1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Each release reports the NEWS in the following sections:
9 * Changes to the distribution
10 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
11 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
12 * Changes to the C interface
15 Changes since the 1.6.x series:
17 * Changes to the distribution
19 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
21 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
23 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
25 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
27 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
29 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
32 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
34 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
35 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
36 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
37 so the current effective-version is "1.7". The effective version
38 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
39 items like the versioned share directory name
40 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.7.
42 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
43 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
44 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
45 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
46 with each micro release during a stable series.
48 ** Thread implementation has changed.
50 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
51 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
52 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
53 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
54 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
57 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
58 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
59 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
60 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
61 the GC. See the manual for details. [XXX - write this.]
63 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
64 in which case "null" threads are used.
66 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
68 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when
69 you don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but
70 where you have some section(s) of code which you consider can run
71 in parallel to other sections.
73 ### move rest to manual
75 They "flag" (with dynamic extent) sections of code to be of
76 "serial" or "parallel" nature and have the single effect of
77 preventing a serial section from being run in parallel with any
78 serial section (including itself).
80 Both serialize and parallelize can be nested. If so, the
81 inner-most construct is in effect.
83 NOTE 1: A serial section can run in parallel with a parallel
86 NOTE 2: If a serial section S is "interrupted" by a parallel
87 section P in the following manner: S = S1 P S2, S2 is not
88 guaranteed to be resumed by the same thread that previously
91 WARNING: Spawning new threads within a serial section have
92 undefined effects. It is OK, though, to spawn threads in unflagged
93 sections of code where neither serialize or parallelize is in
96 A typical usage is when Guile is used as scripting language in some
97 application doing heavy computations. If each thread is
98 encapsulated with a serialize form, you can then put a parallelize
99 form around the code performing the heavy computations (typically a
100 C code primitive), enabling the computations to run in parallel
101 while the scripting code runs single-threadedly.
103 ** New module (srfi srfi-26)
105 This is an implementation of SRFI-26.
107 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
109 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
110 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
112 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13) and (srfi srfi-14) have been merged with
113 the core, making their functionality always available.
115 The modules are still available, tho, and you use them together with a
116 renaming import, for example.
118 ** Guile now includes its own version of libltdl.
120 We now use a modified version of libltdl that allows us to make
121 improvements to it without having to rely on libtool releases.
123 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
125 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
126 provided. Use 'make html'.
128 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
130 ** New command line option `-L'.
132 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
134 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
136 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
137 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
139 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
141 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
142 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
144 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
146 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
147 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
150 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
153 (define-module (demo)
157 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
160 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
162 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings and
163 mutation-sharing substrings.
165 Two new procedures are related to this: substring/shared and
166 substring/copy. See the manual for more information.
168 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
170 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
173 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
175 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
176 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
177 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
178 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
180 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
181 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
182 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
185 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
187 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
188 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
189 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
192 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
195 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
197 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
200 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
201 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
209 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
210 has been detected is to
212 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
213 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
214 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
217 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
220 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
222 to your .guile init file.
224 ### move rest to manual
226 The syntax for the :duplicates option is:
228 :duplicates HANDLER-NAME | (HANDLER1-NAME HANDLER2-NAME ...)
230 Specifying multiple handlers is useful since some handlers (such as
231 replace) can defer conflict resolution to others. Each handler is
232 tried until a binding is selected.
234 Currently available duplicates handlers are:
236 check report an error for bindings with a common name
237 warn issue a warning for bindings with a common name
238 replace replace bindings which have an imported replacement
239 warn-override-core issue a warning for imports which override core bindings
240 and accept the override
241 first select the first encountered binding (override)
242 last select the last encountered binding (override)
244 These two are provided by the (oop goops) module:
246 merge-generics merge generic functions with a common name
247 into an <extended-generic>
248 merge-accessors merge accessors with a common name
250 The default duplicates handler is:
252 (replace warn-override-core warn last)
254 A recommended handler (which is likely to correspond to future Guile
255 behavior) can be installed with:
257 (default-duplicate-binding-handler '(replace warn-override-core check))
259 ** New define-module option: :replace
261 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
264 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
265 for the core binding `format'.
267 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
269 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
270 a prefix to all imported bindings.
273 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
275 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
278 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
280 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
281 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
282 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
284 ### move the rest to the manual
286 It is sometimes tempting to use GOOPS accessors with short names.
287 For example, it is tempting to use the name `x' for the x-coordinate
290 Assume that we work with a graphical package which needs to use two
291 independent vector packages for 2D and 3D vectors respectively. If
292 both packages export `x' we will encounter a name collision.
294 This can now be resolved automagically with the duplicates handler
295 `merge-generics' which gives the module system license to merge all
296 generic functions sharing a common name:
298 (define-module (math 2D-vectors)
299 :use-module (oop goops)
302 (define-module (math 3D-vectors)
303 :use-module (oop goops)
306 (define-module (my-module)
307 :use-module (math 2D-vectors)
308 :use-module (math 3D-vectors)
309 :duplicates merge-generics)
311 x in (my-module) will now share methods with x in both imported
314 There will, in fact, now be three distinct generic functions named
315 `x': x in (2D-vectors), x in (3D-vectors), and x in (my-module). The
316 last function will be an <extended-generic>, extending the previous
319 Let's call the imported generic functions the "ancestor functions". x
320 in (my-module) is, in turn, a "descendant function" of the imported
321 functions, extending its ancestors.
323 For any generic function G, the applicable methods are selected from
324 the union of the methods of the descendant functions, the methods of G
325 itself and the methods of the ancestor functions.
327 This, ancestor functions share methods with their descendants and vice
328 versa. This implies that x in (math 2D-vectors) can will share the
329 methods of x in (my-module) and vice versa, while x in (math 2D-vectors)
330 doesn't share the methods of x in (math 3D-vectors), thus preserving
333 Sharing is dynamic, so that adding new methods to a descendant implies
334 adding it to the ancestor.
336 If duplicates checking is desired in the above example, the following
337 form of the :duplicates option can be used instead:
339 :duplicates (merge-generics check)
341 ** New function: effective-version
343 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
344 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
345 to the distribution" above.
347 ** New feature, 'futures': future, make-future, future-ref
349 Futures are like promises, but begin execution immediately in a new
350 thread. See the "Futures" section in the reference manual.
352 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
354 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
355 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
357 ** Fair mutexes and condition variables
359 Fair mutexes and condition variables have been added. The fairness
360 means that scheduling is arranged to give as equal time shares as
361 possible and that threads are awakened in a first-in-first-out
362 manner. This is not guaranteed with standard mutexes and condition
365 In addition, fair mutexes are recursive. Locking a fair mutex that
366 you have already locked will succeed. Every call to lock-mutex must
367 be matched with a call to unlock-mutex. Only the last call to
368 unlock-mutex will actually unlock the mutex.
370 A fair condition variable must be used together with a fair mutex,
371 just as a standard condition variable must be used together with a
374 *** New functions: make-fair-mutex, make-fair-condition-variable'
376 Make a new fair mutex and a new fair condition variable respectively.
378 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
380 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
381 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
383 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
385 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
386 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
389 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
391 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
393 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
395 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
396 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
397 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
400 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
401 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
402 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
405 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
406 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
408 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
410 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
411 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
414 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
415 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
417 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
418 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
419 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
420 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
421 level for the current thread.
423 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
425 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
427 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
428 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
431 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
433 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
435 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
438 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
440 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
443 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
444 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
445 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
447 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
448 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
449 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
450 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
461 ERROR: Numerical overflow
463 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
466 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
468 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
469 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
470 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
481 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
483 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
484 them is also done exactly, of course:
489 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
492 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
493 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
495 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
497 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
498 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
499 equal to a floating point number. For example:
501 (inexact->exact 1.234)
502 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
504 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitely:
506 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
509 ** New function 'rationalize'.
