1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Changes since Guile 1.4:
9 * Changes to the distribution
11 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
13 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
14 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
15 to be named `and-let*', of course.
17 On systems that support it, there is also a compatability module named
18 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
20 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
25 (oop goops active-slot)
26 (oop goops composite-slot)
28 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
29 integrated into Guile.
33 (use-modules (oop goops))
35 access GOOPS bindings.
37 We're now ready to try some basic GOOPS functionality.
41 (define-method (+ (x <string>) (y <string>))
45 (+ "abc" "de") --> "abcde"
49 (define-class <2D-vector> ()
50 (x #:init-value 0 #:accessor x-component #:init-keyword #:x)
51 (y #:init-value 0 #:accessor y-component #:init-keyword #:y))
53 (define-method write ((obj <2D-vector>) port)
54 (display (format #f "<~S, ~S>" (x-component obj) (y-component obj))
57 (define v (make <2D-vector> #:x 3 #:y 4))
60 (define-method + ((x <2D-vector>) (y <2D-vector>))
62 #:x (+ (x-component x) (x-component y))
63 #:y (+ (y-component x) (y-component y))))
67 Asking for the type of an object
69 (class-of v) --> #<<class> <2D-vector> 40241ac0>
70 <2D-vector> --> #<<class> <2D-vector> 40241ac0>
71 (class-of 1) --> #<<class> <integer> 401b2a98>
72 <integer> --> #<<class> <integer> 401b2a98>
74 (is-a? v <2D-vector>) --> #t
76 See further in the GOOPS tutorial available in the guile-doc
77 distribution in info (goops.info) and texinfo formats.
79 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
81 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
82 in the default environment:
84 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
87 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
88 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
90 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
92 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
95 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
96 can be used for similar functionality.
98 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
100 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
104 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
105 (define m (make-safe-module))
106 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
107 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
108 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
110 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
112 ** `port-for-each' makes an additional guarantee.
114 From the docstring: @var{proc} is applied exactly once to every port
115 that exists in the system at the time @var{port-for-each} is invoked.
116 Changes to the port table while @var{port-for-each} is running have no
117 effect as far as @var{port-for-each} is concerned.
119 This guarantee is important to make (ice-9 popen) work reliable.
121 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
123 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
124 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
125 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
127 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
129 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
130 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
131 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
133 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
134 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
135 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
136 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
138 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
140 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
141 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
143 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
144 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
145 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
146 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
147 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
150 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
151 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
152 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
153 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
154 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
155 successful and #f if it wasn't.
157 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
158 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
159 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
160 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
161 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
163 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
164 objects are usually permanent.
166 ** Escape procedures created by call-with-current-continuation now
167 accept any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
169 ** New function `make-object-property'
171 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
172 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
176 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
177 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
181 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
182 source properties eventually.
184 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
186 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
187 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
188 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
190 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
191 will be removed in the next release.
193 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
195 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
196 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
198 (scheme-report-environment 5)
200 (interaction-environment)
206 ** New define-module option: pure
208 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
213 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
216 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
218 Export names NAME1 ...
220 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
221 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
227 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
230 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
235 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
237 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
239 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
240 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
242 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
244 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
247 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
249 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
251 ** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
253 Read characters from an fport or file descriptor into a string
254 STR. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
255 large strings. It will:
257 * attempt to fill the entire string, unless the START and/or
258 END arguments are supplied. i.e., START defaults to 0 and
259 END defaults to `(string-length str)'
261 * use the current input port if PORT_OR_FDES is not supplied.
263 * read any characters that are currently available, without
264 waiting for the rest (short reads are possible).
266 * wait for as long as it needs to for the first character to
267 become available, unless the port is in non-blocking mode
269 * return `#f' if end-of-file is encountered before reading any
270 characters, otherwise return the number of characters read.
272 * return 0 if the port is in non-blocking mode and no characters
273 are immediately available.
275 * return 0 if the request is for 0 bytes, with no end-of-file
278 ** New function: port? X
280 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
281 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
283 ** New function: file-port?
285 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
287 ** New function: port-for-each proc
289 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The
290 return value is unspecified.
292 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
294 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
295 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
296 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
297 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
298 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
301 ** New function: close-fdes fd
303 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
304 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
305 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
306 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
309 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except. This was intended for closing
310 ports in a child process after a fork, but it has the undesirable side
311 effect of flushing buffers. port-for-each is more flexible.
313 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
314 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
315 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
317 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
319 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
321 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
323 * Changes to the gh_ interface
325 * Changes to the scm_ interface
327 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
329 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
330 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
332 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
334 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
335 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
336 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
337 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
339 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
340 scm_primitive_property_ref
341 scm_primitive_property_set_x
342 scm_primitive_property_del_x
344 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
345 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
347 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
349 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
350 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
351 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
352 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
354 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
356 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
357 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
358 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
359 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
360 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
361 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
362 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
364 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
365 scm_remember_upto_here
367 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
369 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
371 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
372 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
374 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
376 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
377 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
378 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
379 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
380 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
381 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
383 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
385 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
387 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
388 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
389 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
391 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
393 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
394 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
395 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
397 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
399 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
400 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
403 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
406 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
407 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
410 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
412 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
414 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
416 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
418 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
420 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
422 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
423 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
424 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
425 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
426 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
427 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
428 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
429 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
430 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
431 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
432 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
433 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR
435 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
436 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
437 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
438 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
439 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
440 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
441 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
442 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
443 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
444 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
445 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
446 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
447 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
448 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
449 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
450 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
451 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
452 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
453 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
454 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
455 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
456 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
457 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
459 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
461 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
463 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
464 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
466 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
468 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
470 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
472 Use scm_string_hash instead.
474 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
476 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
478 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
480 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
482 ** New function: scm_gentemp (SCM prefix, SCM obarray)
484 The builtin `gentemp' has now become a primitive.
486 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
489 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
490 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
492 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
494 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
496 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
498 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
501 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
503 * Changes to the distribution
505 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
507 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
508 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
509 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
510 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
511 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
512 obtain these programs.
513 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
514 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
516 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
517 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
518 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
519 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
520 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
522 However, this approach means that minor differences between
523 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
524 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
525 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
529 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
532 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
533 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
534 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
535 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
537 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
539 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
541 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
542 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
544 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
545 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
547 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
548 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
550 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
551 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
552 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
553 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
555 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
557 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
561 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
562 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
564 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
566 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
567 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
569 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
570 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
571 number of objects of that kind.
