1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Changes since the stable branch:
9 * Changes to the standalone interpreter
11 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
13 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
14 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
16 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
18 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
19 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
21 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
23 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
25 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
26 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
27 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
29 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
32 ** pretty-print has more options.
34 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
35 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
36 maximum output width. See its online documentation.
38 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
40 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
41 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
42 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
44 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
46 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
47 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
49 ** Removed: substring-move-left!, substring-move-right!
51 Use `substring-move!' instead.
53 * Changes to the C interface
55 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
57 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
58 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
59 initializes a new cell (see below).
61 ** New functions for memory management
63 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
64 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
65 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
66 cause aborts in long running programs.
68 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
69 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
71 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_strdup,
72 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_realloc, scm_gc_free,
73 scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
74 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
75 details and for upgrading instructions.
77 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
78 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
79 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
81 ** New function: scm_str2string
83 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
86 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
88 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
89 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
90 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
91 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
92 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
94 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
95 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
96 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
98 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
99 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
101 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
103 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
104 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
105 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
106 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
108 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
110 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
113 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
115 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
117 ** Removed from scm_root_state: def_inp, def_outp, def_errp. These were
118 unused copies of the standard ports when Guile was initialised.
120 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify,
121 s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
122 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated,
123 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND,
124 SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
125 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_substring_move_left_x, scm_substring_move_right_x,
126 long_long, ulong_long, scm_sizet, SCM_WNA, SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC,
127 SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL,
128 SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL,
129 SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, moddata, registered_mods,
130 scm_register_module_xxx, scm_registered_modules,
131 scm_clear_registered_modules, scm_wta, *top-level-lookup-closure*,
132 scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
133 scm_eval2, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR, SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR,
134 SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_GC8MARKP, SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK,
135 SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, scm_remember, scm_protect_object,
136 scm_unprotect_object, root_module_lookup_closure, scm_sym_app,
137 scm_sym_modules, module_prefix, make_modules_in_var,
138 beautify_user_module_x_var, try_module_autoload_var, scm_module_full_name,
139 scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module, scm_ensure_user_module,
140 scm_load_scheme_module, scm_port, scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_port_rw_active,
141 scm_close_all_ports_except, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_i_rstate,
142 SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_STRING_UCHARS, SCM_STRING_CHARS,
143 scm_read_only_string_p, scm_makstr, scm_makfromstr,
144 scm_make_shared_substring, scm_tc7_substring, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP,
145 SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP, scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
146 sym_huh, scm_variable_set_name_hint, scm_builtin_variable, SCM_VARVCELL,
147 SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_internal_with_fluids,
148 scm_make_gsubr, scm_make_gsubr_with_generic, scm_create_hook, list*,
149 SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4, SCM_LIST5,
150 SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9, scm_listify, scm_sloppy_memq,
151 scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member, scm_end_of_file_key,
152 scm_read_and_eval_x, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
153 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
154 scm_subr_entry, SCM_SUBR_DOC, scm_make_subr_opt, scm_make_subr,
155 scm_make_subr_with_generic, setjmp_type, setjmp_type,
156 scm_call_catching_errors, scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe,
157 scm_strprint_obj, scm_read_0str, scm_eval_0str, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
158 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
159 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
160 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_strhash,
161 scm_sym2vcell, scm_sym2ovcell_soft, scm_sym2ovcell,
162 scm_intern_obarray_soft, scm_intern_obarray, scm_intern, scm_intern0,
163 scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0, scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup,
164 scm_symbol_value0, scm_string_to_obarray_symbol, scm_intern_symbol,
165 scm_unintern_symbol, scm_symbol_binding, scm_symbol_interned_p,
166 scm_symbol_bound_p, scm_symbol_set_x, scm_gentemp,
167 scm_init_symbols_deprecated, s_vector_set_length_x, scm_vector_set_length_x,
168 scm_contregs, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_OPDIRP,
169 scm_fport, scm_option, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL,
170 SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT, scm_srcprops, scm_srcprops_chunk,
171 scm_info_frame, scm_stack, scm_array, scm_array_dim, SCM_ARRAY_CONTIGUOUS,
172 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA,
173 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY,
174 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
175 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
176 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int,
177 scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int,
178 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell,
179 SCM_ECONSP, SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
180 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
182 Changes since Guile 1.4:
184 * Changes to the distribution
186 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
188 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
190 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
191 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
192 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
193 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
194 indicate major changes in Guile.
196 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
197 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
198 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
199 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
201 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
202 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
203 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
204 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
205 micro version number.
207 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
209 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
211 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
212 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
214 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
216 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
217 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
218 See INSTALL and README for more information.
220 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
222 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
223 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
224 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
227 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
229 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
232 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
234 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
235 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
237 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
239 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
240 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
243 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
245 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
248 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
251 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
253 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
255 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
256 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
257 open-output-string, get-output-string.
259 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
261 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
263 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
266 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
268 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
270 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
272 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
273 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
274 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
276 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
278 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
280 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
281 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
290 See README there for more info.
292 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
293 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
296 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
298 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
300 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
302 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
303 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
304 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
306 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
308 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
309 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
310 to be named `and-let*', of course.
312 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
313 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
315 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
320 (oop goops active-slot)
321 (oop goops composite-slot)
323 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
324 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
325 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
327 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
329 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
330 in the default environment:
332 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
333 %read-line write-line
335 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
336 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
338 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
340 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
343 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
344 can be used for similar functionality.