511 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
512 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
514 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
517 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
518 result when both its arguments are exact.
520 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
522 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
523 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
524 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
526 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
528 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
529 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
530 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
532 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
535 ** pretty-print has more options.
537 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
538 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
539 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
541 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
543 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
544 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
545 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
547 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
549 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
550 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
552 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
554 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
555 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
558 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
560 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
561 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
562 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
563 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
564 without the soft port blocking.
566 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
568 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
569 chapter in the reference manual.
571 ** Deprecated: undefine
573 There is no replacement for undefine.
576 * Changes to the C interface
578 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
580 This is a milder form of deprecation.
582 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
583 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
584 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
585 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
586 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
588 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
589 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
591 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
592 Scheme values has been added.
594 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
595 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
600 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
601 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
603 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
605 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
606 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
609 - SCM scm_from_<type>) (<type> val, ...)
611 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
612 scm_from_int for ints.
614 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
615 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
616 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
618 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
620 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
621 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
622 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
625 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
627 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
629 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
631 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
632 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
633 following alternatives.
635 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
636 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
637 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
638 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
640 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
641 do the validating for you.
643 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
644 have been discouraged.
646 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
647 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
650 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
652 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
653 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
656 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
658 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
661 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
662 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
664 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
665 scm_truncate_number should have.
667 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
668 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
670 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
673 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
674 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
675 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
677 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
678 easier to use from C.
680 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
681 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
683 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
684 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
685 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
688 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
689 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
690 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
691 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
694 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
695 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
696 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
697 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
698 and is thus quite efficient.
700 ** Some string and symbol functions have been discouraged.
702 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
703 about the character encoding.
705 Replace according to the following table:
707 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
708 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
709 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
710 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
711 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
712 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
713 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
714 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
715 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
717 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
718 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
720 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
722 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
723 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
725 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
726 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
727 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
728 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
730 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
732 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
733 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
734 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
736 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
737 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
739 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
740 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
741 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
742 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
744 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
746 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
747 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
748 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
749 prevent a potential memory leak:
758 mem = scm_malloc (100);
759 scm_frame_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITELY);
761 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
762 SCM_FRAME_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
769 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITELY, MEM will be freed by
770 SCM_FRAME_END as well.
774 For full documentation, see the node "Frames" in the manual.
776 ** New function scm_frame_free
778 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a frame is left.
779 Thus the call to scm_frame_unwind_handler above could be replaced with
780 simply scm_frame_free (mem).
782 ** New way to block and unblock asyncs
784 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
785 scm_frame_block_asyncs in a 'frame' (see above). Likewise for
786 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_frame_unblock_asyncs.
788 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
790 C code can now use scm_frame_current_<foo>_port in a 'frame' (see
791 above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
793 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
795 C code can now use scm_frame_fluid in a 'frame' (see
796 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
798 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
800 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
801 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
802 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
804 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
806 You should not have used them.
808 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
810 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
811 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
813 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
815 This macro is not intended for public use.
817 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
819 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
821 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
823 Use scm_is_real instead.
825 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
827 Use scm_is_complex instead.
829 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
831 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
832 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
834 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
835 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
837 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
838 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
840 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
842 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
845 ** New function: scm_effective_version
847 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
848 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
849 to the distribution" above.
851 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
853 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
854 arguments are now passed directly:
856 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
858 This is an incompatible change.
860 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
862 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
863 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
864 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
866 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
867 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
869 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
871 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
873 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
874 function in the init section.
876 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
878 ** New macros SCM_VECTOR_REF and SCM_VECTOR_SET.
880 Use these in preference to SCM_VELTS.
882 ** The SCM_VELTS macros now returns a read-only vector. For writing,
883 use the new macros SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS or SCM_VECTOR_SET. The use of
884 SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS is discouraged, though.
886 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
888 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
889 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
890 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
891 stays roughly constant.
893 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
894 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
895 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
896 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
897 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
900 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
901 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
902 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
903 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
905 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
907 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
909 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
911 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
912 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
913 initializes a new cell (see below).
915 ** New functions for memory management
917 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
918 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
919 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
920 cause aborts in long running programs.
922 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
923 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
925 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
926 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
927 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
928 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
929 details and for upgrading instructions.
931 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
932 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
933 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
935 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
937 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
938 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
939 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
940 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
941 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
943 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
944 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
945 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
947 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
948 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
950 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
952 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
953 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
954 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
955 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
956 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
958 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
960 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
963 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
965 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
967 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
969 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
970 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
972 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
974 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
975 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
977 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
979 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
980 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
981 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
982 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
983 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
984 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
985 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
986 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
987 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
988 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
989 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
990 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
991 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
992 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
993 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
994 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
995 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
996 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
997 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
998 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
999 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
1000 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
1001 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
1002 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
1003 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
1004 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
1005 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
1006 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
1007 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
1008 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
1009 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
1012 Changes since Guile 1.4:
1014 * Changes to the distribution
1016 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
1018 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
1020 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
1021 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
1022 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
1023 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
1024 indicate major changes in Guile.
1026 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
1027 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
1028 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
1029 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
1031 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
1032 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
1033 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
1034 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
1035 micro version number.
1037 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
1039 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
1041 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
1042 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
1044 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
1046 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
1047 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
1048 See INSTALL and README for more information.
1050 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
1052 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
1053 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
1054 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
1057 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
1059 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
1062 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
1064 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
1065 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
1067 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
1069 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
1070 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
1073 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
1075 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
1078 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
1081 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
1083 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
1085 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
1086 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
1087 open-output-string, get-output-string.
1089 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
1091 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
1093 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
1096 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
1098 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
1100 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1102 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1103 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1104 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1106 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1108 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1110 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1111 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1120 See README there for more info.
1122 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1123 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1126 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1128 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1130 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1132 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1133 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1134 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1136 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1138 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1139 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1140 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1142 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1143 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1145 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1148 (oop goops describe)
1150 (oop goops active-slot)
1151 (oop goops composite-slot)
1153 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1154 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1155 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1157 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1159 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1160 in the default environment:
1162 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1163 %read-line write-line
1165 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1166 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1168 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1170 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1173 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1174 can be used for similar functionality.
1176 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1178 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1179 it defines two procedures:
1181 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1183 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1184 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1185 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1188 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1190 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1191 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1192 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1193 write large strings.
1195 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1197 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1198 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1200 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1202 for complete documentation.
1204 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1206 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1207 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1208 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1209 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1211 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1212 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1216 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1217 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1218 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1221 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1224 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1225 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1227 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1228 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1231 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1234 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1236 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1238 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1240 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1242 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1243 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1244 Scheme programs easier.
1246 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1247 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1248 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1249 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1250 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1253 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1254 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1256 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1259 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1261 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1262 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1263 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1266 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1268 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1270 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1271 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1272 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1273 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1274 was also ASCII, for example.
1276 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1278 tag - no replacement.
1279 fseek - replaced by seek.
1280 list* - replaced by cons*.
1282 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1286 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1287 (define m (make-safe-module))
1288 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1289 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1290 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1292 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1294 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1295 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1296 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1298 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1300 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1301 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1302 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1303 from the issues related to the module system.
1305 *** New function: load-extension
1307 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1309 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1311 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1312 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1313 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1315 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1317 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1318 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1319 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1320 support dynamic linking).
1322 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1324 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1325 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1326 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1327 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1330 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1331 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1332 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1333 library and initialize it explicitely.
1335 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1336 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1338 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1340 (define-module (foo bar))
1342 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1344 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1346 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1347 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1349 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1350 (null-environment 5)
1351 (interaction-environment)
1357 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1359 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1360 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1361 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1362 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1364 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1365 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1366 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1367 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1368 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1369 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1370 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1371 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1372 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1373 one eval to the next.