573 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
575 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
576 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
577 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
578 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
579 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
581 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
583 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
585 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
587 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
590 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
592 ** New command line option --debug
594 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
596 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
600 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
601 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
602 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
603 (help) gives this text
605 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
606 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
608 Examples: (help help)
610 (help "output-string")
612 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
614 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
616 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
617 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
620 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
621 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
622 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
625 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
626 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
627 use absolute filenames when possible.
629 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
630 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
631 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
634 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
636 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
637 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
638 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
639 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
641 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
643 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
645 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
646 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
647 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
649 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
650 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
651 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
653 (read-enable 'positions)
654 (debug-enable 'debug)
656 ** Backtraces in scripts
658 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
662 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
664 at the top of the script.
666 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
667 The second enables backtraces.)
669 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
671 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
672 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
673 substantially faster than before.
675 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
676 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
678 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
679 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
681 ** gc-thunk is deprecated
683 gc-thunk will be removed in next release of Guile. It has been
684 replaced by after-gc-hook.
686 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
688 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
689 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
690 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
692 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
693 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
694 when this hook is run in the future.
696 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
697 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
699 ** Improvements to garbage collector
701 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
702 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
705 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
706 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
707 more and more memory for certain programs.)
709 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
710 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
712 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
713 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
715 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
716 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
717 in order not to need further allocation.)
719 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
722 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
723 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
724 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
725 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
727 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
729 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
732 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
734 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
737 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
738 GC in percent of total heap size
741 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
742 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
744 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
746 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
747 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
749 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
751 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
752 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
754 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
756 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
757 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
761 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
762 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
764 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
766 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
768 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
770 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
772 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
774 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
775 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
777 (simple-format port message . args)
778 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
779 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
780 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
781 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
782 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
783 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
784 Does not add a trailing newline."
786 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
788 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
789 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
791 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
792 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
796 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
798 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
800 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
801 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
803 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
804 is returned as result.
806 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
808 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
810 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
812 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
813 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
816 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
818 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
820 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
821 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
823 * Changes to the gh_ interface
825 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
827 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
829 * Changes to the scm_ interface
831 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
833 Thanks to Greg Badros!
835 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
837 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
838 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
839 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
841 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
844 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
846 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
847 the readability of argument checking.
849 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
851 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
853 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
855 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
856 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
857 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
858 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
859 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
860 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
861 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
863 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
865 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
867 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
868 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
870 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
872 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
873 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
876 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
878 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
879 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
880 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
882 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
883 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
884 implementation with gmp in the future.
886 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
887 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
888 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
890 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
891 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
892 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
893 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
894 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
895 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
896 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
898 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
899 scm_end_input (object);
900 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
901 ptob->flush (object);
903 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
904 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
907 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
909 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
911 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
912 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
913 removed in a future version.
915 ** The format of error message strings has changed
917 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
918 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
919 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
920 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
922 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
923 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
925 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
928 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
930 in your configure.in.
932 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
937 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
943 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
945 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
949 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
950 (define make-message string-append)
952 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
954 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
958 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
963 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
967 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
969 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
970 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
972 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
974 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
975 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
976 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
977 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
978 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
979 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
981 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
982 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
983 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
985 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
986 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
987 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
990 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
991 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
992 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
993 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
994 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
996 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
997 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
998 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
999 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
1000 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
1001 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
1002 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
1004 Destructors are not yet implemented.
1006 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
1007 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
1008 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
1010 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
1011 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
1012 KEY in the calling thread.
1014 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
1015 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
1016 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
1017 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
1018 associated with the key.
1020 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
1022 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
1023 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
1025 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
1027 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
1028 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
1029 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
1031 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
1033 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
1034 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
1036 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
1038 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
1040 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
1041 returned is undefined.
1043 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
1044 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
1045 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
1047 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
1048 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
1049 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
1051 ** New C level GC hooks
1053 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
1055 scm_before_gc_c_hook
1058 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
1059 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
1060 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
1062 scm_before_mark_c_hook
1063 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
1064 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
1066 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
1067 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
1070 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
1072 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
1073 allocation parameters
1075 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
1076 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
1077 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
1081 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
1082 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
1083 scm_default_max_segment_size
1085 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
1087 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
1088 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
1090 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
1092 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
1093 object and count on the object being protected until
1094 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
1096 The functions also have better time complexity.
1098 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
1099 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
1100 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
1101 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
1102 are no longer needed.
1104 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
1106 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
1107 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
1108 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
1109 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
1111 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
1113 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
1115 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
1117 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
1118 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
1119 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
1120 until this issue has been settled.
1122 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
1124 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
1126 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
1129 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
1131 * Changes to system call interfaces:
1133 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
1134 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
1135 descriptors were checked.
1137 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
1138 atomically written to a pipe.
1140 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
1141 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
1142 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
1143 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
1144 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
1145 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
1146 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
1149 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
1150 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
1151 is changed without calling tzset.
1153 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
1155 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
1156 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
1157 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
1159 (define write-network-long
1160 (lambda (value port)
1161 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1162 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
1163 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
1165 (define read-network-long
1167 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1168 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
1169 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
1171 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
1172 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
1174 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
1175 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
1176 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
1177 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
1179 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
1180 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
1181 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
1182 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
1186 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
1188 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1192 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
1193 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
1194 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
1200 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
1201 for a description of available commands.
1203 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
1204 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
1205 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
1207 (debug-enable 'backwards)
1209 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
1210 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
1212 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
1214 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
1216 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
1217 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
1218 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
1219 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
1220 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
1221 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
1224 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
1226 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
1227 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
1228 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
1229 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
1231 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
1232 the file and should not be affected by this change.
1234 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
1236 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1238 ** Readline support has changed again.
1240 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
1241 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
1242 to activate readline is now
1244 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
1247 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
1249 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
1250 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
1251 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
1254 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
1255 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
1256 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
1259 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
1260 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
1261 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
1262 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
1263 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
1264 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
1266 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
1267 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
1269 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
1271 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
1272 object it receives is the same string passed to
1273 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
1274 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
1275 string, not the suffix.
1277 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
1278 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
1279 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
1281 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
1283 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
1284 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
1285 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
1286 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
1289 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
1291 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
1293 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
1294 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
1295 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
1296 appear from left to right.
