationalize' bugfixes and changes
2513 Fixed bugs in scm_rationalize `rationalize'. Previously, it returned
2514 exact integers unmodified, although that was incorrect if the epsilon
2515 was at least 1 or inexact, e.g. (rationalize 4 1) should return 3 per
2516 R5RS and R6RS, but previously it returned 4. It also now handles
2517 cases involving infinities and NaNs properly, per R6RS.
2519 *** Trigonometric functions now return exact numbers in some cases
2521 scm_sin `sin', scm_cos `cos', scm_tan `tan', scm_asin `asin', scm_acos
2522 `acos', scm_atan `atan', scm_sinh `sinh', scm_cosh `cosh', scm_tanh
2523 `tanh', scm_sys_asinh `asinh', scm_sys_acosh `acosh', and
2524 scm_sys_atanh `atanh' now return exact results in some cases.
2526 *** New procedure: `finite?'
2528 Add scm_finite_p `finite?' from R6RS to guile core, which returns #t
2529 if and only if its argument is neither infinite nor a NaN. Note that
2530 this is not the same as (not (inf? x)) or (not (infinite? x)), since
2531 NaNs are neither finite nor infinite.
2533 *** Improved exactness handling for complex number parsing
2535 When parsing non-real complex numbers, exactness specifiers are now
2536 applied to each component, as is done in PLT Scheme. For complex
2537 numbers written in rectangular form, exactness specifiers are applied
2538 to the real and imaginary parts before calling scm_make_rectangular.
2539 For complex numbers written in polar form, exactness specifiers are
2540 applied to the magnitude and angle before calling scm_make_polar.
2542 Previously, exactness specifiers were applied to the number as a whole
2543 _after_ calling scm_make_rectangular or scm_make_polar.
2545 For example, (string->number "#i5.0+0i") now does the equivalent of:
2547 (make-rectangular (exact->inexact 5.0) (exact->inexact 0))
2549 which yields 5.0+0.0i. Previously it did the equivalent of:
2551 (exact->inexact (make-rectangular 5.0 0))
2555 ** Unicode characters
2557 Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
2558 created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
2559 probably be introduced at some point.
2563 Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
2564 encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
2565 character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
2567 Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
2568 hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
2569 or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
2570 encoding of the port on which the string is read.
2574 One may now use U+03BB (GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMBDA) as an identifier.
2576 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
2578 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
2579 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
2580 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
2581 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
2582 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
2585 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
2586 code. This use is now discouraged. Binary input and output is
2587 currently supported by opening ports in the ISO-8859-1 locale.
2589 ** Source files default to UTF-8.
2591 If source files do not specify their encoding via a `coding:' block,
2592 the default encoding is UTF-8, instead of being taken from the current
2595 ** Interactive Guile installs the current locale.
2597 Instead of leaving the user in the "C" locale, running the Guile REPL
2598 installs the current locale. [FIXME xref?]
2600 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
2602 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
2603 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
2604 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
2607 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
2608 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
2609 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
2611 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
2613 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
2615 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
2616 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
2617 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
2618 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
2620 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
2622 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
2623 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
2624 Unicode code points.
2626 ** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
2628 These variables contained the names of control characters and were
2629 used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
2630 never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
2633 ** EBCDIC support is removed
2635 There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
2636 processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
2637 and was unmaintained.
2639 ** Compile-time warnings
2641 Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
2642 -Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
2643 `#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
2644 invocation. Warnings are also enabled by default for expressions entered
2647 Guile can also warn when you pass the wrong number of arguments to a
2648 procedure, with -Warity-mismatch, or `arity-mismatch' in the
2649 `#:warnings' as above.
2651 Other warnings include `-Wunused-variable' and `-Wunused-toplevel', to
2652 warn about unused local or global (top-level) variables, and `-Wformat',
2653 to check for various errors related to the `format' procedure.
2655 ** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
2657 This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
2660 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
2662 This slightly improves program startup times.
2664 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
2666 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
2668 ** New threads are in `(guile-user)' by default, not `(guile)'
2670 It used to be that a new thread entering Guile would do so in the
2671 `(guile)' module, unless this was the first time Guile was initialized,
2672 in which case it was `(guile-user)'. This has been fixed to have all
2673 new threads unknown to Guile default to `(guile-user)'.
2675 ** New helpers: `print-exception', `set-exception-printer!'
2677 These functions implement an extensible exception printer. Guile
2678 registers printers for all of the exceptions it throws. Users may add
2679 their own printers. There is also `scm_print_exception', for use by C
2680 programs. Pleasantly, this allows SRFI-35 and R6RS exceptions to be
2681 printed appropriately.
2683 ** GOOPS dispatch in scheme
2685 As an implementation detail, GOOPS dispatch is no longer implemented by
2686 special evaluator bytecodes, but rather directly via a Scheme function
2687 associated with an applicable struct. There is some VM support for the
2688 underlying primitives, like `class-of'.
2690 This change will in the future allow users to customize generic function
2691 dispatch without incurring a performance penalty, and allow us to
2692 implement method combinations.
2694 ** Applicable struct support
2696 One may now make structs from Scheme that may be applied as procedures.
2697 To do so, make a struct whose vtable is `<applicable-struct-vtable>'.
2698 That struct will be the vtable of your applicable structs; instances of
2699 that new struct are assumed to have the procedure in their first slot.
2700 `<applicable-struct-vtable>' is like Common Lisp's
2701 `funcallable-standard-class'. Likewise there is
2702 `<applicable-struct-with-setter-vtable>', which looks for the setter in
2703 the second slot. This needs to be better documented.
2707 GOOPS had a number of concepts that were relevant to the days of Tcl,
2708 but not any more: operators and entities, mainly. These objects were
2709 never documented, and it is unlikely that they were ever used. Operators
2710 were a kind of generic specific to the Tcl support. Entities were
2711 replaced by applicable structs, mentioned above.
2713 ** New struct slot allocation: "hidden"
2715 A hidden slot is readable and writable, but will not be initialized by a
2716 call to make-struct. For example in your layout you would say "ph"
2717 instead of "pw". Hidden slots are useful for adding new slots to a
2718 vtable without breaking existing invocations to make-struct.
2720 ** eqv? not a generic
2722 One used to be able to extend `eqv?' as a primitive-generic, but no
2723 more. Because `eqv?' is in the expansion of `case' (via `memv'), which
2724 should be able to compile to static dispatch tables, it doesn't make
2725 sense to allow extensions that would subvert this optimization.
2727 ** `inet-ntop' and `inet-pton' are always available.
2729 Guile now use a portable implementation of `inet_pton'/`inet_ntop', so
2730 there is no more need to use `inet-aton'/`inet-ntoa'. The latter
2731 functions are deprecated.
2733 ** `getopt-long' parsing errors throw to `quit', not `misc-error'
2735 This change should inhibit backtraces on argument parsing errors.
2736 `getopt-long' has been modified to print out the error that it throws
2739 ** New primitive: `tmpfile'.
2741 See "File System" in the manual.
2743 ** Random generator state may be serialized to a datum
2745 `random-state->datum' will serialize a random state to a datum, which
2746 may be written out, read back in later, and revivified using
2747 `datum->random-state'. See "Random" in the manual, for more details.
2749 ** Fix random number generator on 64-bit platforms
2751 There was a nasty bug on 64-bit platforms in which asking for a random
2752 integer with a range between 2**32 and 2**64 caused a segfault. After
2753 many embarrassing iterations, this was fixed.
2755 ** Fast bit operations.
2757 The bit-twiddling operations `ash', `logand', `logior', and `logxor' now
2758 have dedicated bytecodes. Guile is not just for symbolic computation,
2759 it's for number crunching too.
2761 ** Faster SRFI-9 record access
2763 SRFI-9 records are now implemented directly on top of Guile's structs,
2764 and their accessors are defined in such a way that normal call-sites
2765 inline to special VM opcodes, while still allowing for the general case
2766 (e.g. passing a record accessor to `apply').
2768 ** R6RS block comment support
2770 Guile now supports R6RS nested block comments. The start of a comment is
2771 marked with `#|', and the end with `|#'.
2773 ** `guile-2' cond-expand feature
2775 To test if your code is running under Guile 2.0 (or its alpha releases),
2776 test for the `guile-2' cond-expand feature. Like this:
2778 (cond-expand (guile-2 (eval-when (compile)
2779 ;; This must be evaluated at compile time.
2780 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
2782 ;; Earlier versions of Guile do not have a
2783 ;; separate compilation phase.
2784 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
2786 ** New global variables: %load-compiled-path, %load-compiled-extensions
2788 These are analogous to %load-path and %load-extensions.
2790 ** New fluid: `%file-port-name-canonicalization'
2792 This fluid parameterizes the file names that are associated with file
2793 ports. If %file-port-name-canonicalization is 'absolute, then file names
2794 are canonicalized to be absolute paths. If it is 'relative, then the
2795 name is canonicalized, but any prefix corresponding to a member of
2796 `%load-path' is stripped off. Otherwise the names are passed through
2799 In addition, the `compile-file' and `compile-and-load' procedures bind
2800 %file-port-name-canonicalization to their `#:canonicalization' keyword
2801 argument, which defaults to 'relative. In this way, one might compile
2802 "../module/ice-9/boot-9.scm", but the path that gets residualized into
2803 the .go is "ice-9/boot-9.scm".
2805 ** New procedure, `make-promise'
2807 `(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
2809 ** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
2811 Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
2813 ** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
2815 ** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
2817 `module-bound?' was returning true if a module did have a local
2818 variable, but one that was unbound, but another imported module bound
2819 the variable. This was an error, and was fixed.
2821 ** `(ice-9 syncase)' has been deprecated.
2823 As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
2824 no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
2826 ** New readline history functions
2828 The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
2829 write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
2830 History library functions.
2832 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
2833 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
2835 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
2838 ** Deprecate the old `scm-style-repl'
2840 The following bindings from boot-9 are now found in `(ice-9
2841 scm-style-repl)': `scm-style-repl', `error-catching-loop',
2842 `error-catching-repl', `bad-throw', `scm-repl-silent'
2843 `assert-repl-silence', `repl-print-unspecified',
2844 `assert-repl-print-unspecified', `scm-repl-verbose',
2845 `assert-repl-verbosity', `scm-repl-prompt', `set-repl-prompt!', `repl',
2846 `default-pre-unwind-handler', `handle-system-error',
2848 The following bindings have been deprecated, with no replacement:
2849 `pre-unwind-handler-dispatch'.
2851 The following bindings have been totally removed:
2852 `before-signal-stack'.
2854 Deprecated forwarding shims have been installed so that users that
2855 expect these bindings in the main namespace will still work, but receive
2856 a deprecation warning.
2858 ** `set-batch-mode?!' replaced by `ensure-batch-mode!'
2860 "Batch mode" is a flag used to tell a program that it is not running
2861 interactively. One usually turns it on after a fork. It may not be
2862 turned off. `ensure-batch-mode!' deprecates the old `set-batch-mode?!',
2863 because it is a better interface, as it can only turn on batch mode, not
2866 ** Deprecate `save-stack', `the-last-stack'
2868 It used to be that the way to debug programs in Guile was to capture the
2869 stack at the time of error, drop back to the REPL, then debug that
2870 stack. But this approach didn't compose, was tricky to get right in the
2871 presence of threads, and was not very powerful.
2873 So `save-stack', `stack-saved?', and `the-last-stack' have been moved to
2874 `(ice-9 save-stack)', with deprecated bindings left in the root module.
2876 ** `top-repl' has its own module
2878 The `top-repl' binding, called with Guile is run interactively, is now
2879 is its own module, `(ice-9 top-repl)'. A deprecated forwarding shim was
2880 left in the default environment.
2882 ** `display-error' takes a frame
2884 The `display-error' / `scm_display_error' helper now takes a frame as an
2885 argument instead of a stack. Stacks are still supported in deprecated
2886 builds. Additionally, `display-error' will again source location
2887 information for the error.
2889 ** No more `(ice-9 debug)'
2891 This module had some debugging helpers that are no longer applicable to
2892 the current debugging model. Importing this module will produce a
2893 deprecation warning. Users should contact bug-guile for support.