1375 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1376 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1377 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1378 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1379 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1381 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1382 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1383 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1384 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1385 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1386 used in a lexical environment.
1388 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1389 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1390 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1391 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1392 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1393 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1395 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1397 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1398 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1399 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1400 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1401 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1403 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1404 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1405 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1407 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1408 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1410 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1411 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1412 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1414 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1415 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1417 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1418 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1419 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1420 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1423 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1424 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1425 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1426 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1428 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1429 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1430 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1432 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1433 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1434 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1435 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1436 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1438 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1440 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1441 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1442 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1444 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1445 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1446 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1448 See manual for more info.
1450 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1452 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1453 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1454 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1456 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1458 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1459 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1460 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1462 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1463 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1464 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1465 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1467 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1469 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1470 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1472 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1473 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1474 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1475 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1476 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1479 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1480 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1481 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1482 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1483 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1484 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1486 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1487 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1488 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1489 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1490 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1492 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1493 objects are usually permanent.
1495 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1496 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1498 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1500 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1501 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1504 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1508 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1513 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1515 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1516 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1517 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1518 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1520 ** New function `make-object-property'
1522 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1523 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1527 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1528 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1532 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1533 source properties eventually.
1535 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1537 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1538 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1539 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1541 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1542 will be removed in the next release.
1544 ** New define-module option: pure
1546 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1551 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1554 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1556 Export names NAME1 ...
1558 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1559 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1563 (define-module (foo)
1565 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1568 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1573 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1575 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1577 ** New function: port? X
1579 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1580 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1582 ** New function: file-port?
1584 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1586 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1588 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1589 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1590 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1591 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1592 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1594 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1596 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1597 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1598 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1599 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1600 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1603 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1605 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1606 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1607 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1608 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1611 ** New function: crypt password salt
1613 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1616 ** New function: chroot path
1618 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1620 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1622 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1625 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1627 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1629 ** New function: getpass prompt
1631 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1634 ** New function: flock file operation
1636 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1638 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1640 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1643 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1645 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1646 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1647 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1648 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1649 of the temporary file.
1651 ** New function: open-input-string string
1653 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1654 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1655 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1657 ** New function: open-output-string
1659 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1660 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1662 ** New function: get-output-string
1664 Return the contents of an output string port.
1666 ** New function: identity
1668 Return the argument.
1670 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1671 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1673 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1675 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1676 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1677 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1680 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1681 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1683 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1685 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1686 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1687 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1690 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1691 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1692 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1696 Use `identity' instead.
1702 ** Deprecated: return-it
1706 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1708 Use `string-length' instead.
1710 ** Deprecated: flags
1712 Use `logior' instead.
1714 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1716 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1717 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1718 port-for-each is more flexible.
1720 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1721 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1722 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1724 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1726 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1728 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1730 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1732 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1734 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1735 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1737 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1738 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
1740 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
1741 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
1743 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
1745 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
1746 Removed function: builtin-bindings
1748 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
1749 Use module system operations for all variables.
1751 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
1753 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
1756 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
1758 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
1759 The following bugs have been fixed:
1761 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
1762 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
1765 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
1766 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
1767 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
1769 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
1770 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
1772 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
1773 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
1776 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
1777 The expansion used to be like so:
1779 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
1781 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
1783 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
1785 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
1786 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
1788 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
1790 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
1791 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
1792 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
1796 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
1797 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
1799 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
1804 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
1805 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
1807 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
1808 and `d', other keywords allowed.
1809 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
1811 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
1814 * Changes to the C interface
1816 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
1818 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
1819 with "_t". What a concept.
1821 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
1823 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
1825 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
1829 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
1830 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
1832 *** C Functions removed
1834 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
1835 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
1836 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
1837 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
1838 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
1839 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
1840 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
1842 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
1844 Use scm_mem2string instead.
1846 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
1848 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
1850 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
1851 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
1853 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
1855 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
1858 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
1860 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
1862 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
1864 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
1865 Evaluation" in the manual.
1867 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
1869 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
1870 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
1872 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
1874 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
1875 Constructors" in the manual.
1877 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
1879 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
1880 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
1882 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
1884 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
1886 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
1887 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
1888 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
1890 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1892 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
1894 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
1895 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
1896 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
1899 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1901 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
1903 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
1904 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
1906 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
1908 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
1909 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
1910 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
1911 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
1913 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
1914 scm_primitive_property_ref
1915 scm_primitive_property_set_x
1916 scm_primitive_property_del_x
1918 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
1919 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
1921 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
1923 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
1924 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
1925 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
1926 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
1928 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
1930 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
1931 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
1932 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
1933 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
1934 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
1935 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
1936 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
1938 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
1939 scm_remember_upto_here
1941 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
1943 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
1945 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
1946 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
1948 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
1950 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
1952 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
1954 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
1956 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
1958 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
1959 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
1960 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
1961 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
1962 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
1963 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
1965 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
1967 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1969 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
1970 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1971 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
1973 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
1975 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
1976 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1977 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
1979 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
1981 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
1982 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
1985 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
1988 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
1989 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1992 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1994 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1996 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1998 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2000 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
2002 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
2004 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
2005 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
2006 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
2007 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2008 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
2009 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
2010 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
2011 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2012 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
2013 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
2014 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
2015 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
2016 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
2017 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
2018 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
2020 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
2021 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
2022 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
2023 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
2024 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
2025 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
2026 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
2027 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
2028 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2029 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
2030 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
2031 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
2032 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
2033 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
2034 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
2035 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2036 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2037 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
2038 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
2039 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
2040 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
2041 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
2042 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
2043 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
2044 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
2045 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
2046 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
2047 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
2048 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
2050 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
2052 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
2054 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
2055 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
2057 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
2059 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
2061 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
2063 Use scm_string_hash instead.
2065 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
2067 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
2069 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
2071 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
2073 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
2076 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
2077 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
2079 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
2081 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
2083 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
2085 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
2087 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
2089 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
2091 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
2093 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2096 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2098 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2100 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2102 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2103 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2105 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2106 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2108 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2110 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2111 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2112 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2114 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2116 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2118 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2119 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2121 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2122 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2123 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2124 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2126 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2127 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2128 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2130 Use the new ones from above instead.
2132 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2134 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2135 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2136 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2138 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2139 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2141 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2142 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2145 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2146 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2148 Use the new functions instead.
2150 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2153 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2155 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2157 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2160 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2162 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2165 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2167 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2170 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2171 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2172 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2174 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2176 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2177 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2179 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2180 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2181 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2182 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2185 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2187 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2188 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2189 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2190 inexact for an exact.
2192 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2193 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2194 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2197 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2198 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2199 accept an inexact argument.
2201 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2202 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2204 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2207 ** New number validation macros:
2208 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2212 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2214 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2215 scm_unprotect_object.
2217 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2219 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2221 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2224 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2226 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2230 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2232 * Changes to the distribution
2234 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2236 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2237 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2238 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2239 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2240 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2241 obtain these programs.
2242 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2243 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2245 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2246 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2247 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2248 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2249 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2251 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2252 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2253 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2254 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2258 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2261 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2262 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2263 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2264 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2266 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2268 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2270 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2271 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2273 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2274 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2276 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2277 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2279 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2280 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2281 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2282 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2284 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2286 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2290 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2291 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2293 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2295 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2296 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2298 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2299 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2300 number of objects of that kind.