1298 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
1301 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
1303 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
1304 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
1306 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
1310 *** New function: hook? OBJ
1312 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
1314 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
1316 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
1317 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
1318 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
1320 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
1322 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
1324 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
1326 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
1329 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
1331 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
1332 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
1333 mentioning it here anyway.
1335 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
1337 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
1338 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
1339 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
1340 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
1343 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
1345 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
1347 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
1349 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
1350 otherwise return #f.
1352 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
1354 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
1355 returned by `opendir'.
1357 ** New function: using-readline?
1359 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
1361 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
1363 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
1364 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
1366 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1368 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
1370 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
1371 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
1372 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
1374 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
1376 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
1377 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
1379 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
1381 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
1382 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
1383 documentation slots are not yet used.
1385 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
1387 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
1388 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
1389 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
1394 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
1395 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
1396 (string-append x y))
1398 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
1399 can also be used for concatenating strings.
1401 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
1402 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
1403 be made in a clean way.]
1405 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
1407 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
1409 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
1411 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
1412 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
1414 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1416 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
1418 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
1420 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
1422 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
1423 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
1424 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
1425 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
1428 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1430 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
1432 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
1434 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
1436 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
1437 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
1439 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1441 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
1443 Evaluates the body of a special form.
1445 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
1447 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
1448 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
1449 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
1450 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
1451 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
1452 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
1454 This should not make any difference for most users.
1456 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
1458 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
1459 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
1461 *** New functions for applying generic functions
1463 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
1464 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
1465 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
1466 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
1467 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
1469 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
1471 It is now replaced by:
1473 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
1475 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
1476 binds a variable named NAME to it.
1478 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
1480 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
1481 This might change when we get the new module system.
1483 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
1487 Changes since Guile 1.3:
1489 * Changes to mailing lists
1491 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
1493 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
1496 * Changes to the distribution
1498 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
1500 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
1501 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
1502 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
1503 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
1504 you explicitly specify it.
1506 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
1507 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
1508 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
1509 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
1510 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
1513 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
1514 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
1515 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
1516 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
1518 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
1519 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
1520 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
1523 You can activate the readline support by issuing
1525 (use-modules (readline-activator))
1528 from your ".guile" file, for example.
1530 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1532 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
1533 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
1534 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
1535 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
1537 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
1538 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
1541 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1543 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
1544 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
1545 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
1546 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
1547 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
1548 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
1549 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
1550 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
1562 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
1563 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
1564 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
1565 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
1566 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
1571 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
1572 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
1580 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
1585 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
1586 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
1589 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
1590 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
1591 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
1592 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
1594 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
1596 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
1598 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
1599 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
1601 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
1603 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
1605 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
1606 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
1608 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
1611 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
1613 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
1615 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
1617 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
1619 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
1621 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
1623 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
1624 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
1625 when the hook was created.
1627 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
1628 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
1629 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
1630 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
1631 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
1632 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
1633 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
1634 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
1635 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
1637 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
1638 the dlopen family of functions.
1640 ** New function `provided?'
1642 - Function: provided? FEATURE
1643 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
1644 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
1645 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
1647 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
1649 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
1650 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
1651 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
1652 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
1655 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
1656 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
1657 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
1658 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
1660 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
1661 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
1662 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
1665 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
1666 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
1667 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
1668 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
1669 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
1670 but with the flag set.
1672 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
1674 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
1675 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
1677 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
1678 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
1679 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
1680 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
1681 available Scheme format implementations.
1683 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
1684 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
1685 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
1686 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
1687 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
1688 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
1689 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
1690 output is to the current error port if available by the
1691 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
1694 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
1695 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
1696 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
1697 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
1698 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
1699 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
1700 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
1701 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
1703 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
1704 be executed at a time.
1707 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
1709 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
1710 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
1711 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
1713 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
1714 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
1715 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
1716 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
1717 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
1718 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
1719 general form of a directive is:
1721 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
1723 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
1725 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
1727 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
1728 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
1729 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
1732 Any (print as `display' does).
1736 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
1740 S-expression (print as `write' does).
1744 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
1750 print number sign always.
1753 print comma separated.
1755 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
1761 print number sign always.
1764 print comma separated.
1766 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
1772 print number sign always.
1775 print comma separated.
1777 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
1783 print number sign always.
1786 print comma separated.
1788 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
1793 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
1797 print a number as a Roman numeral.
1800 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
1803 print a number as an ordinal English number.
1806 print a number as a cardinal English number.
1811 prints `y' and `ies'.
1814 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
1817 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
1822 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
1826 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
1829 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
1830 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
1832 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1835 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
1836 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
1838 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1841 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
1843 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
1845 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1848 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
1850 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
1852 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1855 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
1858 The sign appears before the padding.
1866 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
1868 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
1873 print N page separators.
1883 newline is ignored, white space left.
1886 newline is left, white space ignored.
1891 relative tabulation.
1897 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
1899 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
1902 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
1904 converts by `string-capitalize'.
1907 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
1910 converts by `string-upcase'.
1913 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
1915 jumps N arguments forward.
1918 jumps 1 argument backward.
1921 jumps N arguments backward.
1924 jumps to the 0th argument.
1927 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
1929 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
1930 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
1932 take argument from N.
1935 true test conditional.
1938 if-else-then conditional.
1944 default clause follows.
1947 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
1949 at most N iterations.
1952 args from next arg (a list of lists).
1955 args from the rest of arguments.
1958 args from the rest args (lists).
1969 aborts if N <= M <= K
1971 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
1974 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
1977 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
1983 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
1985 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
1987 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
1988 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
1989 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
1990 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
1991 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
1992 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
1996 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
2000 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
2006 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
2009 Print a `#\space' character
2011 print N `#\space' characters.
2014 Print a `#\tab' character
2016 print N `#\tab' characters.
2019 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
2020 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
2021 must be a positive decimal number.
2024 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2025 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2026 be processed by `read'.
2029 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2030 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2031 be processed by `read'.
2034 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
2037 prints format version.
2040 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
2041 and format it accordingly.
2043 *** Configuration Variables
2045 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
2046 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
2047 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
2048 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
2051 format:symbol-case-conv
2052 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
2053 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
2054 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
2055 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
2056 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
2058 format:iobj-case-conv
2059 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
2060 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
2063 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
2066 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
2072 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
2073 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
2074 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
2075 `format' padding style.