346 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
348 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
349 it defines two procedures:
351 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
353 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
354 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
355 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
358 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
360 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
361 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
362 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
365 ** New module (ice-9 match)
367 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
368 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
370 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
372 for complete documentation.
374 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
376 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
377 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
378 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
379 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
381 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
382 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
386 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
387 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
388 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
391 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
394 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
395 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
397 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
398 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
401 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
404 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
406 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
408 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
410 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
412 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
413 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
414 Scheme programs easier.
416 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
417 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
418 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
419 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
420 `cond-expand' when using this option.
423 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
424 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
426 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
429 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
431 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
432 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
433 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
436 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
438 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
440 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
441 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
442 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
443 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
444 was also ASCII, for example.
446 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
448 tag - no replacement.
449 fseek - replaced by seek.
450 list* - replaced by cons*.
452 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
456 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
457 (define m (make-safe-module))
458 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
459 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
460 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
462 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
464 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
465 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
466 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
468 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
470 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
471 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
472 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
473 from the issues related to the module system.
475 *** New function: load-extension
477 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
479 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
481 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
482 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
483 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
485 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
487 This function registers a initialization function for use by
488 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
489 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
490 support dynamic linking).
492 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
494 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
495 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
496 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
497 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
500 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
501 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
502 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
503 library and initialize it explicitely.
505 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
506 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
508 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
510 (define-module (foo bar))
512 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
514 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
516 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
517 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
519 (scheme-report-environment 5)
521 (interaction-environment)
527 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
529 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
530 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
531 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
532 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
534 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
535 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
536 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
537 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
538 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
539 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
540 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
541 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
542 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
543 one eval to the next.
545 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
546 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
547 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
548 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
549 subforms are at the top-level as well.
551 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
552 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
553 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
554 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
555 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
556 used in a lexical environment.
558 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
559 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
560 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
561 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
562 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
563 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
565 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
567 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
568 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
569 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
570 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
571 new facilities: selection and renaming.
573 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
574 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
575 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
577 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
578 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
580 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
581 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
582 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
585 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
587 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
588 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
589 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
590 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
593 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
594 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
595 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
596 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
599 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
600 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
602 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
603 ;; and all four by upcasing.
604 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
605 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
606 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
608 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
611 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
612 :renamer upcase-symbol))
614 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
615 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
616 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
618 See manual for more info.
620 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
622 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
623 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
624 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
626 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
628 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
629 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
630 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
632 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
633 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
634 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
635 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
637 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
639 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
640 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
642 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
643 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
644 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
645 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
646 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
649 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
650 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
651 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
652 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
653 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
654 successful and #f if it wasn't.
656 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
657 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
658 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
659 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
660 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
662 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
663 objects are usually permanent.
665 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
666 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
668 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
670 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
671 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
674 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
678 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
683 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
685 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
686 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
687 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
688 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
690 ** New function `make-object-property'
692 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
693 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
697 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
698 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
702 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
703 source properties eventually.
705 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
707 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
708 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
709 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
711 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
712 will be removed in the next release.
714 ** New define-module option: pure
716 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
721 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
724 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
726 Export names NAME1 ...
728 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
729 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
735 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
738 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
743 ** New function: object->string OBJ
745 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
747 ** New function: port? X
749 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
750 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
752 ** New function: file-port?
754 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
756 ** New function: port-for-each proc
758 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
759 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
760 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
761 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
762 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
764 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
766 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
767 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
768 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
769 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
770 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
773 ** New function: close-fdes fd
775 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
776 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
777 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
778 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
781 ** New function: crypt password salt
783 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
786 ** New function: chroot path
788 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
790 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
792 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
795 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
797 Get or set the priority of the running process.
799 ** New function: getpass prompt
801 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
804 ** New function: flock file operation
806 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
808 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
810 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
813 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
815 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
816 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
817 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
818 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
819 of the temporary file.
821 ** New function: open-input-string string
823 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
824 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
825 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
827 ** New function: open-output-string
829 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
830 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
832 ** New function: get-output-string
834 Return the contents of an output string port.
836 ** New function: identity
840 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
841 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
843 ** New function: inet-pton family address
845 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
846 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
847 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
850 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
851 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
853 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
855 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
856 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
857 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
860 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
861 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
862 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
866 Use `identity' instead.
872 ** Deprecated: return-it
876 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
878 Use `string-length' instead.
882 Use `logior' instead.
884 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
886 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
887 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
888 port-for-each is more flexible.
890 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
891 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
892 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
894 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
896 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
898 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
900 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
902 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
904 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
905 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
907 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
908 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
910 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
911 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
913 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
915 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
916 Removed function: builtin-bindings
918 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
919 Use module system operations for all variables.
921 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
923 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
926 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
928 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
929 The following bugs have been fixed:
931 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
932 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
935 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
936 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
937 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
939 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
940 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
942 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
943 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
946 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
947 The expansion used to be like so:
949 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
951 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
953 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
955 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
956 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
958 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
960 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
961 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
962 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
966 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
967 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
969 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
974 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
975 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
977 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
978 and `d', other keywords allowed.
979 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
981 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
984 * Changes to the C interface
986 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
988 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
989 with "_t". What a concept.
991 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
993 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
995 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
999 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
1000 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
1002 *** C Functions removed
1004 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
1005 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
1006 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
1007 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
1008 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
1009 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
1010 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
1012 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
1014 Use scm_mem2string instead.
1016 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
1018 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
1020 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
1021 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
1023 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
1025 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
1028 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
1030 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
1032 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
1034 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments.