2302 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2304 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2305 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2306 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2307 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2308 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2310 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2312 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2314 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2316 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2319 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2321 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2323 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2325 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2327 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2329 ** New command line option --debug
2331 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2333 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2335 ** New help facility
2337 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2338 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2339 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2340 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2341 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2342 (help) gives this text
2344 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2345 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2347 Examples: (help help)
2349 (help "output-string")
2351 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2353 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2355 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2356 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2359 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2360 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2361 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2364 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2365 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2366 use absolute filenames when possible.
2368 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2369 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2370 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2373 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2375 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2376 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2377 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2378 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2380 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2382 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2384 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2385 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2386 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2388 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2389 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2390 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2392 (read-enable 'positions)
2393 (debug-enable 'debug)
2395 ** Backtraces in scripts
2397 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2401 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2403 at the top of the script.
2405 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2406 The second enables backtraces.)
2408 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2410 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2411 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2412 substantially faster than before.
2414 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2415 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2417 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2418 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2420 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2422 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2423 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2424 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2426 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2427 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2428 when this hook is run in the future.
2430 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2431 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2433 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2435 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2436 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2439 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2440 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2441 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2443 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2444 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2446 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2447 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2449 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2450 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2451 in order not to need further allocation.)
2453 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2456 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2457 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2458 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2459 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2461 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2463 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2466 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2468 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2471 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2472 GC in percent of total heap size
2475 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2476 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2478 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2480 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2481 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2483 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2485 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2486 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2488 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2490 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2491 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2495 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2496 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2498 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2500 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2502 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2504 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2506 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2508 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2509 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2511 (simple-format port message . args)
2512 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2513 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2514 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2515 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2516 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2517 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2518 Does not add a trailing newline."
2520 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2522 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2523 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2525 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2526 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2528 ** Deprecated: list*
2530 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2532 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2534 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2535 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2537 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2538 is returned as result.
2540 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2542 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2544 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2546 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2547 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2550 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2552 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2554 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2555 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2557 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2559 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2561 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2563 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2565 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2567 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2569 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2571 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2572 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2573 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2575 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2578 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2580 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2581 the readability of argument checking.
2583 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2585 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2587 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2589 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2590 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2591 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2592 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2593 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2594 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2595 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2597 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2599 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2601 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2602 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2604 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2606 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2607 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2610 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2612 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2613 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2614 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2616 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2617 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2618 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2620 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2621 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2622 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2623 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2624 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2625 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2626 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2628 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2629 scm_end_input (object);
2630 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2631 ptob->flush (object);
2633 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2634 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2637 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2639 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2641 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2642 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2643 removed in a future version.
2645 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2647 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2648 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2649 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2650 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2652 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2653 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2655 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2658 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2660 in your configure.in.
2662 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2667 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2673 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2675 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2679 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2680 (define make-message string-append)
2682 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2684 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2688 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2693 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2697 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2699 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2700 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2702 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2704 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2705 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2706 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2707 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2708 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2709 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2711 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2712 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2713 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2715 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2716 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2717 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2720 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2721 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2722 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2723 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2724 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2726 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2727 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2728 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2729 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2730 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2731 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2732 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2734 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2736 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2737 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2738 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
2740 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
2741 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
2742 KEY in the calling thread.
2744 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
2745 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
2746 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
2747 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
2748 associated with the key.
2750 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
2752 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
2753 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
2755 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
2757 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
2758 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
2759 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
2761 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
2763 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
2764 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
2766 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
2768 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
2770 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
2771 returned is undefined.
2773 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
2774 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
2775 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
2777 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
2778 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
2779 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
2781 ** New C level GC hooks
2783 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
2785 scm_before_gc_c_hook
2788 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
2789 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
2790 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
2792 scm_before_mark_c_hook
2793 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
2794 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
2796 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
2797 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
2800 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
2802 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
2803 allocation parameters
2805 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
2806 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
2807 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
2811 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
2812 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
2813 scm_default_max_segment_size
2815 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
2817 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
2818 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2820 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2822 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2823 object and count on the object being protected until
2824 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2826 The functions also have better time complexity.
2828 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
2829 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
2830 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
2831 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2832 are no longer needed.
2834 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2836 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2837 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2838 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
2839 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
2841 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
2843 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
2845 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
2847 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
2848 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
2849 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
2850 until this issue has been settled.
2852 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
2854 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
2856 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
2859 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
2861 * Changes to system call interfaces:
2863 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
2864 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
2865 descriptors were checked.
2867 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
2868 atomically written to a pipe.
2870 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
2871 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
2872 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
2873 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
2874 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
2875 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
2876 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
2879 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
2880 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
2881 is changed without calling tzset.
2883 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
2885 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
2886 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
2887 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
2889 (define write-network-long
2890 (lambda (value port)
2891 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2892 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
2893 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
2895 (define read-network-long
2897 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2898 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
2899 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
2901 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
2902 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
2904 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
2905 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
2906 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
2907 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
2909 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
2910 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
2911 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
2912 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
2916 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
2918 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2922 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
2923 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
2924 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
2930 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
2931 for a description of available commands.
2933 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
2934 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
2935 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
2937 (debug-enable 'backwards)
2939 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
2940 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
2942 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
2944 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
2946 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
2947 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
2948 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
2949 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
2950 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
2951 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
2954 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
2956 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
2957 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
2958 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
2959 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
2961 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
2962 the file and should not be affected by this change.
2964 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
2966 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2968 ** Readline support has changed again.
2970 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
2971 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
2972 to activate readline is now
2974 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
2977 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
2979 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
2980 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
2981 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
2984 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
2985 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
2986 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
2989 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
2990 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
2991 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
2992 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
2993 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
2994 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
2996 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
2997 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
2999 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
3001 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
3002 object it receives is the same string passed to
3003 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
3004 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
3005 string, not the suffix.
3007 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
3008 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
3009 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
3011 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
3013 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
3014 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
3015 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
3016 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
3019 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3021 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
3023 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
3024 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
3025 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
3026 appear from left to right.
3028 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
3031 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
3033 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
3034 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
3036 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3040 *** New function: hook? OBJ
3042 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
3044 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
3046 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
3047 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
3048 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
3050 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
3052 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
3054 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
3056 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
3059 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
3061 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
3062 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
3063 mentioning it here anyway.
3065 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
3067 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
3068 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
3069 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
3070 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
3073 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
3075 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
3077 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
3079 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
3080 otherwise return #f.
3082 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
3084 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
3085 returned by `opendir'.
3087 ** New function: using-readline?
3089 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
3091 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3093 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
3094 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3096 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3098 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3100 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3101 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3102 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3104 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3106 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3107 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3109 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3111 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3112 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3113 documentation slots are not yet used.
3115 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3117 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3118 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3119 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3124 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3125 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3126 (string-append x y))
3128 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3129 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3131 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3132 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3133 be made in a clean way.]
3135 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3137 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3139 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3141 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3142 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3144 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3146 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3148 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3150 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3152 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3153 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3154 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3155 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3158 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3160 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3162 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3164 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3166 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3167 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3169 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3171 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3173 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3175 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3177 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3178 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3179 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3180 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3181 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3182 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3184 This should not make any difference for most users.
3186 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3188 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3189 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3191 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3193 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3194 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3195 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3196 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3197 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3199 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3201 It is now replaced by:
3203 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3205 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3206 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3208 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3210 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3211 This might change when we get the new module system.
3213 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3217 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3219 * Changes to mailing lists
3221 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3223 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3226 * Changes to the distribution
3228 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3230 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3231 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3232 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3233 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3234 you explicitly specify it.
3236 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3237 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3238 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3239 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3240 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3243 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3244 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3245 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3246 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3248 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3249 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3250 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3253 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3255 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3258 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3260 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3262 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3263 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3264 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3265 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3267 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3268 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3271 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3273 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3274 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3275 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3276 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3277 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3278 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3279 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3280 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3292 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3293 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3294 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3295 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3296 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3301 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3302 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3310 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3315 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3316 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3319 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3320 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3321 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3322 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3324 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3326 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3328 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3329 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3331 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3333 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3335 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3336 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3338 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3341 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3343 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3345 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3347 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3349 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3351 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3353 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3354 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3355 when the hook was created.