2895 ** Remove obsolete debug-options
2897 Removed `breakpoints', `trace', `procnames', `indent', `frames',
2898 `maxdepth', and `debug' debug-options.
2900 ** `backtrace' debug option on by default
2902 Given that Guile 2.0 can always give you a backtrace, backtraces are now
2905 ** `turn-on-debugging' deprecated
2907 ** Remove obsolete print-options
2909 The `source' and `closure-hook' print options are obsolete, and have
2912 ** Remove obsolete read-options
2914 The "elisp-strings" and "elisp-vectors" read options were unused and
2915 obsolete, so they have been removed.
2917 ** Remove eval-options and trap-options
2919 Eval-options and trap-options are obsolete with the new VM and
2922 ** Remove (ice-9 debugger) and (ice-9 debugging)
2924 See "Traps" and "Interactive Debugging" in the manual, for information
2925 on their replacements.
2927 ** Remove the GDS Emacs integration
2929 See "Using Guile in Emacs" in the manual, for info on how we think you
2930 should use Guile with Emacs.
2932 ** Deprecated: `lazy-catch'
2934 `lazy-catch' was a form that captured the stack at the point of a
2935 `throw', but the dynamic state at the point of the `catch'. It was a bit
2936 crazy. Please change to use `catch', possibly with a throw-handler, or
2937 `with-throw-handler'.
2939 ** Deprecated: primitive properties
2941 The `primitive-make-property', `primitive-property-set!',
2942 `primitive-property-ref', and `primitive-property-del!' procedures were
2943 crufty and only used to implement object properties, which has a new,
2944 threadsafe implementation. Use object properties or weak hash tables
2947 ** Deprecated `@bind' syntax
2949 `@bind' was part of an older implementation of the Emacs Lisp language,
2950 and is no longer used.
2952 ** Miscellaneous other deprecations
2954 `cuserid' has been deprecated, as it only returns 8 bytes of a user's
2955 login. Use `(passwd:name (getpwuid (geteuid)))' instead.
2957 Additionally, the procedures `apply-to-args', `has-suffix?', `scheme-file-suffix'
2958 `get-option', `for-next-option', `display-usage-report',
2959 `transform-usage-lambda', `collect', and `set-batch-mode?!' have all
2962 ** Add support for unbound fluids
2964 See `make-unbound-fluid', `fluid-unset!', and `fluid-bound?' in the
2967 ** Add `variable-unset!'
2969 See "Variables" in the manual, for more details.
2971 ** Last but not least, the `λ' macro can be used in lieu of `lambda'
2973 * Changes to the C interface
2975 ** Guile now uses libgc, the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
2977 The semantics of `scm_gc_malloc ()' have been changed, in a
2978 backward-compatible way. A new allocation routine,
2979 `scm_gc_malloc_pointerless ()', was added.
2981 Libgc is a conservative GC, which we hope will make interaction with C
2982 code easier and less error-prone.
2984 ** New procedures: `scm_to_stringn', `scm_from_stringn'
2985 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,latin1}_symbol{n,}
2986 ** New procedures: scm_{to,from}_{utf8,utf32,latin1}_string{n,}
2988 These new procedures convert to and from string representations in
2989 particular encodings.
2991 Users should continue to use locale encoding for user input, user
2992 output, or interacting with the C library.
2994 Use the Latin-1 functions for ASCII, and for literals in source code.
2996 Use UTF-8 functions for interaction with modern libraries which deal in
2997 UTF-8, and UTF-32 for interaction with utf32-using libraries.
2999 Otherwise, use scm_to_stringn or scm_from_stringn with a specific
3002 ** New type definitions for `scm_t_intptr' and friends.
3004 `SCM_T_UINTPTR_MAX', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MIN', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MAX',
3005 `SIZEOF_SCM_T_BITS', `scm_t_intptr' and `scm_t_uintptr' are now
3006 available to C. Have fun!
3008 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
3010 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
3012 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
3015 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
3016 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
3018 ** Procedures-with-setters are now implemented using applicable structs
3020 From a user's perspective this doesn't mean very much. But if, for some
3021 odd reason, you used the SCM_PROCEDURE_WITH_SETTER_P, SCM_PROCEDURE, or
3022 SCM_SETTER macros, know that they're deprecated now. Also, scm_tc7_pws
3025 ** Remove old evaluator closures
3027 There used to be ranges of typecodes allocated to interpreted data
3028 structures, but that it no longer the case, given that interpreted
3029 procedure are now just regular VM closures. As a result, there is a
3030 newly free tc3, and a number of removed macros. See the ChangeLog for
3033 ** Primitive procedures are now VM trampoline procedures
3035 It used to be that there were something like 12 different typecodes
3036 allocated to primitive procedures, each with its own calling convention.
3037 Now there is only one, the gsubr. This may affect user code if you were
3038 defining a procedure using scm_c_make_subr rather scm_c_make_gsubr. The
3039 solution is to switch to use scm_c_make_gsubr. This solution works well
3040 both with the old 1.8 and with the current 1.9 branch.
3042 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying "gsubrs",
3043 primitive procedures with specified numbers of required, optional, and
3044 rest arguments. Now, however, Guile represents gsubrs as normal VM
3045 procedures, with appropriate bytecode to parse out the correct number of
3046 arguments, including optional and rest arguments, and then with a
3047 special bytecode to apply the gsubr.
3049 This allows primitive procedures to appear on the VM stack, allowing
3050 them to be accurately counted in profiles. Also they now have more
3051 debugging information attached to them -- their number of arguments, for
3052 example. In addition, the VM can completely inline the application
3053 mechanics, allowing for faster primitive calls.
3055 However there are some changes on the C level. There is no more
3056 `scm_tc7_gsubr' or `scm_tcs_subrs' typecode for primitive procedures, as
3057 they are just VM procedures. Likewise the macros `SCM_GSUBR_TYPE',
3058 `SCM_GSUBR_MAKTYPE', `SCM_GSUBR_REQ', `SCM_GSUBR_OPT', and
3059 `SCM_GSUBR_REST' are gone, as are `SCM_SUBR_META_INFO', `SCM_SUBR_PROPS'
3060 `SCM_SET_SUBR_GENERIC_LOC', and `SCM_SUBR_ARITY_TO_TYPE'.
3062 Perhaps more significantly, `scm_c_make_subr',
3063 `scm_c_make_subr_with_generic', `scm_c_define_subr', and
3064 `scm_c_define_subr_with_generic'. They all operated on subr typecodes,
3065 and there are no more subr typecodes. Use the scm_c_make_gsubr family
3068 Normal users of gsubrs should not be affected, though, as the
3069 scm_c_make_gsubr family still is the correct way to create primitive
3072 ** Remove deprecated array C interfaces
3074 Removed the deprecated array functions `scm_i_arrayp',
3075 `scm_i_array_ndim', `scm_i_array_mem', `scm_i_array_v',
3076 `scm_i_array_base', `scm_i_array_dims', and the deprecated macros
3077 `SCM_ARRAYP', `SCM_ARRAY_NDIM', `SCM_ARRAY_CONTP', `SCM_ARRAY_MEM',
3078 `SCM_ARRAY_V', `SCM_ARRAY_BASE', and `SCM_ARRAY_DIMS'.
3080 ** Remove unused snarf macros
3082 `SCM_DEFINE1', `SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC_1', `SCM_PROC1, and `SCM_GPROC1'
3083 are no more. Use SCM_DEFINE or SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC instead.
3085 ** New functions: `scm_call_n', `scm_c_run_hookn'
3087 `scm_call_n' applies to apply a function to an array of arguments.
3088 `scm_c_run_hookn' runs a hook with an array of arguments.
3090 ** Some SMOB types changed to have static typecodes
3092 Fluids, dynamic states, and hash tables used to be SMOB objects, but now
3093 they have statically allocated tc7 typecodes.
3095 ** Preparations for changing SMOB representation
3097 If things go right, we'll be changing the SMOB representation soon. To
3098 that end, we did a lot of cleanups to calls to e.g. SCM_CELL_WORD_2(x) when
3099 the code meant SCM_SMOB_DATA_2(x); user code will need similar changes
3100 in the future. Code accessing SMOBs using SCM_CELL macros was never
3101 correct, but until now things still worked. Users should be aware of
3104 ** Changed invocation mechanics of applicable SMOBs
3106 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying SMOB
3107 objects. Now, with the VM, when Guile sees a SMOB, it looks up a VM
3108 trampoline procedure for it, and use the normal mechanics to apply the
3109 trampoline. This simplifies procedure application in the normal,
3112 The upshot is that the mechanics used to apply a SMOB are different from
3113 1.8. Descriptors no longer have `apply_0', `apply_1', `apply_2', and
3114 `apply_3' functions, and the macros SCM_SMOB_APPLY_0 and friends are now
3115 deprecated. Just use the scm_call_0 family of procedures.
3117 ** Removed support shlibs for SRFIs 1, 4, 13, 14, and 60
3119 Though these SRFI support libraries did expose API, they encoded a
3120 strange version string into their library names. That version was never
3121 programmatically exported, so there was no way people could use the
3124 This was a fortunate oversight, as it allows us to remove the need for
3125 extra, needless shared libraries --- the C support code for SRFIs 4, 13,
3126 and 14 was already in core --- and allow us to incrementally return the
3127 SRFI implementation to Scheme.
3129 ** New C function: scm_module_public_interface
3131 This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
3133 ** Undeprecate `scm_the_root_module ()'
3135 It's useful to be able to get the root module from C without doing a
3138 ** Inline vector allocation
3140 Instead of having vectors point out into the heap for their data, their
3141 data is now allocated inline to the vector object itself. The same is
3142 true for bytevectors, by default, though there is an indirection
3143 available which should allow for making a bytevector from an existing
3146 ** New struct constructors that don't involve making lists
3148 `scm_c_make_struct' and `scm_c_make_structv' are new varargs and array
3149 constructors, respectively, for structs. You might find them useful.
3153 In Guile 1.8, there were debugging frames on the C stack. Now there is
3154 no more need to explicitly mark the stack in this way, because Guile has
3155 a VM stack that it knows how to walk, which simplifies the C API
3156 considerably. See the ChangeLog for details; the relevant interface is
3157 in libguile/stacks.h. The Scheme API has not been changed significantly.
3159 ** Removal of Guile's primitive object system.
3161 There were a number of pieces in `objects.[ch]' that tried to be a
3162 minimal object system, but were never documented, and were quickly
3163 obseleted by GOOPS' merge into Guile proper. So `scm_make_class_object',
3164 `scm_make_subclass_object', `scm_metaclass_standard', and like symbols
3165 from objects.h are no more. In the very unlikely case in which these
3166 were useful to you, we urge you to contact guile-devel.
3170 Actually the future is still in the state that it was, is, and ever
3171 shall be, Amen, except that `futures.c' and `futures.h' are no longer a
3172 part of it. These files were experimental, never compiled, and would be
3173 better implemented in Scheme anyway. In the future, that is.
3175 ** Deprecate trampolines
3177 There used to be C functions `scm_trampoline_0', `scm_trampoline_1', and
3178 so on. The point was to do some precomputation on the type of the
3179 procedure, then return a specialized "call" procedure. However this
3180 optimization wasn't actually an optimization, so it is now deprecated.
3181 Just use `scm_call_0', etc instead.
3183 ** Deprecated `scm_badargsp'
3185 This function is unused in Guile, but was part of its API.
3187 ** Better support for Lisp `nil'.
3189 The bit representation of `nil' has been tweaked so that it is now very
3190 efficient to check e.g. if a value is equal to Scheme's end-of-list or
3191 Lisp's nil. Additionally there are a heap of new, specific predicates
3192 like scm_is_null_or_nil.
3194 ** Better integration of Lisp `nil'.