1038 scm_call_1 (proc, arg1);
1040 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
1042 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list
1047 scm_apply_1 (proc, arg1, args);
1049 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
1051 Create a list of the given number of elements.
1053 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
1055 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
1056 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
1058 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
1060 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
1062 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
1063 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
1064 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
1066 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1068 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
1070 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
1071 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
1072 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
1075 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
1077 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
1079 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
1080 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
1082 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
1084 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
1085 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
1086 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
1087 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
1089 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
1090 scm_primitive_property_ref
1091 scm_primitive_property_set_x
1092 scm_primitive_property_del_x
1094 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
1095 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
1097 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
1099 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
1100 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
1101 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
1102 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
1104 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
1106 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
1107 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
1108 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
1109 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
1110 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
1111 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
1112 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
1114 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
1115 scm_remember_upto_here
1117 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
1119 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
1121 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
1122 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
1124 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
1126 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
1128 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
1130 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
1132 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
1134 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
1135 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
1136 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
1137 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
1138 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
1139 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
1141 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
1143 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1145 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
1146 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1147 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
1149 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
1151 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
1152 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
1153 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
1155 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
1157 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
1158 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
1161 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
1164 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
1165 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1168 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1170 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
1172 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
1174 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1176 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
1178 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
1180 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
1181 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
1182 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
1183 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1184 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
1185 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
1186 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
1187 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1188 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
1189 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
1190 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
1191 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
1192 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
1193 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
1194 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
1196 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
1197 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
1198 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
1199 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
1200 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
1201 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
1202 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
1203 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
1204 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
1205 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
1206 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
1207 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
1208 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
1209 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
1210 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
1211 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
1212 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
1213 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
1214 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
1215 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
1216 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
1217 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
1218 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
1219 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
1220 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
1221 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
1222 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
1223 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
1224 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
1226 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
1228 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
1230 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
1231 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
1233 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
1235 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
1237 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
1239 Use scm_string_hash instead.
1241 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
1243 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
1245 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
1247 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
1249 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
1252 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
1253 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
1255 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
1257 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
1259 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
1261 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
1263 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
1265 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
1267 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
1269 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
1272 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
1274 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
1276 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
1278 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
1279 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
1281 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
1282 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
1284 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
1286 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
1287 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
1288 scm_module_define, scm_define.
1290 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
1292 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
1294 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
1295 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
1297 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
1298 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
1299 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
1300 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
1302 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
1303 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
1304 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
1306 Use the new ones from above instead.
1308 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
1310 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
1311 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
1312 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
1314 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
1315 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
1317 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
1318 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
1321 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
1322 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
1324 Use the new functions instead.
1326 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
1329 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
1331 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
1333 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
1336 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
1338 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
1341 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
1343 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
1346 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
1347 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
1348 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
1350 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
1352 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
1353 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
1355 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
1356 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
1357 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
1358 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
1361 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
1363 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
1364 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
1365 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
1366 inexact for an exact.
1368 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
1369 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
1370 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
1373 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
1374 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
1375 accept an inexact argument.
1377 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
1378 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
1380 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
1383 ** New number validation macros:
1384 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
1388 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
1390 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
1391 scm_unprotect_object.
1393 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
1395 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
1397 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
1400 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
1402 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
1406 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
1408 * Changes to the distribution
1410 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
1412 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
1413 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
1414 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
1415 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
1416 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
1417 obtain these programs.
1418 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
1419 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
1421 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
1422 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
1423 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
1424 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
1425 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
1427 However, this approach means that minor differences between
1428 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
1429 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
1430 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
1434 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
1437 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
1438 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
1439 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
1440 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
1442 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
1444 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
1446 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
1447 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
1449 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
1450 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
1452 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
1453 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
1455 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
1456 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
1457 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
1458 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
1460 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
1462 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
1466 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
1467 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
1469 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
1471 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
1472 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
1474 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
1475 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
1476 number of objects of that kind.
1478 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
1480 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
1481 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
1482 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
1483 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
1484 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
1486 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
1488 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
1490 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
1492 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
1495 ** New module (ice-9 time)
1497 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
1499 ** New module (ice-9 history)
1501 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
1503 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1505 ** New command line option --debug
1507 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
1509 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
1511 ** New help facility
1513 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
1514 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
1515 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
1516 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
1517 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
1518 (help) gives this text
1520 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
1521 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
1523 Examples: (help help)
1525 (help "output-string")
1527 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
1529 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
1531 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
1532 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
1535 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
1536 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
1537 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
1540 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
1541 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
1542 use absolute filenames when possible.
1544 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
1545 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
1546 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
1549 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
1551 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
1552 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
1553 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
1554 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
1556 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
1558 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
1560 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
1561 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
1562 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
1564 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
1565 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
1566 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
1568 (read-enable 'positions)
1569 (debug-enable 'debug)
1571 ** Backtraces in scripts
1573 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
1577 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
1579 at the top of the script.
1581 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
1582 The second enables backtraces.)
1584 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
1586 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
1587 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
1588 substantially faster than before.
1590 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
1591 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
1593 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
1594 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
1596 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
1598 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
1599 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
1600 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
1602 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
1603 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
1604 when this hook is run in the future.
1606 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
1607 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
1609 ** Improvements to garbage collector
1611 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
1612 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
1615 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
1616 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
1617 more and more memory for certain programs.)
1619 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
1620 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
1622 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
1623 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
1625 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
1626 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
1627 in order not to need further allocation.)