3357 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3358 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3359 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3360 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3361 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3362 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3363 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3364 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3365 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3367 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3368 the dlopen family of functions.
3370 ** New function `provided?'
3372 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3373 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3374 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3375 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3377 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3379 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3380 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3381 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3382 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3385 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3386 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3387 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3388 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3390 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3391 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3392 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3395 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3396 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3397 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3398 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3399 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3400 but with the flag set.
3402 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3404 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3405 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3407 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3408 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3409 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3410 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3411 available Scheme format implementations.
3413 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3414 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3415 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3416 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3417 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3418 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3419 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3420 output is to the current error port if available by the
3421 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3424 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3425 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3426 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3427 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3428 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3429 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3430 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3431 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3433 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3434 be executed at a time.
3437 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3439 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3440 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3441 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3443 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3444 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3445 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3446 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3447 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3448 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3449 general form of a directive is:
3451 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3453 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3455 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3457 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3458 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3459 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3462 Any (print as `display' does).
3466 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3470 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3474 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3480 print number sign always.
3483 print comma separated.
3485 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3491 print number sign always.
3494 print comma separated.
3496 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3502 print number sign always.
3505 print comma separated.
3507 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3513 print number sign always.
3516 print comma separated.
3518 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3523 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3527 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3530 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3533 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3536 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3541 prints `y' and `ies'.
3544 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3547 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3552 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3556 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3559 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3560 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3562 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3565 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3566 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3568 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3571 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3573 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3575 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3578 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3580 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3582 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3585 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3588 The sign appears before the padding.
3596 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3598 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3603 print N page separators.
3613 newline is ignored, white space left.
3616 newline is left, white space ignored.
3621 relative tabulation.
3627 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3629 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3632 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3634 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3637 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3640 converts by `string-upcase'.
3643 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3645 jumps N arguments forward.
3648 jumps 1 argument backward.
3651 jumps N arguments backward.
3654 jumps to the 0th argument.
3657 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3659 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3660 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3662 take argument from N.
3665 true test conditional.
3668 if-else-then conditional.
3674 default clause follows.
3677 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3679 at most N iterations.
3682 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3685 args from the rest of arguments.
3688 args from the rest args (lists).
3699 aborts if N <= M <= K
3701 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3704 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3707 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3713 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3715 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3717 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3718 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3719 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3720 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3721 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3722 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3726 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3730 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3736 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3739 Print a `#\space' character
3741 print N `#\space' characters.
3744 Print a `#\tab' character
3746 print N `#\tab' characters.
3749 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
3750 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
3751 must be a positive decimal number.
3754 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3755 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3756 be processed by `read'.
3759 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3760 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3761 be processed by `read'.
3764 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
3767 prints format version.
3770 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
3771 and format it accordingly.
3773 *** Configuration Variables
3775 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
3776 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
3777 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
3778 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
3781 format:symbol-case-conv
3782 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
3783 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
3784 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
3785 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
3786 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
3788 format:iobj-case-conv
3789 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
3790 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
3793 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
3796 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
3802 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
3803 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
3804 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
3805 `format' padding style.
3808 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
3809 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
3810 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
3811 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
3815 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
3816 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
3817 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3820 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3821 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3822 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3823 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3824 parameters or modifiers)).
3827 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
3829 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
3831 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3832 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3834 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3835 string-downcase! functions.
3837 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3838 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
3840 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
3843 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
3846 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
3847 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
3849 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
3851 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
3852 the symbol had be read by `read'.
3854 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
3855 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
3856 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
3857 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
3858 would if STRING were input.
3860 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
3862 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
3863 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
3864 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
3865 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
3868 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
3870 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
3871 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
3874 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
3876 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
3877 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
3879 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
3880 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
3882 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
3883 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
3884 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
3885 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
3887 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
3888 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
3890 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
3891 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
3892 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
3894 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
3895 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
3897 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
3898 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
3899 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
3900 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
3901 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
3903 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
3904 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
3905 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
3906 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
3907 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
3908 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
3910 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
3911 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
3912 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
3915 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
3916 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
3917 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
3918 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
3919 the following grammar:
3920 ((apples (single-char #\a))
3921 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
3922 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
3923 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
3924 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
3925 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
3926 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
3927 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
3928 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
3929 last option in its combination)
3931 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
3932 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
3933 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
3934 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
3936 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
3937 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
3938 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
3940 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3941 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3942 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
3944 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
3945 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
3946 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
3947 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
3948 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
3949 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
3950 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
3951 ordinary argument strings.
3953 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
3954 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
3955 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
3956 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
3958 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
3959 as a list, associated with the empty list.
3961 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
3962 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
3963 - a required option is omitted
3964 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
3965 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
3966 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
3967 - an option predicate fails
3972 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
3975 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
3976 (verbose (required? #f)
3979 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
3980 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
3981 (predicate ,string?))))
3983 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
3984 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3986 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3987 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
3988 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
3989 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
3992 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
3994 It will be removed in a few releases.
3996 ** New syntax: lambda*
3997 ** New syntax: define*
3998 ** New syntax: define*-public
3999 ** New syntax: defmacro*
4000 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
4001 Guile now supports optional arguments.
4003 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
4004 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
4005 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
4006 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
4007 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
4009 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
4010 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
4011 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
4013 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
4015 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
4016 and examples for `lambda*':
4019 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
4021 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
4022 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
4023 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
4024 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
4025 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
4026 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
4027 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
4028 can be checked with the bound? macro.
4030 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
4032 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
4033 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
4034 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
4035 are given as keywords are bound to values.
4037 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
4038 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
4039 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
4040 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
4041 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
4042 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
4043 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
4044 and until the procedure is called.
4046 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
4048 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
4049 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
4050 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
4051 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
4052 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
4053 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
4054 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
4055 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
4056 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
4057 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
4059 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
4060 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
4061 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
4062 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
4065 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
4067 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
4068 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
4069 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
4070 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
4072 ** New syntax: and-let*
4073 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
4075 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
4076 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
4077 (<variable> <expression>)
4080 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
4081 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
4082 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
4085 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
4086 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
4087 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
4088 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
4089 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
4090 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
4091 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
4093 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
4094 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
4095 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4096 shadow earlier bindings.
4098 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4100 ** New sorting functions
4102 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4103 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4104 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4105 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4107 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4108 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4111 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4112 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4113 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4115 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4116 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4117 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4118 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4120 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4121 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4122 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4123 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4124 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4127 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4128 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4129 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4130 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4131 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4132 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4134 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4135 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4136 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4138 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4139 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4140 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4143 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4144 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4145 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4147 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4148 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4150 ** New built-in random number support
4152 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4153 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4154 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4155 returned have a uniform distribution.
4157 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4158 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4159 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4160 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4161 effect of the `random' operation.
4163 *** New variable: *random-state*
4164 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4165 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4166 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4167 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4168 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4171 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4172 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4173 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4174 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4175 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4177 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4178 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4179 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4180 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4181 initialized using SEED.
4183 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4184 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4185 range between 0 and 1.
4187 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4188 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4189 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4190 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4191 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4192 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4193 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4195 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4196 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4197 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4198 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4199 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4200 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4202 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4203 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4204 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4205 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4207 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4208 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4209 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4210 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4212 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4213 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4214 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4216 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4218 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4221 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4222 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4225 ** New function: make-guardian
4226 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4227 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4228 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4229 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4230 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4232 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4233 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4234 one object if at all.
4236 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4237 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4238 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4240 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4241 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4242 read again in last-in first-out order.