3196 `scm_is_boolean', `scm_is_false', and `scm_is_null' all return true now
3197 for Lisp's `nil'. This shouldn't affect any Scheme code at this point,
3198 but when we start to integrate more with Emacs, it is possible that we
3199 break code that assumes that, for example, `(not x)' implies that `x' is
3200 `eq?' to `#f'. This is not a common assumption. Refactoring affected
3201 code to rely on properties instead of identities will improve code
3202 correctness. See "Nil" in the manual, for more details.
3204 ** Support for static allocation of strings, symbols, and subrs.
3206 Calls to snarfing CPP macros like SCM_DEFINE macro will now allocate
3207 much of their associated data as static variables, reducing Guile's
3210 ** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
3211 ** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
3213 ** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
3215 Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
3216 definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
3218 ** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
3220 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
3221 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
3222 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
3223 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
3225 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
3227 * Changes to the distribution
3229 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
3231 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
3232 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
3237 Guile's build is visually quieter, due to the use of Automake 1.11's
3238 AM_SILENT_RULES. Build as `make V=1' to see all of the output.
3240 ** GOOPS documentation folded into Guile reference manual
3242 GOOPS, Guile's object system, used to be documented in separate manuals.
3243 This content is now included in Guile's manual directly.
3245 ** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
3247 `guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
3248 `pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
3249 guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
3252 ** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
3254 Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
3255 macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
3257 ** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
3259 If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
3260 to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
3262 ** Parallel installability fixes
3264 Guile now installs its header files to a effective-version-specific
3265 directory, and includes the effective version (e.g. 2.0) in the library
3266 name (e.g. libguile-2.0.so).
3268 This change should be transparent to users, who should detect Guile via
3269 the guile.m4 macro, or the guile-2.0.pc pkg-config file. It will allow
3270 parallel installs for multiple versions of Guile development
3273 ** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
3275 Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
3276 (e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
3277 be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
3278 directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensiondir
3279 guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
3281 ** User Scheme code may be placed in a version-specific path
3283 Before, there was only one way to install user Scheme code to a
3284 version-specific Guile directory: install to Guile's own path,
3285 e.g. /usr/share/guile/2.0. The site directory,
3286 e.g. /usr/share/guile/site, was unversioned. This has been changed to
3287 add a version-specific site directory, e.g. /usr/share/guile/site/2.0,
3288 searched before the global site directory.
3290 ** New dependency: libgc
3292 See http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/, for more information.
3294 ** New dependency: GNU libunistring
3296 See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
3297 Unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
3299 ** New dependency: libffi
3301 See http://sourceware.org/libffi/, for more information.
3305 Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
3309 ** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
3310 ** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
3311 ** Fix `wrong type arg' exceptions with IPv6 addresses
3314 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
3316 * New modules (see the manual for details)
3318 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
3322 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
3323 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
3324 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
3325 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
3326 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
3327 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
3328 ** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
3329 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
3330 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
3331 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
3332 ** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
3334 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
3336 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
3337 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
3338 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
3341 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
3344 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
3346 * New features (see the manual for details)
3348 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
3350 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
3352 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
3353 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
3354 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
3356 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
3358 * Changes to the distribution
3360 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
3362 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
3363 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
3365 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
3367 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
3368 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
3373 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
3374 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
3375 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
3376 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
3377 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
3378 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
3379 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
3380 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
3381 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
3382 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
3383 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
3384 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
3385 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
3386 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
3388 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
3389 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
3390 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
3391 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
3392 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
3395 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
3397 * Infrastructure changes
3399 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
3401 The new repository can be accessed using
3402 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
3403 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
3405 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
3407 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
3409 * New modules (see the manual for details)
3413 * New features (see the manual for details)
3415 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
3416 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
3417 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
3419 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
3420 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
3421 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
3422 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
3424 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
3426 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
3427 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
3428 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
3432 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
3433 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
3435 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
3436 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
3438 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
3439 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
3441 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
3442 lead to a stack overflow.
3444 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
3445 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
3446 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
3447 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
3448 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
3449 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
3450 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
3451 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
3452 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
3453 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
3454 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
3455 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
3456 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
3457 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
3458 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
3459 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
3462 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
3466 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
3467 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
3468 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
3469 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
3470 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
3471 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
3472 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
3473 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
3474 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
3475 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
3476 system and library calls.
3477 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
3478 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
3479 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
3480 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
3481 uniform vectors on AIX.
3482 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
3483 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
3484 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
3485 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
3486 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
3488 * New modules (see the manual for details)
3492 * Documentation fixes and improvements
3494 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
3496 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
3497 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
3499 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
3501 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
3503 * Changes to the distribution
3505 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
3507 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
3508 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
3509 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
3511 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
3513 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
3516 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
3518 * New modules (see the manual for details)
3525 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
3526 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
3527 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
3528 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
3529 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
3530 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
3531 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
3533 * Implementation improvements
3535 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
3536 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
3539 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
3541 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
3543 ** set-program-arguments
3546 * Incompatible changes
3548 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
3550 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
3551 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
3552 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
3553 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
3558 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
3559 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
3560 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
3561 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
3562 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
3563 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
3565 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
3566 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
3567 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
3568 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
3569 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
3570 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
3571 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
3572 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
3573 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
3574 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
3575 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
3576 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
3577 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
3578 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
3579 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
3580 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
3583 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
3585 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
3587 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
3589 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
3590 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
3591 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
3592 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
3593 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
3594 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
3602 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
3604 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
3606 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
3608 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
3610 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
3612 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
3614 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
3615 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
3616 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
3618 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
3620 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
3622 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
3623 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
3625 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
3627 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
3628 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
3630 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
3632 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
3634 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
3636 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
3638 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
3640 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
3642 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
3644 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
3646 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
3648 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
3649 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
3650 file was on a different device.
3653 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
3655 * Changes to the distribution
3657 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
3659 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
3661 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
3663 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
3665 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
3667 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
3670 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
3672 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
3673 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
3674 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
3675 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
3676 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
3677 items like the versioned share directory name
3678 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
3680 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
3681 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
3682 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
3683 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
3684 with each micro release during a stable series.
3686 ** Thread implementation has changed.
3688 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
3689 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
3690 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
3691 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
3692 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
3695 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
3696 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
3697 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
3698 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
3701 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
3702 in which case "null" threads are used.
3704 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
3705 "Blocking", and others.
3707 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
3709 This is a milder form of deprecation.
3711 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
3712 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
3713 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
3714 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
3715 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
3717 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
3718 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
3720 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
3722 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
3723 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
3725 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
3728 This SRFI is always available.
3730 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
3732 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
3733 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
3734 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
3735 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
3738 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
3740 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
3741 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
3742 parameters without currying.
3744 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
3746 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
3747 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
3749 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
3750 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
3753 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
3754 with a renaming import, for example.
3756 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
3758 The official version is good enough now.
3760 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
3762 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
3763 provided. Use 'make html'.
3765 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
3767 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
3768 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
3769 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
3770 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
3772 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
3774 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
3777 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3779 ** New command line option `-L'.
3781 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
3783 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
3785 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
3786 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
3788 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
3790 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
3791 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
3793 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
3795 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
3796 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
3799 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
3802 (define-module (demo)
3806 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
3809 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3811 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
3813 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
3814 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
3815 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
3817 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
3819 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
3820 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
3822 ** New function hashx-remove!
3824 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
3826 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
3827 barriers and dynamic states.
3829 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
3830 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
3831 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
3834 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
3835 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
3836 Barriers" in the manual.
3838 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
3839 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
3841 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
3843 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
3844 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
3845 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
3846 variable %load-path.
3848 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
3850 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
3851 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
3853 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
3854 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
3855 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
3857 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
3858 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
3860 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
3861 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
3862 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
3864 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
3865 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
3866 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
3869 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
3870 substrings and read-only strings.
3872 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
3873 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
3876 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
3878 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
3887 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
3888 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
3889 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
3891 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
3892 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
3893 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
3894 on an ANSI terminal:
3896 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
3897 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
3900 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
3902 See the manual for details.
3904 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
3906 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
3909 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
3911 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
3912 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
3913 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
3914 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
3916 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
3917 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
3918 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
3921 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
3923 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
3924 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
3935 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
3939 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
3944 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
3948 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
3952 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
3955 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
3956 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
3957 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
3958 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
3960 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
3961 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
3964 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
3967 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
3971 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
3973 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
3974 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
3975 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
3978 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
3981 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
3983 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
3986 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
3987 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
3990 (define-module (foo)
3995 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
3996 has been detected is to
3998 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
3999 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
4000 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
4003 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
4006 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
4008 to your .guile init file.
4010 ** New define-module option: :replace
4012 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
4015 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
4016 for the core binding `format'.
4018 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
4020 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
4021 a prefix to all imported bindings.
4023 (define-module (foo)
4024 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
4026 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
4029 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
4031 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
4032 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
4033 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
4035 ** New function: effective-version
4037 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
4038 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
4039 to the distribution" above.
4041 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
4043 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
4044 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
4046 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
4048 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
4049 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
4051 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
4053 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
4054 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
4057 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
4059 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
4061 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
4063 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
4064 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
4065 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
4068 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
4069 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
4070 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
4071 'system-async-mark'.
4073 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
4074 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
4076 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
4077 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
4078 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
4081 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
4083 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
4084 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
4087 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
4088 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
4090 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
4091 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
4092 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
4093 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
4094 level for the current thread.
4096 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
4098 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
4100 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
4101 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
4104 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
4106 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
4108 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
4111 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
4113 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
4116 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
4117 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
4118 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
4120 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
4121 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
4122 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
4123 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
4134 ERROR: Numerical overflow
4136 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
4139 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
4141 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
4142 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
4143 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
4154 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
4156 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
4157 them is also done exactly, of course:
4162 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
4163 for exact arguments.
4165 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
4166 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
4168 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
4170 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
4171 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
4172 equal to a floating point number. For example:
4174 (inexact->exact 1.234)
4175 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
4177 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
4179 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
4182 ** New function 'rationalize'.
4184 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
4185 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
4187 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
4190 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
4191 result when both its arguments are exact.
4193 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
4195 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
4196 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
4197 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
4199 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
4201 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
4202 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
4203 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
4205 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
4208 ** pretty-print has more options.
4210 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
4211 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
4212 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
4214 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
4216 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
4217 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
4218 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
4220 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
4222 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
4223 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
4225 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
4227 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
4228 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
4231 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
4233 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
4234 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
4235 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
4236 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
4237 without the soft port blocking.
4239 ** Deprecated: undefine
4241 There is no replacement for undefine.
4243 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
4244 have been discouraged.
4246 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
4247 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
4248 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
4251 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
4253 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
4255 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
4256 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
4257 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
4258 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
4261 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
4262 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
4263 be removed in the next major Guile release.
4265 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
4267 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
4268 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
4269 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
4270 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
4271 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
4272 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
4274 * Changes to the C interface
4276 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
4277 take a 'delete' function argument.
4279 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
4280 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
4282 This is an incompatible change.
4284 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
4286 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
4287 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
4288 --disable-deprecated.
4290 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
4292 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
4293 Scheme values has been added.
4295 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
4296 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
4299 - int scm_is_* (...)
4301 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
4302 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
4304 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
4306 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
4307 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
4310 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
4312 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
4313 scm_from_int for ints.
4315 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
4316 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
4317 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
4319 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
4321 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
4322 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
4323 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
4326 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
4328 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
4330 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
4332 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
4333 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
4334 following alternatives.
4336 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
4337 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
4338 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
4339 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
4341 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
4342 do the validating for you.
4344 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
4345 have been discouraged.
4347 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
4348 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
4351 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
4353 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
4354 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
4357 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
4359 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
4362 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
4365 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
4367 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
4368 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
4370 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
4371 scm_truncate_number should have.
4373 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
4374 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
4376 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
4379 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
4380 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
4381 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
4383 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
4384 easier to use from C.
4386 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
4387 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
4389 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
4390 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
4391 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
4394 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
4395 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
4396 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
4397 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
4400 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
4401 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
4402 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
4403 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
4404 and is thus quite efficient.
4406 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
4408 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
4409 about the character encoding.
4411 Replace according to the following table:
4413 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
4414 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
4415 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
4416 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
4417 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
4418 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
4419 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
4420 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
4421 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
4423 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
4424 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
4426 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
4428 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
4429 now also available to C code.