2078 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
2079 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
2080 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
2081 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
2085 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
2086 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
2087 directive parameters or modifiers)).
2090 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
2091 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
2092 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
2093 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
2094 parameters or modifiers)).
2097 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
2099 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
2101 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
2102 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
2104 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
2105 string-downcase! functions.
2107 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
2108 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
2110 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
2113 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
2116 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
2117 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
2119 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
2121 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
2122 the symbol had be read by `read'.
2124 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
2125 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
2126 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
2127 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
2128 would if STRING were input.
2130 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
2132 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
2133 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
2134 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
2135 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
2138 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
2140 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
2141 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
2144 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
2146 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
2147 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
2149 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
2150 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
2152 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
2153 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
2154 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
2155 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
2157 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
2158 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
2160 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
2161 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
2162 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
2164 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
2165 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
2167 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
2168 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
2169 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
2170 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
2171 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
2173 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
2174 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
2175 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
2176 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
2177 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
2178 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
2180 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
2181 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
2182 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
2185 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
2186 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
2187 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
2188 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
2189 the following grammar:
2190 ((apples (single-char #\a))
2191 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
2192 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
2193 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
2194 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
2195 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
2196 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
2197 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
2198 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
2199 last option in its combination)
2201 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
2202 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
2203 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
2204 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
2206 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
2207 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
2208 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
2210 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2211 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2212 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
2214 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
2215 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
2216 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
2217 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
2218 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
2219 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
2220 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
2221 ordinary argument strings.
2223 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
2224 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
2225 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
2226 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
2228 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
2229 as a list, associated with the empty list.
2231 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
2232 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
2233 - a required option is omitted
2234 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
2235 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
2236 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
2237 - an option predicate fails
2242 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
2245 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
2246 (verbose (required? #f)
2249 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
2250 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
2251 (predicate ,string?))))
2253 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
2254 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2256 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2257 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
2258 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
2259 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
2262 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
2264 It will be removed in a few releases.
2266 ** New syntax: lambda*
2267 ** New syntax: define*
2268 ** New syntax: define*-public
2269 ** New syntax: defmacro*
2270 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
2271 Guile now supports optional arguments.
2273 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
2274 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
2275 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
2276 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
2277 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
2279 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
2280 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
2281 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
2283 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
2285 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
2286 and examples for `lambda*':
2289 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
2291 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
2292 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
2293 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
2294 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
2295 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
2296 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
2297 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
2298 can be checked with the bound? macro.
2300 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
2302 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
2303 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
2304 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
2305 are given as keywords are bound to values.
2307 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
2308 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
2309 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
2310 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
2311 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
2312 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
2313 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
2314 and until the procedure is called.
2316 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
2318 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
2319 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
2320 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
2321 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
2322 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
2323 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
2324 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
2325 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
2326 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
2327 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
2329 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
2330 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
2331 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
2332 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
2335 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
2337 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
2338 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
2339 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
2340 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
2342 ** New syntax: and-let*
2343 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
2345 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
2346 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
2347 (<variable> <expression>)
2350 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
2351 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
2352 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
2355 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
2356 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
2357 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
2358 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
2359 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
2360 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
2361 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
2363 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
2364 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
2365 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
2366 shadow earlier bindings.
2368 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
2370 ** New sorting functions
2372 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
2373 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
2374 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
2375 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
2377 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
2378 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
2381 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
2382 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
2383 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
2385 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
2386 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
2387 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
2388 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
2390 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
2391 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
2392 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
2393 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
2394 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
2397 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
2398 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
2399 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
2400 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
2401 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
2402 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
2404 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
2405 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
2406 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
2408 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
2409 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
2410 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
2413 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
2414 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
2415 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
2417 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
2418 Added for compatibility with scsh.
2420 ** New built-in random number support
2422 *** New function: random N [STATE]
2423 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
2424 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
2425 returned have a uniform distribution.
2427 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
2428 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
2429 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
2430 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
2431 effect of the `random' operation.
2433 *** New variable: *random-state*
2434 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
2435 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
2436 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
2437 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
2438 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
2441 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
2442 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
2443 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
2444 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
2445 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
2447 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
2448 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
2449 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
2450 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
2451 initialized using SEED.
2453 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
2454 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
2455 range between 0 and 1.
2457 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
2458 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
2459 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
2460 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
2461 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
2462 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
2463 or a uniform vector of doubles.
2465 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
2466 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
2467 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
2468 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
2469 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
2470 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
2472 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
2473 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
2474 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
2475 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
2477 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
2478 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
2479 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
2480 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
2482 *** New function: random:exp STATE
2483 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
2484 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
2486 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
2488 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
2491 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
2492 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
2495 ** New function: make-guardian
2496 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
2497 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
2498 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
2499 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
2500 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
2502 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
2503 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
2504 one object if at all.
2506 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
2507 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
2508 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
2510 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
2511 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
2512 read again in last-in first-out order.
2514 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
2515 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
2517 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
2519 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
2520 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
2521 file position is used.
2523 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
2524 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
2525 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
2527 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
2528 redefined using seek.
2530 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
2531 size is not supplied.
2533 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
2534 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
2536 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
2537 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
2539 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
2541 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
2542 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
2543 and returns the contents as a single string.
2545 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
2546 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
2547 lists in serial order.
2549 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
2550 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
2551 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
2553 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
2554 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
2555 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
2556 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
2558 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
2559 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
2560 and #f if an error occured.
2562 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
2564 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
2565 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
2566 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
2567 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
2569 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
2571 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
2574 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
2576 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
2579 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2583 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
2584 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
2586 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
2587 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
2591 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2593 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
2595 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2596 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2598 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2600 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
2601 might change when we get the new module system.
2603 ** The smob interface
2605 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
2606 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
2608 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
2610 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
2614 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
2615 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
2616 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
2617 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
2618 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
2619 will be freed by the default free function.
2621 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
2622 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
2623 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2624 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2626 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
2627 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
2628 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2629 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2631 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
2633 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
2634 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
2638 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
2639 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2640 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2642 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
2643 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
2644 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2645 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2647 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
2648 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
2649 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
2651 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
2652 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
2653 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
2654 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
2656 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
2657 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
2658 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
2660 *** scm_newptob has been removed
2664 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
2666 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
2667 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
2668 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
2670 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
2671 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
2672 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
2674 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
2675 a string port's buffer.