4244 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4245 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4247 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4249 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4250 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4251 file position is used.
4253 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4254 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4255 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4257 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4258 redefined using seek.
4260 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4261 size is not supplied.
4263 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4264 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4266 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4267 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4269 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4271 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4272 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4273 and returns the contents as a single string.
4275 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4276 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4277 lists in serial order.
4279 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4280 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4281 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4283 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4284 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4285 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4286 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4288 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4289 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4290 and #f if an error occured.
4292 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4294 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4295 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4296 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4297 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4299 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4301 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4304 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4306 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4309 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4313 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4314 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4316 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4317 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4321 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4323 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4325 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4326 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4328 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4330 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4331 might change when we get the new module system.
4333 ** The smob interface
4335 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4336 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4338 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4340 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4344 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4345 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4346 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4347 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4348 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4349 will be freed by the default free function.
4351 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4352 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4353 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4354 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4356 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4357 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4358 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4359 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4361 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4363 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4364 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4368 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4369 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4370 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4372 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4373 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4374 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4375 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4377 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4378 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4379 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4381 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4382 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4383 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4384 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4386 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4387 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4388 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4390 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4394 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4396 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4397 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4398 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4400 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4401 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4402 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4404 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4405 a string port's buffer.
4407 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4408 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4409 function pointers which together define the current random number
4410 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4411 number library functions.
4413 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4416 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4417 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4420 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4421 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4423 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4424 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4426 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4427 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4430 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4431 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4432 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4433 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4435 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4436 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4437 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4438 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4439 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4440 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4441 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4443 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4444 by libguile and the application.
4446 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4447 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4448 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4449 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4451 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4452 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4454 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4455 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4456 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4458 ** Random number library functions
4459 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4460 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4461 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4463 The default random state is stored in:
4465 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4466 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4467 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4472 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4474 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4475 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4476 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4477 isn't a random state.
4479 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4480 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4482 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4483 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4484 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4485 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4487 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4488 Return 32 random bits.
4490 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4491 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4493 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4494 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4496 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4497 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4499 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4500 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4502 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4503 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4504 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4508 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4510 * Changes to the distribution
4512 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4513 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4514 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4517 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4518 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4519 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4521 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4522 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4523 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4524 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4527 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4528 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4529 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4531 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4533 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4535 *** Function: batch-mode?
4537 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4540 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4542 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4543 case has not been implemented.
4545 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4546 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4547 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4550 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4551 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4553 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4555 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4557 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4559 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4560 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4563 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4564 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4565 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4566 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4569 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4571 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4572 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4573 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4574 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4575 find those libraries.
4577 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4578 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4581 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4583 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4584 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4585 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4586 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4588 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4589 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4590 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4594 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4596 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4597 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4598 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4601 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4602 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4603 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4604 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4606 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4607 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4610 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4611 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4612 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4613 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4614 compiler where to find the libraries.
4616 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4617 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4618 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4620 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4621 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4622 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4623 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4624 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4628 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4630 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4631 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4632 internationalization support.
4634 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4635 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4636 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4637 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4638 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4640 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4641 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4642 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4643 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4644 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4646 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4647 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4648 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4649 any GNU mirror site.
4651 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4653 ** New function: add-history STRING
4654 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4655 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4656 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4658 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4660 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4661 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4662 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4665 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4666 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4667 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4669 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4671 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4674 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4675 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4678 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4679 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4680 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4681 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4682 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4683 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4685 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4686 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4687 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4688 of the form mentioned above.
4690 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4691 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4692 returned in the special `rest' list.
4694 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4695 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4697 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4699 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4701 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4703 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4704 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4705 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4706 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4707 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4708 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4709 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4710 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4713 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4715 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4717 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4718 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4721 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4722 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4723 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4727 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4728 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4729 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4730 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4731 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4732 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4733 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4734 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4737 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4739 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
4740 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
4741 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
4743 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
4745 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
4746 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
4748 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
4749 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
4750 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
4752 Why do we have this function?
4753 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
4754 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
4755 primitive, and display it differently, and
4756 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
4757 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
4760 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
4761 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
4764 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
4765 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
4766 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
4767 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
4769 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
4770 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
4773 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
4774 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
4776 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
4778 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
4779 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
4780 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
4781 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
4782 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
4783 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
4784 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
4787 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
4789 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
4790 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
4792 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
4793 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
4794 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
4795 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
4796 properly continue the print chain.
4798 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
4799 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
4800 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
4801 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
4802 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
4803 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
4804 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
4805 print-state, it is simply ignored.
4807 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
4808 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
4809 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
4810 safest to not check for these pairs.
4812 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
4813 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
4814 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
4815 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
4817 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
4819 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4820 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4822 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4824 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4826 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4827 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4828 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
4830 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
4831 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4832 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4834 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4835 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4836 the following functions and macros:
4838 Function: make-fluid
4840 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
4841 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
4842 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
4843 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
4844 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
4846 Function: fluid? OBJ
4848 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
4850 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
4851 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
4853 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
4854 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
4856 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
4858 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
4859 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
4860 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
4861 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
4862 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
4863 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
4864 modified by `with-fluids*'.
4866 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
4868 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
4869 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
4870 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
4871 should evaluate to a fluid.
4873 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
4875 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
4876 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
4877 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
4878 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
4879 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
4881 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
4884 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
4886 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
4888 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
4890 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
4893 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
4894 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
4895 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
4896 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
4897 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
4900 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
4901 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
4902 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
4904 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
4905 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
4906 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
4908 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
4909 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
4910 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4911 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
4913 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
4914 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
4915 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4916 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
4918 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
4919 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
4920 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
4921 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
4923 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
4924 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
4925 their revealed counts set to zero.
4927 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4928 Returns an integer file descriptor.
4930 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4931 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
4933 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4934 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
4936 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4937 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
4938 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
4940 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
4941 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
4942 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
4944 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
4945 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
4946 default environment inherited by child processes.
4948 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
4949 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
4950 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
4952 The return value is unspecified.
4954 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
4955 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
4956 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
4957 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
4958 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
4960 The return value is unspecified.
4962 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
4963 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
4971 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
4972 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
4975 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
4978 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
4979 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
4980 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
4982 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
4983 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
4984 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
4985 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
4988 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
4989 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
4991 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
4992 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
4993 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
4994 the `environ' procedure.
4996 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
4997 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
5000 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
5001 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
5003 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
5004 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
5005 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
5006 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
5008 *** procedure: times
5009 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
5010 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
5011 return a selected component:
5014 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
5018 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
5021 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
5025 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
5026 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
5030 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
5031 terminated child processes.
5033 ** Removed: list-length
5034 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
5035 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
5037 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
5039 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
5041 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
5043 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
5044 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
5045 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
5046 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
5048 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
5049 extra complexity it introduces.
5051 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
5052 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
5054 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
5055 variable to any non-empty value.
5057 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
5058 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
5060 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5062 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
5063 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
5065 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
5067 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
5068 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
5070 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
5072 ** vector handling routines
5074 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
5075 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
5076 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
5077 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
5078 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
5080 ** pair and list routines
5082 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
5085 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
5087 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
5090 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5092 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
5094 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
5095 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5096 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5097 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5098 site-specific initialization code.
5100 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5101 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5102 initialization processes.
5104 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5105 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5106 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5107 initialized properly.