4431 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
4433 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
4434 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
4435 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
4437 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
4440 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
4442 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
4443 unceremoniously removed.
4445 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
4446 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
4447 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
4449 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
4450 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
4451 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
4452 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
4453 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
4454 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
4457 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
4459 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
4460 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
4461 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
4462 manual for more details.
4464 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
4465 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
4467 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
4468 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
4469 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
4471 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
4473 Migrate according to the following table:
4475 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
4476 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
4477 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
4478 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
4479 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
4480 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
4481 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
4483 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
4484 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
4485 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
4486 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
4487 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
4488 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
4489 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
4491 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
4493 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
4494 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
4496 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
4497 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
4498 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
4499 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
4501 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
4503 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
4504 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
4505 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
4507 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
4508 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
4510 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
4511 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
4512 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
4513 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
4515 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
4517 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
4518 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
4519 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
4520 prevent a potential memory leak:
4527 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
4529 mem = scm_malloc (100);
4530 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
4532 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
4533 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
4540 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
4541 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
4545 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
4547 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
4549 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
4550 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
4551 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
4553 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
4554 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
4556 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
4558 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
4560 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
4561 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
4562 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
4564 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
4565 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
4567 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
4568 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
4569 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
4570 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
4573 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
4575 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
4576 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
4577 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
4579 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
4581 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
4582 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
4584 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
4586 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
4587 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
4589 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
4591 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
4592 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
4593 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
4595 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
4597 You should not have used them.
4599 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
4601 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
4602 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
4604 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
4606 This macro is not intended for public use.
4608 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
4610 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
4612 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
4614 Use scm_is_real instead.
4616 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
4618 Use scm_is_complex instead.
4620 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
4622 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
4623 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
4625 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
4626 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
4628 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
4629 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
4631 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
4633 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
4636 ** New function: scm_effective_version
4638 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
4639 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
4640 to the distribution" above.
4642 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
4644 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
4645 arguments are now passed directly:
4647 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
4649 This is an incompatible change.
4651 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
4653 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
4654 function in the init section.
4656 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
4658 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
4660 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
4661 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
4662 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
4663 stays roughly constant.
4665 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
4666 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
4667 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
4668 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
4669 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
4672 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
4673 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
4674 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
4675 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
4677 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
4678 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
4679 objects for every type.
4682 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
4684 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
4686 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
4688 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
4689 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
4690 initializes a new cell (see below).
4692 ** New functions for memory management
4694 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
4695 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
4696 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
4697 cause aborts in long running programs.
4699 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
4700 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
4702 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
4703 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
4704 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
4705 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
4706 details and for upgrading instructions.
4708 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
4709 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
4710 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
4712 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
4714 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
4715 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
4716 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
4717 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
4718 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
4720 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
4721 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
4722 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
4724 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
4725 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
4727 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
4729 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
4730 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
4731 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
4732 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
4733 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
4735 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
4737 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
4740 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
4742 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
4744 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
4746 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
4747 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
4749 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
4751 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
4752 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
4754 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
4755 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
4757 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
4759 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
4761 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
4762 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
4763 blocking it is not well defined.
4765 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
4767 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
4768 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
4769 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
4770 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
4771 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
4772 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
4773 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
4774 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
4775 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
4776 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
4777 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
4778 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
4779 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
4780 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
4781 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
4782 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
4783 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
4784 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
4785 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
4786 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
4787 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
4788 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
4789 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
4790 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
4791 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
4792 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
4793 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
4794 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
4795 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
4796 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
4797 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
4799 * Changes to bundled modules
4803 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
4804 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
4805 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
4806 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
4807 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
4810 Changes since Guile 1.4:
4812 * Changes to the distribution
4814 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
4816 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
4818 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
4819 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
4820 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
4821 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
4822 indicate major changes in Guile.
4824 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
4825 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
4826 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
4827 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
4829 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
4830 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
4831 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
4832 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
4833 micro version number.
4835 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
4837 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
4839 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
4840 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
4842 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
4844 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
4845 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
4846 See INSTALL and README for more information.
4848 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
4850 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
4851 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
4852 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
4855 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
4857 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
4860 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
4862 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
4863 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
4865 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
4867 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
4868 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
4871 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
4873 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
4876 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
4879 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
4881 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
4883 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
4884 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
4885 open-output-string, get-output-string.
4887 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
4889 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
4891 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
4894 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
4896 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
4898 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
4900 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
4901 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
4902 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
4904 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
4906 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
4908 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
4909 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
4918 See README there for more info.
4920 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
4921 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
4924 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
4926 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
4928 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
4930 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
4931 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
4932 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
4934 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
4936 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
4937 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
4938 to be named `and-let*', of course.
4940 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
4941 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
4943 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
4946 (oop goops describe)
4948 (oop goops active-slot)
4949 (oop goops composite-slot)
4951 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
4952 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
4953 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
4955 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
4957 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
4958 in the default environment:
4960 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
4961 %read-line write-line
4963 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
4964 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
4966 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
4968 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
4971 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
4972 can be used for similar functionality.
4974 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
4976 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
4977 it defines two procedures:
4979 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
4981 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
4982 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
4983 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
4986 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
4988 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
4989 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
4990 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
4991 write large strings.
4993 ** New module (ice-9 match)
4995 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
4996 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
4998 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
5000 for complete documentation.
5002 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
5004 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
5005 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
5006 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
5007 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
5009 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
5010 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
5014 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
5015 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
5016 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
5019 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
5022 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
5023 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
5025 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
5026 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
5029 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
5032 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
5034 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
5036 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5038 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
5040 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
5041 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
5042 Scheme programs easier.
5044 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
5045 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
5046 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
5047 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
5048 `cond-expand' when using this option.
5051 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
5052 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
5054 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
5057 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
5059 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
5060 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
5061 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
5064 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5066 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
5068 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
5069 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
5070 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
5071 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
5072 was also ASCII, for example.
5074 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
5076 tag - no replacement.
5077 fseek - replaced by seek.
5078 list* - replaced by cons*.
5080 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
5084 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
5085 (define m (make-safe-module))
5086 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
5087 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
5088 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
5090 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
5092 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
5093 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
5094 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
5096 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
5098 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
5099 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
5100 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
5101 from the issues related to the module system.
5103 *** New function: load-extension
5105 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
5107 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
5109 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
5110 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
5111 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
5113 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
5115 This function registers a initialization function for use by
5116 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
5117 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
5118 support dynamic linking).
5120 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
5122 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
5123 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
5124 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
5125 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
5128 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
5129 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
5130 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
5131 library and initialize it explicitly.
5133 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
5134 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
5136 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
5138 (define-module (foo bar))
5140 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
5142 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
5144 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
5145 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
5147 (scheme-report-environment 5)
5148 (null-environment 5)
5149 (interaction-environment)
5155 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
5157 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
5158 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
5159 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
5160 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
5162 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
5163 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
5164 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
5165 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
5166 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
5167 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
5168 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
5169 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
5170 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
5171 one eval to the next.
5173 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
5174 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
5175 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
5176 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
5177 subforms are at the top-level as well.
5179 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
5180 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
5181 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
5182 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
5183 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
5184 used in a lexical environment.
5186 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
5187 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
5188 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
5189 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
5190 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
5191 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
5193 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
5195 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
5196 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
5197 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
5198 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
5199 new facilities: selection and renaming.
5201 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
5202 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
5203 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
5205 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
5206 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
5208 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
5209 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
5210 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
5212 (remove-if . zonk-y)
5213 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
5215 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
5216 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
5217 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
5218 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
5221 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
5222 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
5223 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
5224 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
5226 (remove-if . zonk-y)
5227 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
5228 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
5230 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
5231 ;; and all four by upcasing.
5232 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
5233 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
5234 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
5236 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
5238 (remove-if . zonk-y)
5239 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
5240 :renamer upcase-symbol))
5242 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
5243 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
5244 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
5246 See manual for more info.
5248 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
5250 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
5251 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
5252 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
5254 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
5256 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
5257 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
5258 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
5260 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
5261 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
5262 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
5263 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
5265 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
5267 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
5268 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
5270 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
5271 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
5272 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
5273 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
5274 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
5277 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
5278 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
5279 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
5280 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
5281 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
5282 successful and #f if it wasn't.
5284 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
5285 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
5286 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
5287 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
5288 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
5290 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
5291 objects are usually permanent.
5293 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
5294 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
5296 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
5298 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
5299 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
5302 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
5306 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
5311 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
5313 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
5314 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
5315 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
5316 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
5318 ** New function `make-object-property'
5320 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
5321 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
5325 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
5326 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
5330 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
5331 source properties eventually.
5333 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
5335 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
5336 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
5337 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
5339 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
5340 will be removed in the next release.
5342 ** New define-module option: pure
5344 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
5349 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
5352 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
5354 Export names NAME1 ...
5356 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
5357 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
5361 (define-module (foo)
5363 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
5366 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
5371 ** New function: object->string OBJ
5373 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
5375 ** New function: port? X
5377 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
5378 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
5380 ** New function: file-port?
5382 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
5384 ** New function: port-for-each proc
5386 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
5387 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
5388 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
5389 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
5390 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
5392 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
5394 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
5395 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
5396 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
5397 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
5398 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
5401 ** New function: close-fdes fd
5403 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
5404 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
5405 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
5406 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
5409 ** New function: crypt password salt
5411 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
5414 ** New function: chroot path
5416 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
5418 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
5420 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
5423 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
5425 Get or set the priority of the running process.
5427 ** New function: getpass prompt
5429 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
5432 ** New function: flock file operation
5434 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
5436 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
5438 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
5441 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
5443 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
5444 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
5445 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
5446 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
5447 of the temporary file.
5449 ** New function: open-input-string string
5451 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
5452 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
5453 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
5455 ** New function: open-output-string
5457 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
5458 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
5460 ** New function: get-output-string
5462 Return the contents of an output string port.
5464 ** New function: identity
5466 Return the argument.
5468 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
5469 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
5471 ** New function: inet-pton family address
5473 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
5474 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
5475 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
5478 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
5479 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
5481 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
5483 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
5484 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
5485 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
5488 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
5489 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
5490 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
5494 Use `identity' instead.
5500 ** Deprecated: return-it
5504 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
5506 Use `string-length' instead.
5508 ** Deprecated: flags
5510 Use `logior' instead.
5512 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
5514 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
5515 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
5516 port-for-each is more flexible.
5518 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
5519 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
5520 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
5522 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
5524 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
5526 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
5528 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
5530 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
5532 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
5533 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
5535 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
5536 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
5538 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
5539 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
5541 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
5543 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
5544 Removed function: builtin-bindings
5546 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
5547 Use module system operations for all variables.
5549 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
5551 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
5554 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
5556 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
5557 The following bugs have been fixed:
5559 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
5560 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
5563 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
5564 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
5565 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
5567 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
5568 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
5570 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
5571 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
5574 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
5575 The expansion used to be like so:
5577 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
5579 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
5581 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
5583 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
5584 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
5586 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
5588 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
5589 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
5590 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
5594 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
5595 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
5597 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
5602 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
5603 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
5605 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
5606 and `d', other keywords allowed.
5607 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
5609 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
5612 * Changes to the C interface
5614 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
5616 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
5617 with "_t". What a concept.