2677 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
2678 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
2679 function pointers which together define the current random number
2680 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
2681 number library functions.
2683 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
2686 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
2687 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
2690 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
2691 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
2693 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
2694 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
2696 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
2697 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
2700 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
2701 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
2702 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
2703 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
2705 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
2706 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
2707 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
2708 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
2709 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
2710 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
2711 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
2713 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
2714 by libguile and the application.
2716 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
2717 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
2718 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
2719 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
2721 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
2722 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
2724 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
2725 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
2726 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
2728 ** Random number library functions
2729 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
2730 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
2731 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
2733 The default random state is stored in:
2735 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
2736 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
2737 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
2742 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
2744 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
2745 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
2746 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
2747 isn't a random state.
2749 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
2750 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
2752 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
2753 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
2754 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
2755 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
2757 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2758 Return 32 random bits.
2760 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2761 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
2763 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2764 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
2766 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2767 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
2769 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
2770 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
2772 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
2773 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
2774 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
2778 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
2780 * Changes to the distribution
2782 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
2783 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
2784 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
2787 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
2788 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
2789 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
2791 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
2792 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
2793 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
2794 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
2797 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
2798 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
2799 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
2801 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2803 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
2805 *** Function: batch-mode?
2807 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
2810 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
2812 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
2813 case has not been implemented.
2815 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
2816 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
2817 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
2820 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
2821 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
2823 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
2825 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
2827 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
2829 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
2830 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
2833 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
2834 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
2835 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
2836 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
2839 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
2841 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
2842 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
2843 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
2844 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
2845 find those libraries.
2847 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
2848 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
2851 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
2853 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
2854 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
2855 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
2856 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
2858 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
2859 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
2860 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
2864 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
2866 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
2867 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
2868 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
2871 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
2872 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
2873 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
2874 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
2876 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
2877 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
2880 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
2881 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
2882 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
2883 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
2884 compiler where to find the libraries.
2886 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
2887 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
2888 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
2890 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
2891 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
2892 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
2893 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
2894 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
2898 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2900 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
2901 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
2902 internationalization support.
2904 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
2905 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
2906 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
2907 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
2908 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
2910 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
2911 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
2912 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
2913 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
2914 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
2916 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
2917 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
2918 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
2919 any GNU mirror site.
2921 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
2923 ** New function: add-history STRING
2924 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
2925 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
2926 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
2928 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
2930 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
2931 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
2932 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
2935 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
2936 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
2937 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
2939 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
2941 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
2944 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
2945 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
2948 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
2949 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
2950 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
2951 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
2952 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
2953 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
2955 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
2956 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
2957 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
2958 of the form mentioned above.
2960 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
2961 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
2962 returned in the special `rest' list.
2964 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
2965 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
2967 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
2969 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
2971 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
2973 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
2974 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
2975 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
2976 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
2977 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
2978 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
2979 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
2980 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
2983 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
2985 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
2987 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
2988 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
2991 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
2992 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
2993 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
2997 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
2998 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
2999 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
3000 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
3001 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
3002 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
3003 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
3004 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
3007 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
3009 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
3010 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
3011 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
3013 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
3015 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
3016 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
3018 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
3019 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
3020 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
3022 Why do we have this function?
3023 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
3024 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
3025 primitive, and display it differently, and
3026 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
3027 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
3030 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
3031 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
3034 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
3035 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
3036 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
3037 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
3039 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
3040 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
3043 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
3044 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
3046 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
3048 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
3049 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
3050 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
3051 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
3052 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
3053 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
3054 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
3057 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
3059 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
3060 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
3062 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
3063 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
3064 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
3065 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
3066 properly continue the print chain.
3068 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
3069 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
3070 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
3071 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
3072 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
3073 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
3074 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
3075 print-state, it is simply ignored.
3077 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
3078 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
3079 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
3080 safest to not check for these pairs.
3082 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
3083 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
3084 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
3085 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
3087 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
3089 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
3090 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
3092 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
3094 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
3096 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
3097 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
3098 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
3100 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
3101 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
3102 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
3104 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
3105 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
3106 the following functions and macros:
3108 Function: make-fluid
3110 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
3111 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
3112 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
3113 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
3114 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
3116 Function: fluid? OBJ
3118 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
3120 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
3121 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
3123 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
3124 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
3126 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
3128 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
3129 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
3130 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
3131 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
3132 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
3133 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
3134 modified by `with-fluids*'.
3136 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
3138 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
3139 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
3140 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
3141 should evaluate to a fluid.
3143 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
3145 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
3146 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
3147 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
3148 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
3149 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
3151 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
3154 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
3156 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
3158 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
3160 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
3163 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
3164 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
3165 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
3166 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
3167 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
3170 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
3171 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
3172 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
3174 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
3175 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
3176 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
3178 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
3179 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
3180 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3181 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
3183 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
3184 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
3185 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3186 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
3188 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
3189 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
3190 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
3191 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
3193 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
3194 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
3195 their revealed counts set to zero.
3197 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3198 Returns an integer file descriptor.
3200 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3201 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
3203 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3204 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
3206 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3207 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
3208 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
3210 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
3211 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
3212 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
3214 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
3215 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
3216 default environment inherited by child processes.
3218 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
3219 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
3220 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
3222 The return value is unspecified.
3224 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
3225 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
3226 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
3227 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
3228 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
3230 The return value is unspecified.
3232 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
3233 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
3241 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
3242 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
3245 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
3248 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
3249 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
3250 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
3252 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
3253 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
3254 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
3255 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
3258 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
3259 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
3261 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
3262 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
3263 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
3264 the `environ' procedure.
3266 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
3267 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
3270 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
3271 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
3273 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
3274 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
3275 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
3276 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
3278 *** procedure: times
3279 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
3280 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
3281 return a selected component:
3284 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
3288 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
3291 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
3295 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
3296 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
3300 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
3301 terminated child processes.
3303 ** Removed: list-length
3304 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
3305 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
3307 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
3309 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
3311 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
3313 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
3314 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
3315 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
3316 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
3318 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
3319 extra complexity it introduces.
3321 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
3322 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
3324 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
3325 variable to any non-empty value.