1629 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
1632 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
1633 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
1634 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
1635 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
1637 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
1639 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
1642 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
1644 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
1647 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
1648 GC in percent of total heap size
1651 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
1652 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
1654 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
1656 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
1657 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
1659 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
1661 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
1662 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
1664 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
1666 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
1667 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
1671 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
1672 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
1674 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
1676 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1678 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
1680 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
1682 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
1684 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
1685 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
1687 (simple-format port message . args)
1688 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
1689 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
1690 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
1691 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
1692 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
1693 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
1694 Does not add a trailing newline."
1696 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
1698 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
1699 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
1701 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
1702 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
1704 ** Deprecated: list*
1706 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
1708 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
1710 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
1711 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
1713 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
1714 is returned as result.
1716 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
1718 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
1720 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
1722 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
1723 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
1726 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
1728 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
1730 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
1731 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
1733 * Changes to the gh_ interface
1735 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
1737 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
1739 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1741 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
1743 Thanks to Greg Badros!
1745 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1747 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
1748 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
1749 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
1751 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
1754 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
1756 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
1757 the readability of argument checking.
1759 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
1761 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
1763 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
1765 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
1766 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
1767 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
1768 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
1769 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
1770 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
1771 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
1773 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
1775 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
1777 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
1778 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
1780 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
1782 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
1783 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
1786 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
1788 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
1789 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
1790 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
1792 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
1793 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
1794 implementation with gmp in the future.
1796 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
1797 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
1798 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
1800 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
1801 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
1802 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
1803 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
1804 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
1805 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
1806 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
1808 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
1809 scm_end_input (object);
1810 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
1811 ptob->flush (object);
1813 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
1814 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
1817 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
1819 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
1821 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
1822 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
1823 removed in a future version.
1825 ** The format of error message strings has changed
1827 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
1828 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
1829 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
1830 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
1832 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
1833 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
1835 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
1838 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
1840 in your configure.in.
1842 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
1847 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
1853 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
1855 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
1859 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
1860 (define make-message string-append)
1862 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
1864 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
1868 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
1873 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
1877 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
1879 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
1880 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
1882 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
1884 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
1885 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
1886 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
1887 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
1888 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
1889 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
1891 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
1892 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
1893 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
1895 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
1896 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
1897 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
1900 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
1901 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
1902 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
1903 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
1904 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
1906 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
1907 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
1908 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
1909 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
1910 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
1911 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
1912 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
1914 Destructors are not yet implemented.
1916 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
1917 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
1918 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
1920 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
1921 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
1922 KEY in the calling thread.
1924 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
1925 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
1926 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
1927 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
1928 associated with the key.
1930 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
1932 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
1933 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
1935 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
1937 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
1938 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
1939 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
1941 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
1943 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
1944 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
1946 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
1948 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
1950 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
1951 returned is undefined.
1953 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
1954 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
1955 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
1957 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
1958 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
1959 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
1961 ** New C level GC hooks
1963 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
1965 scm_before_gc_c_hook
1968 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
1969 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
1970 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
1972 scm_before_mark_c_hook
1973 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
1974 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
1976 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
1977 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
1980 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
1982 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
1983 allocation parameters
1985 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
1986 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
1987 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
1991 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
1992 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
1993 scm_default_max_segment_size
1995 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
1997 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
1998 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
2000 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
2002 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
2003 object and count on the object being protected until
2004 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
2006 The functions also have better time complexity.
2008 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
2009 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
2010 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
2011 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
2012 are no longer needed.
2014 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
2016 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
2017 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
2018 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
2019 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
2021 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
2023 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
2025 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
2027 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
2028 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
2029 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
2030 until this issue has been settled.
2032 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
2034 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
2036 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
2039 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
2041 * Changes to system call interfaces:
2043 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
2044 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
2045 descriptors were checked.
2047 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
2048 atomically written to a pipe.
2050 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
2051 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
2052 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
2053 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
2054 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
2055 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
2056 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
2059 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
2060 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
2061 is changed without calling tzset.
2063 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
2065 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
2066 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
2067 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
2069 (define write-network-long
2070 (lambda (value port)
2071 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2072 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
2073 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
2075 (define read-network-long
2077 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
2078 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
2079 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
2081 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
2082 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
2084 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
2085 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
2086 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
2087 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
2089 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
2090 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
2091 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
2092 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
2096 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
2098 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2102 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
2103 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
2104 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
2110 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
2111 for a description of available commands.
2113 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
2114 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
2115 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
2117 (debug-enable 'backwards)
2119 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
2120 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
2122 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
2124 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
2126 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
2127 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
2128 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
2129 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
2130 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
2131 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
2134 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
2136 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
2137 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
2138 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
2139 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
2141 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
2142 the file and should not be affected by this change.
2144 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
2146 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2148 ** Readline support has changed again.
2150 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
2151 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
2152 to activate readline is now
2154 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
2157 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
2159 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
2160 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
2161 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
2164 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
2165 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
2166 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
2169 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
2170 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
2171 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
2172 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
2173 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
2174 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
2176 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
2177 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
2179 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
2181 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
2182 object it receives is the same string passed to
2183 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
2184 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
2185 string, not the suffix.
2187 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
2188 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
2189 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
2191 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
2193 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
2194 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
2195 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
2196 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
2199 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2201 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
2203 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
2204 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
2205 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
2206 appear from left to right.
2208 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
2211 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
2213 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
2214 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
2216 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
2220 *** New function: hook? OBJ
2222 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
2224 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
2226 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
2227 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
2228 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
2230 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
2232 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
2234 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
2236 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
2239 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
2241 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
2242 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
2243 mentioning it here anyway.