5619 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
5621 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
5623 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
5627 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
5628 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
5630 *** C Functions removed
5632 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
5633 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
5634 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
5635 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
5636 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
5637 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
5638 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
5640 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
5642 Use scm_mem2string instead.
5644 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
5646 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
5648 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
5649 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
5651 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
5653 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
5656 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
5658 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
5660 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
5662 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
5663 Evaluation" in the manual.
5665 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
5667 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
5668 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
5670 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
5672 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
5673 Constructors" in the manual.
5675 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
5677 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
5678 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
5680 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
5682 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
5684 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
5685 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
5686 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
5688 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
5690 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
5692 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
5693 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
5694 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
5697 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
5699 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
5701 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
5702 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
5704 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
5706 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
5707 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
5708 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
5709 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
5711 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
5712 scm_primitive_property_ref
5713 scm_primitive_property_set_x
5714 scm_primitive_property_del_x
5716 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
5717 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
5719 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
5721 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
5722 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
5723 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
5724 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
5726 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
5728 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
5729 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
5730 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
5731 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
5732 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
5733 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
5734 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
5736 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
5737 scm_remember_upto_here
5739 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
5741 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
5743 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
5744 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
5746 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
5748 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
5750 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
5752 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
5754 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
5756 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
5757 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
5758 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
5759 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
5760 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
5761 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
5763 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
5765 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
5767 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
5768 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
5769 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
5771 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
5773 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
5774 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
5775 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
5777 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
5779 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
5780 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
5783 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
5786 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
5787 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
5790 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
5792 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
5794 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
5796 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
5798 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
5800 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
5802 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
5803 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
5804 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
5805 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
5806 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
5807 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
5808 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
5809 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
5810 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
5811 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
5812 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
5813 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
5814 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
5815 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
5816 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
5818 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
5819 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
5820 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
5821 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
5822 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
5823 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
5824 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
5825 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
5826 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
5827 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
5828 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
5829 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
5830 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
5831 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
5832 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
5833 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
5834 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
5835 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
5836 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
5837 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
5838 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
5839 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
5840 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
5841 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
5842 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
5843 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
5844 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
5845 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
5846 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
5848 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
5850 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
5852 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
5853 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
5855 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
5857 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
5859 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
5861 Use scm_string_hash instead.
5863 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
5865 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
5867 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
5869 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
5871 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
5874 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
5875 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
5877 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
5879 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
5881 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
5883 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
5885 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
5887 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
5889 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
5891 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
5894 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
5896 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
5898 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
5900 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
5901 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
5903 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
5904 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
5906 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
5908 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
5909 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
5910 scm_module_define, scm_define.
5912 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
5914 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
5916 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
5917 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
5919 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
5920 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
5921 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
5922 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
5924 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
5925 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
5926 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
5928 Use the new ones from above instead.
5930 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
5932 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
5933 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
5934 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
5936 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
5937 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
5939 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
5940 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
5943 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
5944 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
5946 Use the new functions instead.
5948 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
5951 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
5953 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
5955 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
5958 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
5960 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
5963 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
5965 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
5968 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
5969 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
5970 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
5972 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
5974 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
5975 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
5977 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
5978 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
5979 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
5980 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
5983 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
5985 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
5986 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
5987 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
5988 inexact for an exact.
5990 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
5991 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
5992 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
5995 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
5996 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
5997 accept an inexact argument.
5999 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
6000 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
6002 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
6005 ** New number validation macros:
6006 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
6010 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
6012 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
6013 scm_unprotect_object.
6015 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
6017 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
6019 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
6022 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
6024 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
6028 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
6030 * Changes to the distribution
6032 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
6034 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
6035 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
6036 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
6037 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
6038 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
6039 obtain these programs.
6040 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
6041 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
6043 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
6044 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
6045 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
6046 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
6047 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
6049 However, this approach means that minor differences between
6050 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
6051 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
6052 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
6056 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
6059 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
6060 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
6061 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
6062 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
6064 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
6066 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
6068 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
6069 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
6071 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
6072 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
6074 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
6075 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
6077 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
6078 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
6079 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
6080 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
6082 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
6084 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
6088 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
6089 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
6091 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
6093 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
6094 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
6096 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
6097 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
6098 number of objects of that kind.
6100 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
6102 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
6103 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
6104 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
6105 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
6106 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
6108 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
6110 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
6112 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
6114 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
6117 ** New module (ice-9 time)
6119 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
6121 ** New module (ice-9 history)
6123 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
6125 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6127 ** New command line option --debug
6129 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
6131 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
6133 ** New help facility
6135 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
6136 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
6137 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
6138 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
6139 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
6140 (help) gives this text
6142 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
6143 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
6145 Examples: (help help)
6147 (help "output-string")
6149 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
6151 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
6153 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
6154 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
6157 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
6158 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
6159 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
6162 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
6163 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
6164 use absolute filenames when possible.
6166 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
6167 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
6168 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
6171 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
6173 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
6174 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
6175 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
6176 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
6178 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
6180 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
6182 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
6183 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
6184 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
6186 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
6187 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
6188 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
6190 (read-enable 'positions)
6191 (debug-enable 'debug)
6193 ** Backtraces in scripts
6195 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
6199 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
6201 at the top of the script.
6203 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
6204 The second enables backtraces.)
6206 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
6208 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
6209 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
6210 substantially faster than before.
6212 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
6213 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
6215 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
6216 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
6218 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
6220 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
6221 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
6222 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
6224 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
6225 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
6226 when this hook is run in the future.
6228 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
6229 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
6231 ** Improvements to garbage collector
6233 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
6234 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
6237 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
6238 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
6239 more and more memory for certain programs.)
6241 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
6242 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
6244 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
6245 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
6247 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
6248 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
6249 in order not to need further allocation.)
6251 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
6254 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
6255 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
6256 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
6257 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
6259 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
6261 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
6264 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
6266 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
6269 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
6270 GC in percent of total heap size
6273 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
6274 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
6276 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
6278 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
6279 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
6281 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
6283 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
6284 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
6286 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
6288 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
6289 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
6293 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
6294 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
6296 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
6298 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6300 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
6302 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
6304 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
6306 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
6307 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
6309 (simple-format port message . args)
6310 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
6311 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
6312 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
6313 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
6314 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
6315 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
6316 Does not add a trailing newline."
6318 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
6320 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
6321 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
6323 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
6324 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
6326 ** Deprecated: list*
6328 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
6330 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
6332 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
6333 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
6335 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
6336 is returned as result.
6338 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
6340 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
6342 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
6344 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
6345 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
6348 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
6350 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
6352 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
6353 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
6355 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6357 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
6359 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
6361 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6363 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
6365 Thanks to Greg Badros!
6367 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
6369 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
6370 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
6371 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
6373 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
6376 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
6378 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
6379 the readability of argument checking.
6381 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
6383 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
6385 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
6387 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
6388 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
6389 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
6390 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
6391 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
6392 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
6393 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
6395 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
6397 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
6399 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
6400 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
6402 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
6404 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
6405 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
6408 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
6410 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
6411 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
6412 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
6414 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
6415 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
6416 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
6418 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
6419 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
6420 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
6421 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
6422 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
6423 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
6424 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
6426 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
6427 scm_end_input (object);
6428 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
6429 ptob->flush (object);
6431 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
6432 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
6435 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
6437 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
6439 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
6440 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
6441 removed in a future version.
6443 ** The format of error message strings has changed
6445 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
6446 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
6447 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
6448 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
6450 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
6451 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
6453 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
6456 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
6458 in your configure.in.
6460 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
6465 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
6471 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
6473 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
6477 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
6478 (define make-message string-append)
6480 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
6482 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
6486 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
6491 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
6495 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
6497 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
6498 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
6500 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
6502 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
6503 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
6504 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
6505 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
6506 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
6507 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
6509 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
6510 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
6511 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
6513 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
6514 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
6515 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
6518 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
6519 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
6520 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
6521 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
6522 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
6524 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
6525 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
6526 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
6527 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
6528 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
6529 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
6530 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
6532 Destructors are not yet implemented.
6534 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
6535 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
6536 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
6538 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
6539 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
6540 KEY in the calling thread.
6542 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
6543 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
6544 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
6545 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
6546 associated with the key.
6548 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
6550 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
6551 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
6553 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
6555 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
6556 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
6557 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
6559 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
6561 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
6562 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
6564 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
6566 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
6568 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
6569 returned is undefined.
6571 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
6572 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
6573 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
6575 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
6576 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
6577 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
6579 ** New C level GC hooks
6581 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
6583 scm_before_gc_c_hook
6586 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
6587 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
6588 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
6590 scm_before_mark_c_hook
6591 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
6592 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
6594 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
6595 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
6598 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
6600 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
6601 allocation parameters
6603 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
6604 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
6605 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
6609 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
6610 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
6611 scm_default_max_segment_size
6613 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
6615 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
6616 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
6618 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
6620 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
6621 object and count on the object being protected until
6622 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
6624 The functions also have better time complexity.
6626 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
6627 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
6628 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
6629 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
6630 are no longer needed.
6632 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
6634 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
6635 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
6636 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
6637 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
6639 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
6641 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
6643 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
6645 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
6646 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
6647 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
6648 until this issue has been settled.
6650 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
6652 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
6654 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
6657 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
6659 * Changes to system call interfaces:
6661 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
6662 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
6663 descriptors were checked.
6665 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
6666 atomically written to a pipe.
6668 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
6669 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
6670 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
6671 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
6672 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
6673 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
6674 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
6677 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
6678 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
6679 is changed without calling tzset.
6681 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
6683 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
6684 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
6685 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
6687 (define write-network-long
6688 (lambda (value port)
6689 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
6690 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
6691 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
6693 (define read-network-long
6695 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
6696 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
6697 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
6699 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
6700 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
6702 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
6703 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
6704 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
6705 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
6707 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
6708 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
6709 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
6710 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
6714 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
6716 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6720 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
6721 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
6722 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
6728 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
6729 for a description of available commands.
6731 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
6732 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
6733 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
6735 (debug-enable 'backwards)
6737 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
6738 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
6740 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
6742 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
6744 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
6745 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
6746 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
6747 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
6748 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
6749 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
6752 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
6754 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
6755 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
6756 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
6757 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
6759 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
6760 the file and should not be affected by this change.
6762 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
6764 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6766 ** Readline support has changed again.
6768 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
6769 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
6770 to activate readline is now
6772 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
6775 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
6777 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
6778 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
6779 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
6782 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
6783 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
6784 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
6787 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
6788 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
6789 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
6790 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
6791 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
6792 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
6794 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
6795 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
6797 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
6799 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
6800 object it receives is the same string passed to
6801 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
6802 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
6803 string, not the suffix.
6805 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
6806 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
6807 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
6809 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
6811 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
6812 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
6813 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
6814 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
6817 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
6819 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
6821 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
6822 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
6823 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
6824 appear from left to right.
6826 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
6829 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
6831 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
6832 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
6834 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
6838 *** New function: hook? OBJ
6840 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
6842 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
6844 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
6845 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
6846 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
6848 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
6850 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
6852 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
6854 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
6857 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
6859 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
6860 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
6861 mentioning it here anyway.
6863 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
6865 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
6866 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
6867 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
6868 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
6871 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
6873 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
6875 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
6877 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
6878 otherwise return #f.
6880 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
6882 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
6883 returned by `opendir'.
6885 ** New function: using-readline?
6887 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
6889 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
6891 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
6892 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
6894 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6896 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
6898 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
6899 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
6900 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
6902 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
6904 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
6905 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
6907 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
6909 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
6910 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
6911 documentation slots are not yet used.
6913 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
6915 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
6916 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
6917 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
6922 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
6923 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
6924 (string-append x y))
6926 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
6927 can also be used for concatenating strings.
6929 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
6930 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
6931 be made in a clean way.]
6933 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
6935 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
6937 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
6939 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
6940 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
6942 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6944 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
6946 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
6948 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
6950 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
6951 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
6952 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
6953 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
6956 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6958 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
6960 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
6962 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
6964 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
6965 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
6967 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
6969 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
6971 Evaluates the body of a special form.
6973 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
6975 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
6976 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
6977 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
6978 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
6979 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
6980 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
6982 This should not make any difference for most users.
6984 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
6986 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
6987 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
6989 *** New functions for applying generic functions
6991 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
6992 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
6993 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
6994 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
6995 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
6997 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
6999 It is now replaced by:
7001 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
7003 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
7004 binds a variable named NAME to it.
7006 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
7008 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
7009 This might change when we get the new module system.
7011 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
7015 Changes since Guile 1.3:
7017 * Changes to mailing lists
7019 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
7021 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
7024 * Changes to the distribution
7026 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
7028 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
7029 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
7030 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
7031 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
7032 you explicitly specify it.