5109 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5110 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5111 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5113 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5114 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5115 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5116 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5117 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5119 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5121 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5122 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5123 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5124 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5125 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5127 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5128 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5129 which look like this:
5132 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5134 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5135 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5138 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5139 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5142 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5144 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5145 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5146 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5148 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5149 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5150 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5151 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5152 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5154 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5155 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5157 int (*free) (SCM port);
5158 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5159 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5160 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5164 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5165 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5166 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5168 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5171 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5172 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5173 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5175 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5176 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5177 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5180 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5184 struct timeval *timeout);
5186 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5187 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5188 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5189 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5190 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5191 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5193 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5194 scm_catch_body_t body,
5196 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5199 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5200 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5201 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5202 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5203 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5204 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5206 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5208 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5211 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5212 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5213 spawning threads from application C code.
5215 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5216 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5217 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5218 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5219 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5220 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5222 ** Removed functions:
5224 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5225 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5227 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5229 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5230 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5232 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5234 ** mbstrings are now removed
5236 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5237 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5239 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5241 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5242 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5243 their new names and arguments:
5245 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5246 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5247 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5248 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5251 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5253 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5255 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5258 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5260 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5261 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5262 pass a #f arg to catch.
5264 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5266 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5267 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5270 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5271 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5272 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5273 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5274 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5275 reclaim its storage.
5277 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5278 worrying that some other function you call will call
5279 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5280 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5281 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5282 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5285 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5287 * Changes to the distribution
5289 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5290 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5293 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5294 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5296 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5297 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5299 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5301 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5302 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5303 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5305 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5307 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5308 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5309 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5310 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5311 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5312 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5314 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5315 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5316 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5319 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5320 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5321 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5322 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5324 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5325 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5326 libraries to your link command:
5328 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5329 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5330 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5331 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5333 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5334 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5335 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5337 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5339 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5340 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5343 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5345 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5346 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5347 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5348 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5349 searched is system dependent.
5351 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5353 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5355 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5357 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5358 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5360 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5362 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5363 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5364 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5365 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5366 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5369 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5371 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5372 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5373 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5374 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5375 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5377 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5379 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5380 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5382 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5384 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5385 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5386 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5389 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5391 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5392 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5393 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5394 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5396 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5397 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5399 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5401 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5402 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5404 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5406 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5407 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5415 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5417 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5418 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5419 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5420 a more informative way.
5422 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5423 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5424 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5425 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5426 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5427 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5429 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5430 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5433 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5434 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5435 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5438 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5439 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5440 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5441 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5442 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5443 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5445 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5446 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5447 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5448 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5451 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5452 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5453 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5454 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5455 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5456 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5458 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5459 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5460 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5461 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5462 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5464 *** regexp functions
5466 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5467 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5468 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5470 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5471 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5472 with SCSH regular expressions.
5474 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5475 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5476 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5477 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5479 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5480 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5481 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5482 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5484 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5485 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5486 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5487 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5488 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5489 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5491 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5492 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5493 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5494 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5495 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5497 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5499 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5500 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5501 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5502 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5504 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5505 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5506 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5508 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5509 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5511 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5514 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5515 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5516 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5518 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5519 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5520 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5522 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5523 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5524 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5525 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5526 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5529 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5531 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5532 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5533 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5534 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5535 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5536 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5538 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5539 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5540 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5542 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5543 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5546 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5547 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5549 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5550 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5551 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5552 may be one of the following arguments:
5554 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5556 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5558 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5559 the regexp match is written.
5561 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5562 following the regexp match is written.
5564 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5565 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5568 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5569 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5570 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5571 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5572 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5573 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5575 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5578 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5579 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5580 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5581 written out to PORT.
5583 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5584 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5585 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5586 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5587 will return after processing a single match.
5589 *** Match Structures
5591 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5592 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5593 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5594 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5595 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5596 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5599 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5600 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5601 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5602 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5603 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5605 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5606 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5607 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5609 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5610 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5611 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5612 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5613 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5615 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5616 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5618 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5619 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5621 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5622 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5624 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5625 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5627 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5628 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5629 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5630 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5632 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5633 Return the original TARGET string.
5635 *** Backslash Escapes
5637 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5638 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5639 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5640 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5641 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5642 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5644 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5645 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5646 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5647 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5648 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5649 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5650 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5651 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5653 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5654 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5655 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5656 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5657 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5658 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5659 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5661 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5662 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5663 return the resulting string.
5665 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5666 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5667 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5668 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5669 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5670 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5671 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5672 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5673 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5674 translated to the single character `*'.
5676 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5677 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5678 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5679 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5680 consecutive backslashes:
5682 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5684 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5685 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5686 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5688 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5689 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5690 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5691 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5692 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5693 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5695 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5697 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5698 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5699 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5700 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5701 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5702 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5703 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5704 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5705 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5706 cumbersome escape syntax.
5708 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5710 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5712 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5714 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5717 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5719 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5721 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5724 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5725 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5726 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5727 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5728 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5730 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5731 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5732 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5733 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5734 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5735 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5736 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5739 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
5740 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
5741 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
5744 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
5745 `force-output' on every port open for output.
5747 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
5748 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
5749 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
5750 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
5751 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
5752 installed, you can say:
5754 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
5757 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5759 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
5760 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
5761 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
5762 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
5763 new dynamic roots and threads.
5766 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
5768 * Changes to the distribution.
5770 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
5772 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
5773 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
5774 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
5775 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
5776 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
5777 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
5778 programming language. These are packaged together because the
5779 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
5781 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
5784 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
5785 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
5790 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5792 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
5793 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
5795 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
5796 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
5797 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
5798 the (command-line) function.
5799 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
5800 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
5801 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
5803 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
5804 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
5805 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
5806 command line arguments
5807 -ds do -s script at this point
5808 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
5809 -h, --help display this help and exit
5810 -v, --version display version information and exit
5811 \ read arguments from following script lines
5813 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
5814 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
5816 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5819 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5823 (main (command-line))
5825 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5827 ekko a speckled gecko
5829 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
5830 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
5831 following list of command-line arguments:
5833 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5835 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5836 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5837 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5838 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
5839 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5841 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
5843 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
5845 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
5846 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
5849 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
5850 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
5851 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
5852 SCSH) for circumventing them.
5854 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
5855 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
5856 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
5857 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
5859 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
5863 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5867 If the user invokes this script as follows:
5869 ekko a speckled gecko
5871 Unix expands this into
5873 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
5875 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
5876 read from the second line of the script, producing:
5878 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5880 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
5881 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5883 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
5884 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
5885 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
5886 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
5887 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
5888 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
5889 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
5890 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
5891 it only terminates the argument list.)
5892 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
5893 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
5894 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
5895 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
5896 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
5897 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
5898 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
5899 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
5901 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5903 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
5904 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
5905 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
5906 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
5907 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
5909 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
5910 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
5911 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
5913 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
5915 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
5916 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
5917 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
5918 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
5921 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
5922 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5923 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5925 * Changes to Scheme functions
5927 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
5928 and disabled by default.
5930 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
5931 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
5932 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
5933 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
5935 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
5937 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
5939 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
5940 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
5942 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
5943 (read-set! keywords #f)
5945 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
5946 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
5947 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
5950 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
5951 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
5952 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
5955 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
5956 support for Scheme functions.
5958 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5959 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
5960 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
5961 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
5964 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5965 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
5966 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
5969 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
5970 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
5971 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
5974 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
5975 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
5976 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
5977 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
5978 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
5979 display the result as a prompt.
5980 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
5982 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
5983 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
5984 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
5987 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
5988 procedure of zero arguments.
5990 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
5991 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
5992 argument is bound in the current module.
5994 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
5995 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
5996 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
5997 public bindings into the current module.