2245 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
2247 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
2248 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
2249 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
2250 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
2253 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
2255 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
2257 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
2259 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
2260 otherwise return #f.
2262 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
2264 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
2265 returned by `opendir'.
2267 ** New function: using-readline?
2269 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
2271 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2273 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
2274 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2276 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2278 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
2280 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
2281 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
2282 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
2284 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
2286 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
2287 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
2289 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
2291 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
2292 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
2293 documentation slots are not yet used.
2295 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
2297 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
2298 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
2299 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
2304 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
2305 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
2306 (string-append x y))
2308 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
2309 can also be used for concatenating strings.
2311 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
2312 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
2313 be made in a clean way.]
2315 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
2317 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2319 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
2321 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
2322 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
2324 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2326 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
2328 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2330 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2332 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
2333 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
2334 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
2335 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
2338 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2340 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
2342 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
2344 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
2346 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
2347 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
2349 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
2351 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
2353 Evaluates the body of a special form.
2355 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
2357 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
2358 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
2359 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
2360 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
2361 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
2362 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
2364 This should not make any difference for most users.
2366 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
2368 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
2369 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
2371 *** New functions for applying generic functions
2373 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
2374 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
2375 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
2376 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
2377 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
2379 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
2381 It is now replaced by:
2383 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
2385 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2386 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2388 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2390 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
2391 This might change when we get the new module system.
2393 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
2397 Changes since Guile 1.3:
2399 * Changes to mailing lists
2401 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
2403 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
2406 * Changes to the distribution
2408 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
2410 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
2411 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
2412 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
2413 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
2414 you explicitly specify it.
2416 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
2417 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
2418 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
2419 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
2420 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
2423 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
2424 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
2425 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
2426 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
2428 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
2429 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
2430 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
2433 You can activate the readline support by issuing
2435 (use-modules (readline-activator))
2438 from your ".guile" file, for example.
2440 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2442 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
2443 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
2444 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
2445 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
2447 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
2448 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
2451 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2453 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
2454 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
2455 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
2456 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
2457 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
2458 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
2459 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
2460 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
2472 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
2473 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
2474 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
2475 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
2476 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
2481 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
2482 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
2490 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
2495 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
2496 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
2499 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
2500 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
2501 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
2502 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
2504 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
2506 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
2508 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
2509 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
2511 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
2513 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
2515 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
2516 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
2518 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
2521 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
2523 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
2525 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
2527 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
2529 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
2531 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
2533 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
2534 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
2535 when the hook was created.
2537 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
2538 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
2539 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
2540 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
2541 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
2542 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
2543 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
2544 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
2545 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
2547 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
2548 the dlopen family of functions.
2550 ** New function `provided?'
2552 - Function: provided? FEATURE
2553 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
2554 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
2555 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
2557 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
2559 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
2560 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
2561 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
2562 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2565 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
2566 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
2567 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
2568 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
2570 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
2571 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
2572 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
2575 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
2576 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
2577 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
2578 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
2579 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
2580 but with the flag set.
2582 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
2584 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
2585 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
2587 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
2588 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
2589 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
2590 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
2591 available Scheme format implementations.
2593 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
2594 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
2595 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
2596 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
2597 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
2598 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
2599 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
2600 output is to the current error port if available by the
2601 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
2604 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
2605 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
2606 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
2607 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
2608 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
2609 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
2610 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
2611 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
2613 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
2614 be executed at a time.
2617 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
2619 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
2620 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
2621 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
2623 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
2624 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
2625 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
2626 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
2627 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
2628 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
2629 general form of a directive is:
2631 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
2633 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
2635 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2637 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
2638 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
2639 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
2642 Any (print as `display' does).
2646 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
2650 S-expression (print as `write' does).
2654 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
2660 print number sign always.
2663 print comma separated.
2665 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
2671 print number sign always.
2674 print comma separated.
2676 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
2682 print number sign always.
2685 print comma separated.
2687 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
2693 print number sign always.
2696 print comma separated.
2698 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
2703 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
2707 print a number as a Roman numeral.
2710 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
2713 print a number as an ordinal English number.
2716 print a number as a cardinal English number.
2721 prints `y' and `ies'.
2724 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2727 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
2732 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
2736 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
2739 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
2740 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
2742 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2745 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
2746 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
2748 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2751 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
2753 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
2755 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2758 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
2760 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
2762 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
2765 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
2768 The sign appears before the padding.
2776 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
2778 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
2783 print N page separators.
2793 newline is ignored, white space left.
2796 newline is left, white space ignored.
2801 relative tabulation.
2807 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
2809 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
2812 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
2814 converts by `string-capitalize'.
2817 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
2820 converts by `string-upcase'.
2823 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
2825 jumps N arguments forward.
2828 jumps 1 argument backward.
2831 jumps N arguments backward.
2834 jumps to the 0th argument.
2837 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
2839 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
2840 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
2842 take argument from N.
2845 true test conditional.
2848 if-else-then conditional.
2854 default clause follows.
2857 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
2859 at most N iterations.
2862 args from next arg (a list of lists).
2865 args from the rest of arguments.
2868 args from the rest args (lists).
2879 aborts if N <= M <= K
2881 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
2884 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2887 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
2893 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
2895 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
2897 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
2898 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
2899 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
2900 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
2901 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
2902 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
2906 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
2910 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
2916 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
2919 Print a `#\space' character
2921 print N `#\space' characters.