7034 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
7035 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
7036 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
7037 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
7038 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
7041 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
7042 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
7043 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
7044 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
7046 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
7047 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
7048 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
7051 You can activate the readline support by issuing
7053 (use-modules (readline-activator))
7056 from your ".guile" file, for example.
7058 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
7060 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
7061 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
7062 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
7063 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
7065 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
7066 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
7069 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7071 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
7072 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
7073 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
7074 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
7075 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
7076 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
7077 the Guile interpreter or other unwanted results. An example of
7078 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
7090 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
7091 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
7092 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
7093 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
7094 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
7099 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
7100 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
7108 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
7113 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
7114 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
7117 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
7118 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
7119 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
7120 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
7122 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
7124 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
7126 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
7127 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
7129 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
7131 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
7133 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
7134 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
7136 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
7139 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
7141 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
7143 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
7145 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
7147 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
7149 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
7151 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
7152 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
7153 when the hook was created.
7155 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
7156 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
7157 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
7158 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
7159 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
7160 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
7161 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
7162 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
7163 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
7165 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
7166 the dlopen family of functions.
7168 ** New function `provided?'
7170 - Function: provided? FEATURE
7171 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
7172 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
7173 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
7175 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
7177 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
7178 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
7179 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
7180 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
7183 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
7184 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
7185 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
7186 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
7188 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
7189 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
7190 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
7193 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
7194 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
7195 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
7196 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
7197 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
7198 but with the flag set.
7200 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
7202 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
7203 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
7205 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
7206 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
7207 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
7208 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
7209 available Scheme format implementations.
7211 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
7212 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
7213 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
7214 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
7215 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
7216 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
7217 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
7218 output is to the current error port if available by the
7219 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
7222 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
7223 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
7224 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
7225 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
7226 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
7227 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
7228 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
7229 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
7231 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
7232 be executed at a time.
7235 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
7237 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
7238 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
7239 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
7241 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
7242 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
7243 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
7244 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
7245 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
7246 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
7247 general form of a directive is:
7249 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
7251 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
7253 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
7255 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
7256 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
7257 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
7260 Any (print as `display' does).
7264 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
7268 S-expression (print as `write' does).
7272 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
7278 print number sign always.
7281 print comma separated.
7283 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
7289 print number sign always.
7292 print comma separated.
7294 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
7300 print number sign always.
7303 print comma separated.
7305 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
7311 print number sign always.
7314 print comma separated.
7316 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
7321 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
7325 print a number as a Roman numeral.
7328 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
7331 print a number as an ordinal English number.
7334 print a number as a cardinal English number.
7339 prints `y' and `ies'.
7342 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
7345 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
7350 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
7354 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
7357 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
7358 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
7360 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
7363 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
7364 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
7366 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
7369 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
7371 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
7373 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
7376 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
7378 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
7380 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
7383 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
7386 The sign appears before the padding.
7394 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
7396 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
7401 print N page separators.
7411 newline is ignored, white space left.
7414 newline is left, white space ignored.
7419 relative tabulation.
7425 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
7427 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
7430 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
7432 converts by `string-capitalize'.
7435 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
7438 converts by `string-upcase'.
7441 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
7443 jumps N arguments forward.
7446 jumps 1 argument backward.
7449 jumps N arguments backward.
7452 jumps to the 0th argument.
7455 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
7457 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
7458 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
7460 take argument from N.
7463 true test conditional.
7466 if-else-then conditional.
7472 default clause follows.
7475 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
7477 at most N iterations.
7480 args from next arg (a list of lists).
7483 args from the rest of arguments.
7486 args from the rest args (lists).
7497 aborts if N <= M <= K
7499 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
7502 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
7505 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
7511 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
7513 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
7515 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
7516 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
7517 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
7518 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
7519 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
7520 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
7524 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
7528 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
7534 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
7537 Print a `#\space' character
7539 print N `#\space' characters.
7542 Print a `#\tab' character
7544 print N `#\tab' characters.
7547 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
7548 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
7549 must be a positive decimal number.
7552 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
7553 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
7554 be processed by `read'.
7557 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
7558 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
7559 be processed by `read'.
7562 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
7565 prints format version.
7568 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
7569 and format it accordingly.
7571 *** Configuration Variables
7573 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
7574 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
7575 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
7576 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
7579 format:symbol-case-conv
7580 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
7581 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
7582 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
7583 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
7584 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
7586 format:iobj-case-conv
7587 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
7588 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
7591 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
7594 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
7600 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
7601 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
7602 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
7603 `format' padding style.
7606 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
7607 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
7608 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
7609 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
7613 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
7614 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
7615 directive parameters or modifiers)).
7618 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
7619 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
7620 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
7621 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
7622 parameters or modifiers)).
7625 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
7627 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
7629 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
7630 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
7632 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
7633 string-downcase! functions.
7635 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
7636 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
7638 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
7641 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
7644 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
7645 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
7647 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
7649 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
7650 the symbol had be read by `read'.
7652 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
7653 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
7654 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
7655 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
7656 would if STRING were input.
7658 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
7660 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
7661 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
7662 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
7663 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
7666 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
7668 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
7669 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
7672 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
7674 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
7675 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
7677 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
7678 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
7680 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
7681 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
7682 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
7683 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
7685 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
7686 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
7688 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
7689 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
7690 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
7692 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
7693 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
7695 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
7696 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
7697 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
7698 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
7699 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
7701 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
7702 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
7703 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
7704 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
7705 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
7706 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
7708 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
7709 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
7710 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
7713 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
7714 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
7715 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
7716 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
7717 the following grammar:
7718 ((apples (single-char #\a))
7719 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
7720 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
7721 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
7722 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
7723 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
7724 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
7725 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
7726 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
7727 last option in its combination)
7729 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
7730 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
7731 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
7732 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
7734 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
7735 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
7736 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
7738 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
7739 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
7740 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
7742 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
7743 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
7744 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
7745 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
7746 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
7747 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
7748 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
7749 ordinary argument strings.
7751 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
7752 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
7753 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
7754 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
7756 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
7757 as a list, associated with the empty list.
7759 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
7760 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
7761 - a required option is omitted
7762 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
7763 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
7764 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
7765 - an option predicate fails
7770 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
7773 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
7774 (verbose (required? #f)
7777 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
7778 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
7779 (predicate ,string?))))
7781 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
7782 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
7784 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
7785 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
7786 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
7787 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
7790 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
7792 It will be removed in a few releases.
7794 ** New syntax: lambda*
7795 ** New syntax: define*
7796 ** New syntax: define*-public
7797 ** New syntax: defmacro*
7798 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
7799 Guile now supports optional arguments.
7801 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
7802 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
7803 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
7804 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
7805 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
7807 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
7808 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
7809 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
7811 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
7813 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
7814 and examples for `lambda*':
7817 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
7819 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
7820 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
7821 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
7822 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
7823 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
7824 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
7825 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
7826 can be checked with the bound? macro.
7828 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
7830 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
7831 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
7832 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
7833 are given as keywords are bound to values.
7835 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
7836 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
7837 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
7838 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
7839 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
7840 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
7841 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
7842 and until the procedure is called.
7844 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
7846 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
7847 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
7848 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
7849 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
7850 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
7851 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
7852 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
7853 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
7854 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
7855 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
7857 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
7858 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
7859 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
7860 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
7863 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
7865 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
7866 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
7867 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
7868 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
7870 ** New syntax: and-let*
7871 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
7873 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
7874 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
7875 (<variable> <expression>)
7878 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
7879 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
7880 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
7883 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
7884 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
7885 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
7886 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
7887 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
7888 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
7889 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
7891 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
7892 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
7893 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
7894 shadow earlier bindings.
7896 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
7898 ** New sorting functions
7900 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
7901 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
7902 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
7903 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
7905 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
7906 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
7909 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
7910 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
7911 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
7913 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
7914 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
7915 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
7916 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
7918 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
7919 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
7920 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
7921 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
7922 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
7925 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
7926 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
7927 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
7928 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
7929 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
7930 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
7932 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
7933 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
7934 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
7936 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
7937 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
7938 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
7941 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
7942 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
7943 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
7945 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
7946 Added for compatibility with scsh.
7948 ** New built-in random number support
7950 *** New function: random N [STATE]
7951 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
7952 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
7953 returned have a uniform distribution.
7955 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
7956 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
7957 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
7958 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
7959 effect of the `random' operation.
7961 *** New variable: *random-state*
7962 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
7963 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
7964 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
7965 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
7966 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
7969 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
7970 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
7971 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
7972 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
7973 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
7975 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
7976 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
7977 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
7978 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
7979 initialized using SEED.
7981 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
7982 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
7983 range between 0 and 1.
7985 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
7986 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
7987 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
7988 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
7989 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
7990 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
7991 or a uniform vector of doubles.
7993 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
7994 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
7995 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
7996 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
7997 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
7998 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
8000 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
8001 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
8002 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
8003 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
8005 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
8006 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
8007 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
8008 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
8010 *** New function: random:exp STATE
8011 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
8012 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
8014 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
8016 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
8019 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
8020 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
8023 ** New function: make-guardian
8024 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
8025 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
8026 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
8027 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
8028 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
8030 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
8031 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
8032 one object if at all.
8034 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
8035 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
8036 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
8038 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
8039 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
8040 read again in last-in first-out order.
8042 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
8043 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
8045 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
8047 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
8048 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
8049 file position is used.
8051 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
8052 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
8053 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
8055 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
8056 redefined using seek.
8058 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
8059 size is not supplied.
8061 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
8062 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
8064 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
8065 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
8067 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
8069 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
8070 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
8071 and returns the contents as a single string.
8073 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
8074 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
8075 lists in serial order.
8077 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
8078 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
8079 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
8081 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
8082 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
8083 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
8084 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
8086 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
8087 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
8088 and #f if an error occured.
8090 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
8092 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
8093 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
8094 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
8095 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
8097 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
8099 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
8102 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
8104 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
8107 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8111 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
8112 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
8114 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
8115 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
8119 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8121 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
8123 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
8124 binds a variable named NAME to it.
8126 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
8128 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
8129 might change when we get the new module system.
8131 ** The smob interface
8133 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
8134 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
8136 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
8138 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
8142 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
8143 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
8144 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
8145 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
8146 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
8147 will be freed by the default free function.
8149 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
8150 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
8151 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
8152 `scm_make_smob_type'.
8154 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
8155 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
8156 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
8157 `scm_make_smob_type'.
8159 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
8161 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
8162 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
8166 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
8167 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
8168 `scm_make_smob_type'.
8170 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
8171 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
8172 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
8173 `scm_make_smob_type'.
8175 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
8176 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
8177 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
8179 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
8180 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
8181 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
8182 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
8184 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
8185 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
8186 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
8188 *** scm_newptob has been removed
8192 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
8194 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
8195 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
8196 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
8198 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
8199 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
8200 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
8202 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
8203 a string port's buffer.
8205 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
8206 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
8207 function pointers which together define the current random number
8208 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
8209 number library functions.
8211 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
8214 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
8215 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
8218 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
8219 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
8221 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
8222 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
8224 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
8225 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
8228 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
8229 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
8230 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
8231 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
8233 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
8234 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
8235 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
8236 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
8237 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
8238 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
8239 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
8241 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
8242 by libguile and the application.
8244 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
8245 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
8246 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
8247 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
8249 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
8250 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
8252 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
8253 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
8254 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
8256 ** Random number library functions
8257 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
8258 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
8259 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
8261 The default random state is stored in:
8263 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
8264 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
8265 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
8270 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
8272 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
8273 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
8274 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
8275 isn't a random state.
8277 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
8278 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
8280 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
8281 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
8282 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
8283 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
8285 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
8286 Return 32 random bits.
8288 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
8289 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
8291 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
8292 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
8294 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
8295 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
8297 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
8298 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
8300 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
8301 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
8302 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
8306 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
8308 * Changes to the distribution
8310 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
8311 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
8312 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
8315 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
8316 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
8317 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
8319 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
8320 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
8321 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
8322 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
8325 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
8326 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
8327 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
8329 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
8331 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
8333 *** Function: batch-mode?