5999 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
6000 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
6002 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
6003 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
6005 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
6006 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
6008 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
6009 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
6011 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
6012 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
6014 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
6015 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
6016 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
6017 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
6018 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
6020 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
6021 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
6022 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
6023 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
6025 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
6028 ** Changes to I/O functions
6030 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
6031 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
6032 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
6034 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
6035 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
6036 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
6038 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
6039 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
6041 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
6042 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
6043 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
6044 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
6046 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
6048 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
6049 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
6051 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
6052 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
6053 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
6054 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
6055 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
6058 'trim omit delimiter from result
6059 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
6060 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
6061 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
6063 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
6065 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
6066 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
6068 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
6069 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
6070 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
6071 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
6072 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
6074 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
6075 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
6076 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
6078 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
6079 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
6080 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
6081 above, and defaults to 'peek.
6083 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
6084 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6086 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
6087 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
6089 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
6091 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
6092 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
6093 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
6094 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
6095 a delimiting character.
6096 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6098 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6099 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6100 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6101 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6102 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6103 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6105 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6106 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6108 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6109 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6110 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6112 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6113 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6114 the array to read and write.
6116 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6117 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6120 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6122 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6125 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6126 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6127 Values for COMMAND are:
6129 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6130 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6131 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6132 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6133 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6134 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6135 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6136 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6138 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6140 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6141 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6142 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6143 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6144 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6145 corresponding return set will be the same.
6147 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6150 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6151 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6152 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6153 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6154 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6155 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6156 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6157 special file being created.
6159 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6160 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6162 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6163 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6164 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6165 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6166 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6167 and originating address.
6169 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6170 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6171 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6173 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6176 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6177 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6180 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6181 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6182 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6183 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6184 this function returns #f.
6186 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6187 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6188 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6191 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6192 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6193 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6196 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6197 a valid STATUS value.
6199 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6201 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6202 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6204 Component Accessor Setter
6205 ========================= ============ ============
6206 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6207 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6208 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6209 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6210 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6211 year tm:year set-tm:year
6212 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6213 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6214 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6215 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6216 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6218 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6219 describing the host system:
6222 ============================================== ================
6223 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6224 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6225 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6226 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6227 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6229 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6230 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6231 system's user database:
6234 ====================== =================
6235 user name passwd:name
6236 user password passwd:passwd
6239 real name passwd:gecos
6240 home directory passwd:dir
6241 shell program passwd:shell
6243 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6244 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6245 system's group database:
6248 ======================= ============
6249 group name group:name
6250 group password group:passwd
6252 group members group:mem
6254 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6255 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6259 ========================= ===============
6260 official name of host hostent:name
6261 alias list hostent:aliases
6262 host address type hostent:addrtype
6263 length of address hostent:length
6264 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6266 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6267 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6271 ========================= ===============
6272 official name of net netent:name
6273 alias list netent:aliases
6274 net number type netent:addrtype
6275 net number netent:net
6277 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6278 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6282 ========================= ===============
6283 official protocol name protoent:name
6284 alias list protoent:aliases
6285 protocol number protoent:proto
6287 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6288 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6292 ========================= ===============
6293 official service name servent:name
6294 alias list servent:aliases
6295 port number servent:port
6296 protocol to use servent:proto
6298 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6299 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6302 ======================================== ===============
6303 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6304 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6305 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6306 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6308 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6309 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6310 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6312 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6313 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6315 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6316 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6318 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6319 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6321 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6323 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6325 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6326 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6327 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6329 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6330 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6331 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6332 return the remaining characters as a string.
6334 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6335 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6336 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6338 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6340 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6342 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6345 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6348 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6349 and returns the array
6351 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6352 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6353 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6355 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6357 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6358 symbol's value from C code:
6360 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6361 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6362 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6363 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6365 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6366 without assigning them a value.
6368 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6369 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6370 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6372 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6373 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6374 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6376 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6377 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6379 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6380 doesn't actually care about that.
6382 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6383 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6384 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6386 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6387 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6388 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6389 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6390 which we have just created and initialized.
6392 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6393 should one occur. We call it like this:
6394 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6396 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6397 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6398 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6399 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6400 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6401 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6404 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6405 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6406 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6407 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6408 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6409 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6410 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6413 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6414 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6415 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6416 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6417 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6420 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6421 scm_internal_catch, except:
6423 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6424 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6425 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6426 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6429 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6430 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6431 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6433 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6434 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6435 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6436 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6439 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6440 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6441 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6443 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6444 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6445 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6446 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6447 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6449 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6450 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6451 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6453 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6454 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6455 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6457 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6458 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6460 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6461 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6462 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6465 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6466 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6467 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6468 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6469 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6470 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6471 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6474 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6475 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6477 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6478 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6479 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6480 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6481 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6484 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6485 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6487 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6488 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6491 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6492 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6494 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6497 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6498 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6499 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6500 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6501 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6502 given the following arguments:
6504 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6506 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6508 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6510 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6513 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6514 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6515 command-line arguments.
6517 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6518 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6519 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6520 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6521 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6522 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6525 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6528 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6529 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6531 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6532 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6534 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6535 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6536 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6537 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6539 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6540 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6542 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6543 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6544 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6545 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6547 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6548 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6550 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6551 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6553 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6555 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6556 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6557 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6560 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6561 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6563 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6564 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6569 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6572 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6574 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6575 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6576 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6577 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6579 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6581 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6583 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6584 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6585 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6586 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6587 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6588 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6589 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6590 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6591 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6592 for more information.
6594 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6595 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6597 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6598 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6599 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6600 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6601 following two lines at the top of the file:
6603 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6606 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6607 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6608 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6610 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6612 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6614 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6617 (display (car args))
6618 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6620 (loop (cdr args)))))
6623 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6624 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6625 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6626 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6627 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6628 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6632 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6635 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6638 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6640 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6641 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6642 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6643 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6644 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6647 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6648 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6649 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6650 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6651 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6654 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6657 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6658 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6659 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6662 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6663 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6664 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6666 to see a backtrace, and
6667 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6668 to see them by default.
6672 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6674 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6676 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6677 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6680 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6681 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6682 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6683 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6686 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6687 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6688 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6689 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6690 functions which inspired them.
6692 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6693 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6697 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6699 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6701 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6702 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6705 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6706 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6707 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6709 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6710 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6711 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6712 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6713 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6715 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6717 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6718 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6719 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6722 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6725 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6727 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6728 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6729 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6730 above should serve their purposes.
6732 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6733 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6734 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6735 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6737 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
6740 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
6741 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
6742 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
6743 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
6745 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
6746 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
6747 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
6748 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
6750 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
6751 for the `read' function.
6754 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
6755 to that of `integer?'.
6757 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
6758 use the R4RS names for these functions.
6760 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
6761 it simply returns the object's property list.
6763 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
6764 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
6765 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
6766 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
6768 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
6770 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
6773 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
6775 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
6776 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
6778 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
6780 void (*main_func) (),
6783 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
6784 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
6785 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
6786 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
6787 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
6789 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
6790 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
6791 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
6792 know which arguments have been processed.
6794 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
6795 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
6796 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
6797 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
6798 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
6800 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
6801 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
6802 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
6803 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
6804 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
6805 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
6806 people from making that mistake.
6808 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
6809 convenient ways to override these when desired.
6811 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
6813 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
6817 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6820 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6821 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6822 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6823 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6826 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6827 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6828 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
6829 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6832 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6833 have been added to the Guile library.
6835 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6836 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6837 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
6840 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
6841 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
6842 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
6844 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
6845 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
6846 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
6847 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
6848 argument from the list.
6851 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
6854 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
6855 null-terminated string, and returns it.
6857 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
6858 to a Scheme port object.
6860 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
6861 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
6866 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
6868 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
6869 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
6870 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
6871 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
6872 code as a special datatype.
6874 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
6875 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
6876 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
6877 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
6878 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
6881 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
6882 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
6883 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
6884 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
6885 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
6887 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
6890 Copyright information:
6892 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6894 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6895 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6896 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6897 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6899 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6900 of this document, or of portions of it,
6901 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6902 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6907 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"