2924 Print a `#\tab' character
2926 print N `#\tab' characters.
2929 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
2930 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
2931 must be a positive decimal number.
2934 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2935 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2936 be processed by `read'.
2939 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
2940 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
2941 be processed by `read'.
2944 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
2947 prints format version.
2950 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
2951 and format it accordingly.
2953 *** Configuration Variables
2955 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
2956 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
2957 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
2958 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
2961 format:symbol-case-conv
2962 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
2963 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
2964 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
2965 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
2966 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
2968 format:iobj-case-conv
2969 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
2970 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
2973 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
2976 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
2982 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
2983 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
2984 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
2985 `format' padding style.
2988 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
2989 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
2990 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
2991 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
2995 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
2996 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
2997 directive parameters or modifiers)).
3000 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
3001 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
3002 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
3003 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
3004 parameters or modifiers)).
3007 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
3009 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
3011 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
3012 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
3014 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
3015 string-downcase! functions.
3017 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
3018 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
3020 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
3023 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
3026 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
3027 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
3029 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
3031 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
3032 the symbol had be read by `read'.
3034 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
3035 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
3036 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
3037 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
3038 would if STRING were input.
3040 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
3042 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
3043 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
3044 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
3045 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
3048 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
3050 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
3051 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
3054 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
3056 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
3057 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
3059 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
3060 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
3062 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
3063 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
3064 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
3065 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
3067 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
3068 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
3070 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
3071 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
3072 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
3074 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
3075 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
3077 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
3078 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
3079 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
3080 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
3081 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
3083 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
3084 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
3085 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
3086 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
3087 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
3088 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
3090 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
3091 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
3092 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
3095 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
3096 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
3097 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
3098 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
3099 the following grammar:
3100 ((apples (single-char #\a))
3101 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
3102 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
3103 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
3104 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
3105 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
3106 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
3107 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
3108 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
3109 last option in its combination)
3111 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
3112 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
3113 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
3114 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
3116 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
3117 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
3118 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
3120 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3121 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
3122 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
3124 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
3125 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
3126 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
3127 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
3128 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
3129 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
3130 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
3131 ordinary argument strings.
3133 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
3134 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
3135 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
3136 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
3138 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
3139 as a list, associated with the empty list.
3141 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
3142 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
3143 - a required option is omitted
3144 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
3145 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
3146 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
3147 - an option predicate fails
3152 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
3155 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
3156 (verbose (required? #f)
3159 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
3160 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
3161 (predicate ,string?))))
3163 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
3164 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3166 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
3167 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
3168 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
3169 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
3172 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
3174 It will be removed in a few releases.
3176 ** New syntax: lambda*
3177 ** New syntax: define*
3178 ** New syntax: define*-public
3179 ** New syntax: defmacro*
3180 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
3181 Guile now supports optional arguments.
3183 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
3184 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
3185 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
3186 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
3187 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
3189 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
3190 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
3191 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
3193 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
3195 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
3196 and examples for `lambda*':
3199 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
3201 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
3202 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
3203 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
3204 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
3205 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
3206 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
3207 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
3208 can be checked with the bound? macro.
3210 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
3212 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
3213 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
3214 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
3215 are given as keywords are bound to values.
3217 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
3218 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
3219 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
3220 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
3221 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
3222 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
3223 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
3224 and until the procedure is called.
3226 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
3228 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
3229 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
3230 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
3231 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
3232 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
3233 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
3234 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
3235 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
3236 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
3237 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
3239 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
3240 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
3241 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
3242 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
3245 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
3247 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
3248 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
3249 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
3250 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
3252 ** New syntax: and-let*
3253 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
3255 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
3256 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
3257 (<variable> <expression>)
3260 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
3261 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
3262 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
3265 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
3266 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
3267 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
3268 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
3269 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
3270 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
3271 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
3273 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
3274 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
3275 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
3276 shadow earlier bindings.
3278 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
3280 ** New sorting functions
3282 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
3283 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
3284 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
3285 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
3287 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
3288 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
3291 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3292 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
3293 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
3295 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
3296 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
3297 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
3298 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
3300 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
3301 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
3302 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
3303 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
3304 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
3307 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3308 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
3309 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
3310 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
3311 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
3312 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
3314 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
3315 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
3316 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
3318 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
3319 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
3320 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
3323 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
3324 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
3325 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
3327 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
3328 Added for compatibility with scsh.
3330 ** New built-in random number support
3332 *** New function: random N [STATE]
3333 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
3334 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
3335 returned have a uniform distribution.
3337 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
3338 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
3339 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
3340 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
3341 effect of the `random' operation.
3343 *** New variable: *random-state*
3344 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
3345 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
3346 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
3347 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
3348 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
3351 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
3352 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3353 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3354 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
3355 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
3357 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
3358 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
3359 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
3360 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
3361 initialized using SEED.
3363 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
3364 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
3365 range between 0 and 1.
3367 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3368 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
3369 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
3370 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
3371 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
3372 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
3373 or a uniform vector of doubles.
3375 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
3376 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
3377 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
3378 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
3379 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
3380 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3382 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
3383 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
3384 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
3385 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
3387 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
3388 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
3389 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
3390 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
3392 *** New function: random:exp STATE
3393 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
3394 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
3396 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
3398 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
3401 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
3402 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
3405 ** New function: make-guardian
3406 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
3407 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
3408 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
3409 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
3410 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
3412 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
3413 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
3414 one object if at all.