8335 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
8338 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
8340 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
8341 case has not been implemented.
8343 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
8344 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
8345 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
8348 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
8349 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
8351 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
8353 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
8355 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
8357 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
8358 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
8361 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
8362 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
8363 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
8364 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
8367 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
8369 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
8370 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
8371 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
8372 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
8373 find those libraries.
8375 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
8376 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
8379 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
8381 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
8382 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
8383 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
8384 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
8386 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
8387 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
8388 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
8392 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
8394 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
8395 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
8396 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
8399 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
8400 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
8401 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
8402 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
8404 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
8405 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
8408 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
8409 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
8410 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
8411 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
8412 compiler where to find the libraries.
8414 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
8415 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
8416 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
8418 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
8419 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
8420 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
8421 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
8422 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
8426 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
8428 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
8429 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
8430 internationalization support.
8432 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
8433 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
8434 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
8435 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
8436 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
8438 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
8439 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
8440 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
8441 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
8442 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
8444 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
8445 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
8446 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
8447 any GNU mirror site.
8449 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
8451 ** New function: add-history STRING
8452 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
8453 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
8454 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
8456 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
8458 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
8459 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
8460 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
8463 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
8464 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
8465 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
8467 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
8469 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
8472 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
8473 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
8476 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
8477 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
8478 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
8479 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
8480 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
8481 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
8483 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
8484 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
8485 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
8486 of the form mentioned above.
8488 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
8489 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
8490 returned in the special `rest' list.
8492 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
8493 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
8495 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
8497 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
8499 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
8501 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
8502 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
8503 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
8504 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
8505 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
8506 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
8507 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
8508 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
8511 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
8513 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
8515 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
8516 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
8519 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
8520 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
8521 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
8525 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
8526 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
8527 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
8528 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
8529 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
8530 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
8531 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
8532 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
8535 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
8537 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
8538 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
8539 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
8541 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
8543 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
8544 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
8546 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
8547 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
8548 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
8550 Why do we have this function?
8551 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
8552 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
8553 primitive, and display it differently, and
8554 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
8555 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
8558 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
8559 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
8562 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
8563 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
8564 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
8565 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
8567 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
8568 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
8571 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
8572 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
8574 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
8576 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
8577 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
8578 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
8579 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
8580 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
8581 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
8582 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
8585 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
8587 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
8588 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
8590 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
8591 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
8592 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
8593 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
8594 properly continue the print chain.
8596 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
8597 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
8598 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
8599 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
8600 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
8601 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
8602 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
8603 print-state, it is simply ignored.
8605 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
8606 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
8607 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
8608 safest to not check for these pairs.
8610 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
8611 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
8612 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
8613 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
8615 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
8617 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
8618 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
8620 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
8622 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
8624 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
8625 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
8626 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
8628 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
8629 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
8630 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
8632 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
8633 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
8634 the following functions and macros:
8636 Function: make-fluid
8638 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
8639 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
8640 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
8641 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
8642 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
8644 Function: fluid? OBJ
8646 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
8648 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
8649 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
8651 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
8652 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
8654 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
8656 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
8657 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
8658 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
8659 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
8660 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
8661 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
8662 modified by `with-fluids*'.
8664 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
8666 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
8667 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
8668 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
8669 should evaluate to a fluid.
8671 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
8673 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
8674 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
8675 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
8676 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
8677 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
8679 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
8682 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
8684 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
8686 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
8688 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
8691 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
8692 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
8693 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
8694 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
8695 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
8698 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
8699 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
8700 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
8702 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
8703 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
8704 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
8706 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
8707 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
8708 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
8709 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
8711 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
8712 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
8713 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
8714 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
8716 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
8717 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
8718 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
8719 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
8721 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
8722 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
8723 their revealed counts set to zero.
8725 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8726 Returns an integer file descriptor.
8728 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8729 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
8731 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8732 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
8734 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
8735 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
8736 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
8738 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
8739 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
8740 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
8742 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
8743 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
8744 default environment inherited by child processes.
8746 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
8747 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
8748 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
8750 The return value is unspecified.
8752 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
8753 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
8754 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
8755 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
8756 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
8758 The return value is unspecified.
8760 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
8761 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
8769 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
8770 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
8773 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
8776 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
8777 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
8778 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
8780 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
8781 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
8782 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
8783 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
8786 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
8787 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
8789 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
8790 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
8791 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
8792 the `environ' procedure.
8794 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
8795 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
8798 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
8799 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
8801 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
8802 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
8803 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
8804 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
8806 *** procedure: times
8807 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
8808 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
8809 return a selected component:
8812 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
8816 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
8819 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
8823 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
8824 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
8828 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
8829 terminated child processes.
8831 ** Removed: list-length
8832 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
8833 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
8835 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
8837 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
8839 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
8841 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
8842 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
8843 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
8844 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
8846 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
8847 extra complexity it introduces.
8849 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
8850 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
8852 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
8853 variable to any non-empty value.
8855 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
8856 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
8858 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8860 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
8861 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
8863 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
8865 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
8866 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
8868 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
8870 ** vector handling routines
8872 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
8873 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
8874 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
8875 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
8876 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
8878 ** pair and list routines
8880 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
8883 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
8885 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
8888 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8890 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
8892 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
8893 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
8894 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
8895 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
8896 site-specific initialization code.
8898 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
8899 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
8900 initialization processes.
8902 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
8903 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
8904 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
8905 initialized properly.
8907 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
8908 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
8909 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
8911 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
8912 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
8913 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
8914 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
8915 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
8917 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
8919 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
8920 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
8921 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
8922 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
8923 objects the smob refers to get marked.
8925 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
8926 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
8927 which look like this:
8930 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
8932 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
8933 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
8936 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
8937 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
8940 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
8942 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
8943 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
8944 you will need to change your functions slightly.
8946 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
8947 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
8948 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
8949 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
8950 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
8952 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
8953 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
8955 int (*free) (SCM port);
8956 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
8957 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
8958 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
8962 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
8963 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
8964 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
8966 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
8969 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
8970 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
8971 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
8973 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
8974 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
8975 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
8978 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
8982 struct timeval *timeout);
8984 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
8985 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
8986 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
8987 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
8988 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
8989 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
8991 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
8992 scm_catch_body_t body,
8994 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
8997 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
8998 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
8999 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
9000 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
9001 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
9002 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
9004 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
9006 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
9009 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
9010 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
9011 spawning threads from application C code.
9013 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
9014 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
9015 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
9016 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
9017 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
9018 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
9020 ** Removed functions:
9022 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
9023 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
9025 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
9027 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
9028 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
9030 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
9032 ** mbstrings are now removed
9034 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
9035 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
9037 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
9039 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
9040 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
9041 their new names and arguments:
9043 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
9044 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
9045 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
9046 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
9049 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
9051 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
9053 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
9056 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
9058 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
9059 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
9060 pass a #f arg to catch.
9062 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
9064 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
9065 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
9068 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
9069 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
9070 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
9071 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
9072 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
9073 reclaim its storage.
9075 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
9076 worrying that some other function you call will call
9077 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
9078 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
9079 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
9080 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
9083 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
9085 * Changes to the distribution
9087 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
9088 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
9091 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
9092 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
9094 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
9095 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
9097 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
9099 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
9100 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
9101 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
9103 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
9105 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
9106 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
9107 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
9108 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
9109 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
9110 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
9112 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
9113 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
9114 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
9117 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
9118 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
9119 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
9120 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
9122 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
9123 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
9124 libraries to your link command:
9126 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
9127 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
9128 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
9129 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
9131 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
9132 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
9133 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
9135 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
9137 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
9138 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
9141 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
9143 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
9144 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
9145 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
9146 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
9147 searched is system dependent.
9149 (dynamic-object? VAL)
9151 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
9153 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
9155 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
9156 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
9158 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
9160 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
9161 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
9162 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
9163 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
9164 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
9167 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
9169 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
9170 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
9171 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
9172 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
9173 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
9175 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
9177 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
9178 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
9180 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
9182 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
9183 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
9184 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
9187 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
9189 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
9190 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
9191 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
9192 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
9194 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
9195 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
9197 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
9199 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
9200 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
9202 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
9204 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
9205 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
9213 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
9215 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
9216 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
9217 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
9218 a more informative way.
9220 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
9221 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
9222 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
9223 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
9224 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
9225 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
9227 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
9228 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
9231 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
9232 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
9233 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
9236 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
9237 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
9238 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
9239 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
9240 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
9241 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
9243 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
9244 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
9245 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
9246 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
9249 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
9250 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
9251 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
9252 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
9253 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
9254 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
9256 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
9257 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
9258 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
9259 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
9260 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
9262 *** regexp functions
9264 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
9265 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
9266 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
9268 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
9269 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
9270 with SCSH regular expressions.
9272 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
9273 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
9274 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
9275 position of STR at which to begin matching.
9277 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
9278 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
9279 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
9280 `string-match' returns `#f'.
9282 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
9283 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
9284 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
9285 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
9286 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
9287 match strings against the compiled regexp.
9289 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
9290 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
9291 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
9292 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
9293 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
9295 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
9297 **** Constant: regexp/extended
9298 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
9299 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
9300 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
9302 **** Constant: regexp/icase
9303 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
9304 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
9306 **** Constant: regexp/newline
9307 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
9309 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
9312 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
9313 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
9314 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
9316 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
9317 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
9318 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
9320 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
9321 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
9322 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
9323 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
9324 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
9327 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
9329 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
9330 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
9331 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
9332 used when different portions of a string are passed to
9333 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
9334 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
9336 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
9337 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
9338 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
9340 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
9341 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
9344 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
9345 and replace them with the contents of another string.
9347 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
9348 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
9349 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
9350 may be one of the following arguments:
9352 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
9354 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
9356 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
9357 the regexp match is written.
9359 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
9360 following the regexp match is written.
9362 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
9363 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
9366 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
9367 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
9368 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
9369 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
9370 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
9371 which should be matched against this regular expression.
9373 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
9376 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
9377 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
9378 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
9379 written out to PORT.
9381 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
9382 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
9383 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
9384 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
9385 will return after processing a single match.
9387 *** Match Structures
9389 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
9390 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
9391 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
9392 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
9393 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
9394 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
9397 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
9398 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
9399 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
9400 information about the original target string that was matched against a
9401 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
9403 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
9404 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
9405 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
9407 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
9408 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
9409 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
9410 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
9411 number N did not match, return `#f'.
9413 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
9414 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
9416 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
9417 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
9419 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
9420 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
9422 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
9423 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
9425 **** Function: match:count MATCH
9426 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
9427 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
9428 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
9430 **** Function: match:string MATCH
9431 Return the original TARGET string.
9433 *** Backslash Escapes
9435 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
9436 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
9437 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
9438 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
9439 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
9440 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
9442 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
9443 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
9444 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
9445 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
9446 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
9447 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
9448 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
9449 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
9451 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
9452 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
9453 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
9454 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
9455 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
9456 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
9457 each match a single backslash in the target string.
9459 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
9460 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
9461 return the resulting string.
9463 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
9464 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
9465 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
9466 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
9467 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
9468 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
9469 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
9470 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
9471 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
9472 translated to the single character `*'.
9474 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
9475 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
9476 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
9477 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
9478 consecutive backslashes:
9480 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
9482 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
9483 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
9484 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
9486 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
9487 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
9488 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
9489 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
9490 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
9491 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
9493 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
9495 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
9496 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
9497 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
9498 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
9499 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
9500 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
9501 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
9502 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
9503 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
9504 cumbersome escape syntax.
9506 * Changes to the gh_ interface
9508 * Changes to the scm_ interface
9510 * Changes to system call interfaces:
9512 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
9515 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
9517 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
9519 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
9522 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
9523 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
9524 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
9525 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
9526 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
9528 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
9529 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
9530 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
9531 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
9532 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
9533 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
9534 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
9537 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
9538 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
9539 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
9542 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
9543 `force-output' on every port open for output.