3327 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
3328 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
3330 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3332 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
3333 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
3335 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
3337 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
3338 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
3340 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
3342 ** vector handling routines
3344 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
3345 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
3346 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
3347 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
3348 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
3350 ** pair and list routines
3352 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
3355 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
3357 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
3360 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3362 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
3364 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
3365 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
3366 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
3367 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
3368 site-specific initialization code.
3370 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
3371 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
3372 initialization processes.
3374 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
3375 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
3376 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
3377 initialized properly.
3379 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
3380 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
3381 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
3383 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
3384 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
3385 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
3386 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
3387 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
3389 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
3391 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
3392 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
3393 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
3394 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
3395 objects the smob refers to get marked.
3397 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
3398 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
3399 which look like this:
3402 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
3404 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
3405 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
3408 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
3409 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
3412 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
3414 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
3415 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
3416 you will need to change your functions slightly.
3418 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
3419 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
3420 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
3421 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
3422 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
3424 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
3425 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
3427 int (*free) (SCM port);
3428 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
3429 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
3430 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
3434 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
3435 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
3436 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
3438 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
3441 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
3442 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
3443 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
3445 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
3446 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
3447 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
3450 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
3454 struct timeval *timeout);
3456 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
3457 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
3458 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
3459 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
3460 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
3461 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
3463 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
3464 scm_catch_body_t body,
3466 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
3469 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
3470 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
3471 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
3472 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
3473 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
3474 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
3476 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
3478 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
3481 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
3482 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
3483 spawning threads from application C code.
3485 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
3486 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
3487 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
3488 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
3489 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
3490 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
3492 ** Removed functions:
3494 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
3495 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
3497 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
3499 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
3500 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
3502 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
3504 ** mbstrings are now removed
3506 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
3507 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
3509 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
3511 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
3512 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
3513 their new names and arguments:
3515 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
3516 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
3517 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
3518 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
3521 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
3523 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
3525 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
3528 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
3530 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
3531 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
3532 pass a #f arg to catch.
3534 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
3536 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
3537 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
3540 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
3541 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
3542 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
3543 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
3544 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
3545 reclaim its storage.
3547 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
3548 worrying that some other function you call will call
3549 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
3550 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
3551 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
3552 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
3555 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
3557 * Changes to the distribution
3559 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
3560 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
3563 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
3564 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
3566 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
3567 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
3569 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
3571 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
3572 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
3573 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
3575 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
3577 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
3578 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
3579 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
3580 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
3581 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
3582 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
3584 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
3585 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
3586 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
3589 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
3590 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
3591 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
3592 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
3594 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
3595 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
3596 libraries to your link command:
3598 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
3599 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
3600 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
3601 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
3603 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
3604 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
3605 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
3607 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3609 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
3610 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
3613 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
3615 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
3616 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
3617 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
3618 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
3619 searched is system dependent.
3621 (dynamic-object? VAL)
3623 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
3625 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
3627 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
3628 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
3630 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
3632 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
3633 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
3634 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
3635 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
3636 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
3639 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
3641 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
3642 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
3643 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
3644 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
3645 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
3647 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
3649 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
3650 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
3652 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
3654 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
3655 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
3656 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
3659 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
3661 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
3662 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
3663 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
3664 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
3666 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
3667 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
3669 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
3671 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
3672 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
3674 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
3676 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
3677 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
3685 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
3687 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
3688 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
3689 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
3690 a more informative way.
3692 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
3693 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
3694 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
3695 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
3696 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
3697 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
3699 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
3700 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
3703 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
3704 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
3705 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
3708 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
3709 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
3710 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
3711 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
3712 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
3713 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
3715 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
3716 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
3717 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
3718 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
3721 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
3722 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
3723 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
3724 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
3725 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
3726 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
3728 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
3729 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
3730 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
3731 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
3732 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
3734 *** regexp functions
3736 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
3737 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
3738 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
3740 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
3741 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
3742 with SCSH regular expressions.
3744 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
3745 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
3746 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
3747 position of STR at which to begin matching.
3749 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
3750 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
3751 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
3752 `string-match' returns `#f'.
3754 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
3755 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
3756 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
3757 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
3758 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
3759 match strings against the compiled regexp.
3761 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
3762 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
3763 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
3764 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
3765 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
3767 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
3769 **** Constant: regexp/extended
3770 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
3771 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
3772 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
3774 **** Constant: regexp/icase
3775 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
3776 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
3778 **** Constant: regexp/newline
3779 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
3781 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
3784 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
3785 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
3786 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
3788 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
3789 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
3790 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
3792 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
3793 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
3794 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
3795 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
3796 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
3799 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
3801 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
3802 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
3803 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
3804 used when different portions of a string are passed to
3805 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
3806 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
3808 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
3809 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
3810 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
3812 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
3813 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
3816 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
3817 and replace them with the contents of another string.
3819 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
3820 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
3821 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
3822 may be one of the following arguments:
3824 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
3826 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
3828 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
3829 the regexp match is written.
3831 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
3832 following the regexp match is written.
3834 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
3835 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
3838 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
3839 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
3840 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
3841 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
3842 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
3843 which should be matched against this regular expression.
3845 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
3848 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
3849 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
3850 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
3851 written out to PORT.
3853 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
3854 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
3855 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
3856 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
3857 will return after processing a single match.
3859 *** Match Structures
3861 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
3862 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
3863 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
3864 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
3865 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
3866 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
3869 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
3870 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
3871 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
3872 information about the original target string that was matched against a
3873 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
3875 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
3876 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
3877 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
3879 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
3880 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
3881 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
3882 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
3883 number N did not match, return `#f'.
3885 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
3886 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
3888 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
3889 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
3891 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
3892 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
3894 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
3895 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
3897 **** Function: match:count MATCH
3898 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
3899 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
3900 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
3902 **** Function: match:string MATCH
3903 Return the original TARGET string.
3905 *** Backslash Escapes
3907 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
3908 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
3909 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
3910 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
3911 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
3912 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
3914 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
3915 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
3916 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
3917 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
3918 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
3919 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
3920 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
3921 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
3923 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
3924 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
3925 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
3926 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
3927 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
3928 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
3929 each match a single backslash in the target string.
3931 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
3932 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
3933 return the resulting string.
3935 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
3936 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
3937 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
3938 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
3939 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
3940 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
3941 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
3942 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
3943 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
3944 translated to the single character `*'.