3416 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
3417 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
3418 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
3420 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
3421 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
3422 read again in last-in first-out order.
3424 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
3425 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
3427 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
3429 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
3430 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
3431 file position is used.
3433 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
3434 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
3435 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
3437 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
3438 redefined using seek.
3440 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
3441 size is not supplied.
3443 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
3444 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
3446 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
3447 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
3449 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
3451 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
3452 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
3453 and returns the contents as a single string.
3455 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
3456 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
3457 lists in serial order.
3459 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
3460 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
3461 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
3463 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
3464 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
3465 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
3466 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
3468 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
3469 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
3470 and #f if an error occured.
3472 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
3474 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
3475 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
3476 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
3477 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
3479 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
3481 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
3484 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
3486 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
3489 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3493 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
3494 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
3496 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
3497 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
3501 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3503 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
3505 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3506 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3508 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3510 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
3511 might change when we get the new module system.
3513 ** The smob interface
3515 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
3516 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
3518 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
3520 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
3524 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
3525 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
3526 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
3527 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
3528 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
3529 will be freed by the default free function.
3531 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3532 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
3533 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3534 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3536 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
3537 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
3538 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3539 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3541 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
3543 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
3544 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
3548 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
3549 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3550 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3552 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
3553 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
3554 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
3555 `scm_make_smob_type'.
3557 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
3558 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
3559 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
3561 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
3562 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
3563 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
3564 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
3566 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
3567 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
3568 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
3570 *** scm_newptob has been removed
3574 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
3576 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
3577 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
3578 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
3580 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
3581 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
3582 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
3584 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
3585 a string port's buffer.
3587 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
3588 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
3589 function pointers which together define the current random number
3590 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
3591 number library functions.
3593 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
3596 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
3597 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
3600 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
3601 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3603 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
3604 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
3606 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
3607 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
3610 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
3611 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
3612 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
3613 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
3615 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
3616 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
3617 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
3618 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
3619 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
3620 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
3621 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
3623 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
3624 by libguile and the application.
3626 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3627 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
3628 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
3629 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
3631 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
3632 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
3634 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
3635 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
3636 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
3638 ** Random number library functions
3639 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
3640 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
3641 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
3643 The default random state is stored in:
3645 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
3646 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
3647 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
3652 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
3654 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
3655 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
3656 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
3657 isn't a random state.
3659 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
3660 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
3662 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
3663 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
3664 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
3665 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
3667 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3668 Return 32 random bits.
3670 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3671 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
3673 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3674 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
3676 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
3677 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
3679 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
3680 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3682 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
3683 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
3684 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
3688 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
3690 * Changes to the distribution
3692 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
3693 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
3694 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
3697 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
3698 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
3699 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
3701 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
3702 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
3703 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
3704 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
3707 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
3708 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
3709 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
3711 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3713 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
3715 *** Function: batch-mode?
3717 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
3720 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
3722 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
3723 case has not been implemented.
3725 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
3726 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
3727 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
3730 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
3731 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
3733 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
3735 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
3737 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
3739 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
3740 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
3743 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
3744 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
3745 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
3746 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
3749 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
3751 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
3752 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
3753 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
3754 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
3755 find those libraries.
3757 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
3758 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
3761 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
3763 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
3764 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
3765 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
3766 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
3768 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
3769 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
3770 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
3774 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
3776 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
3777 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
3778 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
3781 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
3782 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
3783 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
3784 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
3786 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
3787 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
3790 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
3791 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
3792 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
3793 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
3794 compiler where to find the libraries.
3796 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
3797 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
3798 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
3800 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
3801 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
3802 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
3803 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
3804 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
3808 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3810 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
3811 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
3812 internationalization support.
3814 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
3815 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
3816 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
3817 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
3818 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
3820 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
3821 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
3822 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
3823 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
3824 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
3826 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
3827 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
3828 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
3829 any GNU mirror site.
3831 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
3833 ** New function: add-history STRING
3834 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
3835 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
3836 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
3838 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
3840 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
3841 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
3842 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
3845 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
3846 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
3847 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
3849 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
3851 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
3854 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
3855 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
3858 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
3859 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
3860 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
3861 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
3862 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
3863 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
3865 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
3866 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
3867 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
3868 of the form mentioned above.
3870 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
3871 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
3872 returned in the special `rest' list.
3874 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
3875 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
3877 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
3879 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
3881 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
3883 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
3884 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
3885 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
3886 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
3887 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
3888 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
3889 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
3890 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
3893 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
3895 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
3897 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
3898 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
3901 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
3902 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
3903 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
3907 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
3908 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
3909 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
3910 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
3911 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
3912 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
3913 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
3914 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
3917 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
3919 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
3920 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
3921 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
3923 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
3925 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
3926 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
3928 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
3929 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
3930 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
3932 Why do we have this function?
3933 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
3934 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
3935 primitive, and display it differently, and
3936 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
3937 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
3940 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
3941 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
3944 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
3945 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
3946 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
3947 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
3949 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
3950 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
3953 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
3954 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
3956 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
3958 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
3959 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
3960 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
3961 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
3962 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
3963 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
3964 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
3967 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
3969 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
3970 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
3972 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
3973 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
3974 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
3975 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
3976 properly continue the print chain.
3978 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
3979 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
3980 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
3981 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
3982 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
3983 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
3984 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
3985 print-state, it is simply ignored.
3987 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
3988 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
3989 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
3990 safest to not check for these pairs.