9545 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
9546 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
9547 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
9548 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
9549 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
9550 installed, you can say:
9552 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
9555 * Changes to the scm_ interface
9557 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
9558 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
9559 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
9560 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
9561 new dynamic roots and threads.
9564 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
9566 * Changes to the distribution.
9568 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
9570 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
9571 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
9572 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
9573 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
9574 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
9575 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
9576 programming language. These are packaged together because the
9577 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
9579 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
9582 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
9583 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
9588 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
9590 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
9591 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
9593 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
9594 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
9595 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
9596 the (command-line) function.
9597 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
9598 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
9599 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
9601 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
9602 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
9603 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
9604 command line arguments
9605 -ds do -s script at this point
9606 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
9607 -h, --help display this help and exit
9608 -v, --version display version information and exit
9609 \ read arguments from following script lines
9611 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
9612 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
9614 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
9617 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
9621 (main (command-line))
9623 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
9625 ekko a speckled gecko
9627 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
9628 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
9629 following list of command-line arguments:
9631 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
9633 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
9634 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
9635 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
9636 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
9637 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
9639 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
9641 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
9643 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
9644 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
9647 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
9648 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
9649 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
9650 SCSH) for circumventing them.
9652 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
9653 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
9654 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
9655 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
9657 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
9661 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
9665 If the user invokes this script as follows:
9667 ekko a speckled gecko
9669 Unix expands this into
9671 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
9673 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
9674 read from the second line of the script, producing:
9676 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
9678 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
9679 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
9681 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
9682 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
9683 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
9684 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
9685 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
9686 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
9687 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
9688 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
9689 it only terminates the argument list.)
9690 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
9691 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
9692 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
9693 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
9694 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
9695 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
9696 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
9697 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
9699 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
9701 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
9702 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
9703 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
9704 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
9705 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
9707 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
9708 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
9709 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
9711 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
9713 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
9714 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
9715 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
9716 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
9719 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
9720 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
9721 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
9723 * Changes to Scheme functions
9725 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
9726 and disabled by default.
9728 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
9729 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
9730 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
9731 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
9733 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
9735 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
9737 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
9738 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
9740 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
9741 (read-set! keywords #f)
9743 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
9744 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
9745 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
9748 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
9749 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
9750 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
9753 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
9754 support for Scheme functions.
9756 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
9757 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
9758 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
9759 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
9762 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
9763 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
9764 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
9767 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
9768 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
9769 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
9772 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
9773 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
9774 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
9775 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
9776 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
9777 display the result as a prompt.
9778 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
9780 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
9781 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
9782 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
9785 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
9786 procedure of zero arguments.
9788 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
9789 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
9790 argument is bound in the current module.
9792 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
9793 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
9794 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
9795 public bindings into the current module.
9797 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
9798 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
9800 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
9801 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
9803 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
9804 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
9806 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
9807 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
9809 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
9810 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
9812 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
9813 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
9814 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
9815 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
9816 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
9818 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
9819 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
9820 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
9821 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
9823 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
9826 ** Changes to I/O functions
9828 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
9829 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
9830 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
9832 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
9833 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
9834 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
9836 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
9837 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
9839 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
9840 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
9841 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
9842 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
9844 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
9846 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
9847 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
9849 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
9850 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
9851 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
9852 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
9853 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
9856 'trim omit delimiter from result
9857 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
9858 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
9859 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
9861 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
9863 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
9864 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
9866 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
9867 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
9868 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
9869 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
9870 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
9872 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
9873 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
9874 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
9876 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
9877 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
9878 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
9879 above, and defaults to 'peek.
9881 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
9882 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
9884 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
9885 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
9887 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
9889 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
9890 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
9891 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
9892 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
9893 a delimiting character.
9894 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
9896 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
9897 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
9898 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
9899 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
9900 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
9901 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
9903 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
9904 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
9906 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
9907 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
9908 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
9910 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
9911 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
9912 the array to read and write.
9914 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
9915 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
9918 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
9920 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
9923 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
9924 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
9925 Values for COMMAND are:
9927 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
9928 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
9929 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
9930 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
9931 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
9932 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
9933 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
9934 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
9936 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
9938 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
9939 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
9940 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
9941 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
9942 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
9943 corresponding return set will be the same.
9945 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
9948 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
9949 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
9950 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
9951 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
9952 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
9953 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
9954 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
9955 special file being created.
9957 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
9958 clashing with various SCSH forks.
9960 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
9961 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
9962 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
9963 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
9964 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
9965 and originating address.
9967 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
9968 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
9969 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
9971 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
9974 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
9975 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
9978 (status:exit-val STATUS)
9979 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
9980 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
9981 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
9982 this function returns #f.
9984 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
9985 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
9986 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
9989 (status:term-sig STATUS)
9990 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
9991 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
9994 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
9995 a valid STATUS value.
9997 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
9999 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
10000 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
10002 Component Accessor Setter
10003 ========================= ============ ============
10004 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
10005 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
10006 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
10007 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
10008 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
10009 year tm:year set-tm:year
10010 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
10011 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
10012 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
10013 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
10014 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
10016 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
10017 describing the host system:
10020 ============================================== ================
10021 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
10022 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
10023 release level of the operating system utsname:release
10024 version level of the operating system utsname:version
10025 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
10027 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
10028 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
10029 system's user database:
10032 ====================== =================
10033 user name passwd:name
10034 user password passwd:passwd
10036 group id passwd:gid
10037 real name passwd:gecos
10038 home directory passwd:dir
10039 shell program passwd:shell
10041 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
10042 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
10043 system's group database:
10046 ======================= ============
10047 group name group:name
10048 group password group:passwd
10050 group members group:mem
10052 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
10053 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
10057 ========================= ===============
10058 official name of host hostent:name
10059 alias list hostent:aliases
10060 host address type hostent:addrtype
10061 length of address hostent:length
10062 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
10064 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
10065 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
10069 ========================= ===============
10070 official name of net netent:name
10071 alias list netent:aliases
10072 net number type netent:addrtype
10073 net number netent:net
10075 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
10076 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
10077 internet protocols:
10080 ========================= ===============
10081 official protocol name protoent:name
10082 alias list protoent:aliases
10083 protocol number protoent:proto
10085 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
10086 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
10087 internet protocols:
10090 ========================= ===============
10091 official service name servent:name
10092 alias list servent:aliases
10093 port number servent:port
10094 protocol to use servent:proto
10096 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
10097 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
10100 ======================================== ===============
10101 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
10102 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
10103 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
10104 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
10106 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
10107 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
10108 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
10110 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
10111 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
10113 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
10114 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
10116 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
10117 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
10119 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
10121 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
10123 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
10124 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
10125 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
10127 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
10128 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
10129 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
10130 return the remaining characters as a string.
10132 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
10133 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
10134 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
10136 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
10138 * Changes to the gh_ interface
10140 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
10143 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
10146 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
10147 and returns the array
10149 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
10150 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
10151 the user to interpret the data both ways.
10153 * Changes to the scm_ interface
10155 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
10156 symbol's value from C code:
10158 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
10159 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
10160 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
10161 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
10163 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
10164 without assigning them a value.
10166 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
10167 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
10168 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
10170 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
10171 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
10172 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
10174 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
10175 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
10177 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
10178 doesn't actually care about that.
10180 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
10181 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
10182 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
10184 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
10185 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
10186 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
10187 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
10188 which we have just created and initialized.
10190 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
10191 should one occur. We call it like this:
10192 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
10194 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
10195 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
10196 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
10197 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
10198 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
10199 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
10202 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
10203 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
10204 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
10205 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
10206 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
10207 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
10208 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
10209 enclosed variables.
10211 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
10212 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
10213 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
10214 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
10215 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
10218 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
10219 scm_internal_catch, except:
10221 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
10222 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
10223 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
10224 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
10227 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
10228 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
10229 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
10231 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
10232 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
10233 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
10234 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
10237 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
10238 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
10239 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
10241 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
10242 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
10243 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
10244 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
10245 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
10247 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
10248 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
10249 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
10251 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
10252 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
10253 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
10255 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
10256 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
10258 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
10259 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
10260 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
10263 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
10264 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
10265 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
10266 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
10267 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
10268 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
10269 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
10270 interpreter" above.
10272 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
10273 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
10275 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
10276 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
10277 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
10278 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
10279 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
10282 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
10283 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
10285 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
10286 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
10289 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
10290 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
10292 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
10295 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
10296 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
10297 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
10298 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
10299 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
10300 given the following arguments:
10302 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
10304 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
10306 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
10308 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
10311 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
10312 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
10313 command-line arguments.
10315 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
10316 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
10317 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
10318 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
10319 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
10320 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
10323 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
10326 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
10327 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
10329 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
10330 rearranged slightly. They are now:
10332 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
10333 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
10334 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
10335 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
10337 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
10338 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
10340 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
10341 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
10342 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
10343 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
10345 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
10346 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
10348 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
10349 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
10351 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
10353 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
10354 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
10355 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
10358 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
10359 returns a port instead of an FD object.
10361 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
10362 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
10367 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
10370 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
10372 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
10373 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
10374 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
10375 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
10377 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
10379 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
10381 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
10382 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
10383 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
10384 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
10385 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
10386 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
10387 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
10388 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
10389 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
10390 for more information.
10392 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
10393 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
10395 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
10396 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
10397 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
10398 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
10399 following two lines at the top of the file:
10401 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
10404 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
10405 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
10406 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
10408 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
10410 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
10412 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
10415 (display (car args))
10416 (if (pair? (cdr args))
10418 (loop (cdr args)))))
10421 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
10422 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
10423 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
10424 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
10425 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
10426 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
10430 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
10433 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
10436 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
10438 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
10439 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
10440 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
10441 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
10442 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
10445 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
10446 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
10447 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
10448 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
10449 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
10452 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
10455 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
10456 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
10457 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
10460 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
10461 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
10462 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
10464 to see a backtrace, and
10465 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
10466 to see them by default.
10470 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
10472 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
10474 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
10475 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
10478 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
10479 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
10480 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
10481 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
10484 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
10485 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
10486 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
10487 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
10488 functions which inspired them.
10490 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
10491 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
10495 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
10497 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
10499 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
10500 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
10503 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
10504 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
10505 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
10507 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
10508 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
10509 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
10510 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
10511 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
10513 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
10515 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
10516 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
10517 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
10520 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
10523 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
10525 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
10526 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
10527 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
10528 above should serve their purposes.
10530 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
10531 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
10532 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
10533 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
10535 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
10538 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
10539 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
10540 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
10541 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
10543 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
10544 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
10545 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
10546 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
10548 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
10549 for the `read' function.
10552 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
10553 to that of `integer?'.
10555 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
10556 use the R4RS names for these functions.
10558 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
10559 it simply returns the object's property list.
10561 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
10562 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
10563 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
10564 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
10566 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
10568 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
10571 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
10573 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
10574 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
10576 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
10578 void (*main_func) (),
10581 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
10582 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
10583 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
10584 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
10585 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
10587 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
10588 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
10589 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
10590 know which arguments have been processed.
10592 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
10593 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
10594 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
10595 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
10596 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
10598 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
10599 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
10600 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
10601 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
10602 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
10603 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
10604 people from making that mistake.
10606 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
10607 convenient ways to override these when desired.
10609 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
10611 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
10615 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
10618 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
10619 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
10620 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
10621 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
10624 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
10625 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
10626 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
10627 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
10630 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
10631 have been added to the Guile library.
10633 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
10634 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
10635 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
10638 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
10639 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
10640 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
10642 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
10643 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
10644 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
10645 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
10646 argument from the list.
10649 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
10652 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
10653 null-terminated string, and returns it.
10655 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
10656 to a Scheme port object.
10658 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
10659 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
10664 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
10666 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
10667 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
10668 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
10669 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
10670 code as a special datatype.
10672 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
10673 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
10674 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
10675 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
10676 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
10679 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
10680 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
10681 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
10682 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
10683 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
10685 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
10688 Copyright information:
10690 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
10692 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
10693 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
10694 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
10695 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
10697 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
10698 of this document, or of portions of it,
10699 under the above conditions, provided also that they
10700 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
10705 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"