3946 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
3947 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
3948 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
3949 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
3950 consecutive backslashes:
3952 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
3954 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
3955 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
3956 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
3958 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
3959 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
3960 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
3961 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
3962 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
3963 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
3965 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
3967 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
3968 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
3969 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
3970 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
3971 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
3972 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
3973 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
3974 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
3975 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
3976 cumbersome escape syntax.
3978 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3980 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3982 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3984 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
3987 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
3989 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
3991 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
3994 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
3995 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
3996 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
3997 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
3998 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
4000 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
4001 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
4002 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
4003 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
4004 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
4005 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
4006 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
4009 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
4010 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
4011 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
4014 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
4015 `force-output' on every port open for output.
4017 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
4018 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
4019 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
4020 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
4021 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
4022 installed, you can say:
4024 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
4027 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4029 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
4030 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
4031 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
4032 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
4033 new dynamic roots and threads.
4036 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
4038 * Changes to the distribution.
4040 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
4042 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
4043 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
4044 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
4045 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
4046 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
4047 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
4048 programming language. These are packaged together because the
4049 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
4051 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
4054 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
4055 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
4060 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4062 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
4063 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
4065 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
4066 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
4067 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
4068 the (command-line) function.
4069 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
4070 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
4071 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
4073 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
4074 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
4075 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
4076 command line arguments
4077 -ds do -s script at this point
4078 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
4079 -h, --help display this help and exit
4080 -v, --version display version information and exit
4081 \ read arguments from following script lines
4083 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
4084 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
4086 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4089 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4093 (main (command-line))
4095 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
4097 ekko a speckled gecko
4099 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
4100 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
4101 following list of command-line arguments:
4103 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
4105 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
4106 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
4107 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
4108 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
4109 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4111 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
4113 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
4115 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
4116 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
4119 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
4120 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
4121 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
4122 SCSH) for circumventing them.
4124 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
4125 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
4126 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
4127 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
4129 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
4133 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4137 If the user invokes this script as follows:
4139 ekko a speckled gecko
4141 Unix expands this into
4143 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
4145 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
4146 read from the second line of the script, producing:
4148 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
4150 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
4151 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4153 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
4154 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
4155 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
4156 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
4157 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
4158 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
4159 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
4160 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
4161 it only terminates the argument list.)
4162 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
4163 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
4164 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
4165 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
4166 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
4167 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
4168 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
4169 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
4171 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4173 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
4174 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
4175 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
4176 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
4177 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
4179 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
4180 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
4181 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
4183 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
4185 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
4186 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
4187 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
4188 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
4191 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
4192 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4193 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4195 * Changes to Scheme functions
4197 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
4198 and disabled by default.
4200 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
4201 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
4202 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
4203 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
4205 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
4207 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
4209 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
4210 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
4212 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
4213 (read-set! keywords #f)
4215 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
4216 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
4217 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
4220 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
4221 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
4222 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
4225 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
4226 support for Scheme functions.
4228 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4229 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
4230 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
4231 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
4234 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4235 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
4236 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
4239 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
4240 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
4241 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
4244 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
4245 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
4246 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
4247 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
4248 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
4249 display the result as a prompt.
4250 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
4252 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
4253 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
4254 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
4257 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
4258 procedure of zero arguments.
4260 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
4261 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
4262 argument is bound in the current module.
4264 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
4265 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
4266 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
4267 public bindings into the current module.
4269 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
4270 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
4272 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
4273 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
4275 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
4276 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
4278 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
4279 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
4281 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
4282 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
4284 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
4285 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
4286 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
4287 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
4288 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
4290 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
4291 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
4292 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
4293 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
4295 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
4298 ** Changes to I/O functions
4300 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
4301 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
4302 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
4304 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
4305 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
4306 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
4308 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
4309 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
4311 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
4312 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
4313 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
4314 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
4316 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
4318 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
4319 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
4321 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
4322 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
4323 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
4324 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
4325 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
4328 'trim omit delimiter from result
4329 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
4330 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
4331 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
4333 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
4335 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
4336 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
4338 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
4339 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
4340 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
4341 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
4342 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
4344 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
4345 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
4346 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
4348 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
4349 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
4350 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
4351 above, and defaults to 'peek.
4353 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
4354 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
4356 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
4357 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
4359 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
4361 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
4362 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
4363 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
4364 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
4365 a delimiting character.
4366 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
4368 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
4369 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
4370 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
4371 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
4372 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
4373 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
4375 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
4376 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
4378 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
4379 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
4380 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
4382 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
4383 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
4384 the array to read and write.
4386 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
4387 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
4390 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
4392 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
4395 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
4396 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
4397 Values for COMMAND are:
4399 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
4400 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
4401 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
4402 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
4403 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
4404 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
4405 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
4406 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
4408 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
4410 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
4411 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
4412 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
4413 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
4414 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
4415 corresponding return set will be the same.
4417 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
4420 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
4421 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
4422 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
4423 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
4424 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
4425 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
4426 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
4427 special file being created.
4429 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
4430 clashing with various SCSH forks.
4432 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
4433 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
4434 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
4435 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
4436 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
4437 and originating address.
4439 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
4440 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
4441 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
4443 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
4446 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
4447 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
4450 (status:exit-val STATUS)
4451 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
4452 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
4453 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
4454 this function returns #f.
4456 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
4457 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
4458 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
4461 (status:term-sig STATUS)
4462 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
4463 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
4466 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
4467 a valid STATUS value.
4469 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
4471 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
4472 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
4474 Component Accessor Setter
4475 ========================= ============ ============
4476 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
4477 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
4478 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
4479 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
4480 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
4481 year tm:year set-tm:year
4482 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
4483 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
4484 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
4485 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
4486 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
4488 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
4489 describing the host system:
4492 ============================================== ================
4493 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
4494 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
4495 release level of the operating system utsname:release
4496 version level of the operating system utsname:version
4497 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
4499 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
4500 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
4501 system's user database:
4504 ====================== =================
4505 user name passwd:name
4506 user password passwd:passwd
4509 real name passwd:gecos
4510 home directory passwd:dir
4511 shell program passwd:shell
4513 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
4514 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
4515 system's group database:
4518 ======================= ============
4519 group name group:name
4520 group password group:passwd
4522 group members group:mem
4524 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
4525 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
4529 ========================= ===============
4530 official name of host hostent:name
4531 alias list hostent:aliases
4532 host address type hostent:addrtype
4533 length of address hostent:length
4534 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
4536 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
4537 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
4541 ========================= ===============
4542 official name of net netent:name
4543 alias list netent:aliases
4544 net number type netent:addrtype
4545 net number netent:net
4547 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
4548 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
4552 ========================= ===============
4553 official protocol name protoent:name
4554 alias list protoent:aliases
4555 protocol number protoent:proto
4557 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
4558 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
4562 ========================= ===============
4563 official service name servent:name
4564 alias list servent:aliases
4565 port number servent:port
4566 protocol to use servent:proto
4568 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
4569 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
4572 ======================================== ===============
4573 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
4574 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
4575 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
4576 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
4578 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
4579 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
4580 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
4582 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
4583 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
4585 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
4586 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
4588 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
4589 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
4591 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
4593 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
4595 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
4596 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
4597 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
4599 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
4600 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
4601 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
4602 return the remaining characters as a string.
4604 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
4605 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
4606 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
4608 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
4610 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4612 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
4615 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
4618 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
4619 and returns the array
4621 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
4622 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
4623 the user to interpret the data both ways.
4625 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4627 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
4628 symbol's value from C code:
4630 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
4631 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
4632 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
4633 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
4635 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
4636 without assigning them a value.
4638 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
4639 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
4640 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
4642 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
4643 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
4644 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
4646 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
4647 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
4649 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
4650 doesn't actually care about that.
4652 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
4653 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
4654 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
4656 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
4657 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
4658 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
4659 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
4660 which we have just created and initialized.
4662 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
4663 should one occur. We call it like this:
4664 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
4666 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
4667 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
4668 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
4669 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
4670 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
4671 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
4674 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
4675 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
4676 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
4677 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
4678 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
4679 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
4680 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
4683 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
4684 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
4685 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
4686 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
4687 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
4690 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
4691 scm_internal_catch, except:
4693 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
4694 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
4695 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
4696 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
4699 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
4700 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
4701 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
4703 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
4704 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
4705 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
4706 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
4709 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
4710 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
4711 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
4713 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
4714 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
4715 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
4716 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
4717 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
4719 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
4720 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
4721 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
4723 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
4724 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
4725 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
4727 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
4728 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
4730 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
4731 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
4732 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
4735 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
4736 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
4737 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
4738 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
4739 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
4740 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
4741 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
4744 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
4745 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
4747 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
4748 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
4749 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
4750 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
4751 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
4754 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
4755 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
4757 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
4758 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
4761 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
4762 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
4764 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
4767 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
4768 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
4769 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
4770 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
4771 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
4772 given the following arguments:
4774 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
4776 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
4778 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
4780 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
4783 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
4784 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
4785 command-line arguments.
4787 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
4788 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
4789 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
4790 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
4791 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
4792 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
4795 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
4798 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
4799 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
4801 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
4802 rearranged slightly. They are now:
4804 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4805 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
4806 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
4807 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
4809 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4810 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
4812 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4813 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
4814 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
4815 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
4817 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4818 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
4820 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
4821 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
4823 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
4825 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
4826 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
4827 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
4830 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
4831 returns a port instead of an FD object.
4833 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
4834 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
4839 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
4842 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
4844 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
4845 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
4846 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
4847 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
4849 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
4851 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
4853 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
4854 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
4855 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
4856 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
4857 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
4858 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
4859 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
4860 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
4861 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
4862 for more information.
4864 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
4865 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
4867 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
4868 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
4869 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
4870 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
4871 following two lines at the top of the file:
4873 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4876 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
4877 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
4878 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
4880 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
4882 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4884 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
4887 (display (car args))
4888 (if (pair? (cdr args))
4890 (loop (cdr args)))))
4893 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
4894 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
4895 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
4896 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
4897 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
4898 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
4902 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
4905 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
4908 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
4910 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
4911 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
4912 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
4913 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
4914 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
4917 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
4918 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
4919 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
4920 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
4921 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
4924 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
4927 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
4928 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
4929 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
4932 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
4933 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
4934 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
4936 to see a backtrace, and
4937 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
4938 to see them by default.
4942 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
4944 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
4946 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
4947 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
4950 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
4951 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
4952 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
4953 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
4956 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
4957 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
4958 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
4959 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
4960 functions which inspired them.
4962 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
4963 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
4967 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
4969 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
4971 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
4972 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
4975 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
4976 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
4977 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
4979 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
4980 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
4981 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
4982 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
4983 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
4985 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
4987 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
4988 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
4989 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
4992 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
4995 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
4997 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
4998 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
4999 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
5000 above should serve their purposes.
5002 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
5003 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
5004 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
5005 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
5007 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
5010 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
5011 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
5012 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
5013 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
5015 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
5016 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
5017 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
5018 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
5020 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
5021 for the `read' function.
5024 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
5025 to that of `integer?'.
5027 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
5028 use the R4RS names for these functions.
5030 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
5031 it simply returns the object's property list.
5033 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
5034 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
5035 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
5036 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
5038 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
5040 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
5043 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
5045 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
5046 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
5048 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
5050 void (*main_func) (),
5053 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
5054 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
5055 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
5056 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
5057 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
5059 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
5060 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
5061 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
5062 know which arguments have been processed.
5064 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
5065 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
5066 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
5067 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
5068 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
5070 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
5071 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
5072 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
5073 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
5074 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
5075 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
5076 people from making that mistake.
5078 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
5079 convenient ways to override these when desired.
5081 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
5083 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
5087 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
5090 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
5091 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
5092 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
5093 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
5096 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
5097 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
5098 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
5099 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
5102 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
5103 have been added to the Guile library.
5105 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
5106 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
5107 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
5110 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
5111 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
5112 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
5114 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
5115 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
5116 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
5117 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
5118 argument from the list.
5121 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
5124 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
5125 null-terminated string, and returns it.
5127 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
5128 to a Scheme port object.
5130 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
5131 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
5136 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
5138 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
5139 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
5140 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
5141 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
5142 code as a special datatype.
5144 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
5145 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
5146 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
5147 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
5148 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
5151 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
5152 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
5153 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
5154 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
5155 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
5157 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
5160 Copyright information:
5162 Copyright (C) 1996,1997 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
5164 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
5165 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
5166 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
5167 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
5169 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
5170 of this document, or of portions of it,
5171 under the above conditions, provided also that they
5172 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
5177 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"