3992 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
3993 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
3994 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
3995 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
3997 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
3999 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
4000 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
4002 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
4004 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
4006 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
4007 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
4008 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
4010 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
4011 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
4012 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
4014 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
4015 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
4016 the following functions and macros:
4018 Function: make-fluid
4020 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
4021 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
4022 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
4023 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
4024 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
4026 Function: fluid? OBJ
4028 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
4030 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
4031 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
4033 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
4034 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
4036 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
4038 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
4039 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
4040 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
4041 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
4042 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
4043 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
4044 modified by `with-fluids*'.
4046 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
4048 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
4049 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
4050 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
4051 should evaluate to a fluid.
4053 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
4055 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
4056 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
4057 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
4058 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
4059 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
4061 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
4064 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
4066 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
4068 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
4070 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
4073 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
4074 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
4075 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
4076 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
4077 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
4080 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
4081 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
4082 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
4084 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
4085 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
4086 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
4088 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
4089 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
4090 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4091 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
4093 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
4094 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
4095 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
4096 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
4098 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
4099 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
4100 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
4101 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
4103 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
4104 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
4105 their revealed counts set to zero.
4107 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4108 Returns an integer file descriptor.
4110 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4111 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
4113 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4114 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
4116 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
4117 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
4118 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
4120 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
4121 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
4122 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
4124 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
4125 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
4126 default environment inherited by child processes.
4128 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
4129 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
4130 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
4132 The return value is unspecified.
4134 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
4135 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
4136 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
4137 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
4138 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
4140 The return value is unspecified.
4142 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
4143 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
4151 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
4152 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
4155 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
4158 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
4159 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
4160 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
4162 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
4163 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
4164 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
4165 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
4168 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
4169 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
4171 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
4172 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
4173 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
4174 the `environ' procedure.
4176 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
4177 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
4180 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
4181 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
4183 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
4184 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
4185 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
4186 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
4188 *** procedure: times
4189 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
4190 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
4191 return a selected component:
4194 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
4198 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
4201 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
4205 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
4206 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
4210 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
4211 terminated child processes.
4213 ** Removed: list-length
4214 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
4215 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
4217 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
4219 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
4221 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
4223 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
4224 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
4225 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
4226 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
4228 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
4229 extra complexity it introduces.
4231 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
4232 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
4234 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
4235 variable to any non-empty value.
4237 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
4238 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
4240 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4242 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
4243 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
4245 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
4247 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
4248 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
4250 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
4252 ** vector handling routines
4254 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
4255 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
4256 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
4257 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
4258 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
4260 ** pair and list routines
4262 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
4265 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
4267 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
4270 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4272 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
4274 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
4275 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
4276 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
4277 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
4278 site-specific initialization code.
4280 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
4281 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
4282 initialization processes.
4284 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
4285 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
4286 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
4287 initialized properly.
4289 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
4290 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
4291 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
4293 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
4294 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
4295 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
4296 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
4297 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
4299 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
4301 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
4302 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
4303 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
4304 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
4305 objects the smob refers to get marked.
4307 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
4308 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
4309 which look like this:
4312 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
4314 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
4315 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
4318 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
4319 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
4322 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
4324 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
4325 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
4326 you will need to change your functions slightly.
4328 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
4329 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
4330 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
4331 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
4332 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
4334 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
4335 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
4337 int (*free) (SCM port);
4338 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
4339 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
4340 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
4344 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
4345 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
4346 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
4348 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
4351 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
4352 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
4353 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
4355 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
4356 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
4357 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
4360 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
4364 struct timeval *timeout);
4366 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
4367 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
4368 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
4369 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
4370 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
4371 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
4373 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
4374 scm_catch_body_t body,
4376 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4379 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
4380 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
4381 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
4382 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
4383 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
4384 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
4386 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
4388 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
4391 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
4392 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
4393 spawning threads from application C code.
4395 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
4396 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
4397 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
4398 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
4399 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
4400 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
4402 ** Removed functions:
4404 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
4405 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
4407 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
4409 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
4410 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
4412 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
4414 ** mbstrings are now removed
4416 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
4417 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
4419 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
4421 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
4422 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
4423 their new names and arguments:
4425 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
4426 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
4427 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
4428 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
4431 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
4433 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
4435 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
4438 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
4440 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
4441 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
4442 pass a #f arg to catch.
4444 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
4446 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
4447 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
4450 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
4451 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
4452 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
4453 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
4454 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
4455 reclaim its storage.
4457 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
4458 worrying that some other function you call will call
4459 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
4460 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
4461 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
4462 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
4465 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
4467 * Changes to the distribution
4469 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
4470 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
4473 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
4474 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
4476 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4477 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
4479 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
4481 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
4482 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
4483 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
4485 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4487 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
4488 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
4489 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
4490 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
4491 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
4492 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
4494 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
4495 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
4496 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
4499 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
4500 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
4501 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
4502 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
4504 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
4505 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
4506 libraries to your link command:
4508 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
4509 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
4510 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4511 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4513 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
4514 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
4515 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
4517 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4519 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
4520 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
4523 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
4525 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
4526 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
4527 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
4528 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
4529 searched is system dependent.
4531 (dynamic-object? VAL)
4533 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
4535 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
4537 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
4538 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
4540 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4542 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
4543 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
4544 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
4545 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
4546 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
4549 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
4551 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
4552 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
4553 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
4554 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
4555 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
4557 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
4559 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
4560 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
4562 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
4564 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
4565 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
4566 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
4569 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
4571 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
4572 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
4573 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
4574 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
4576 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
4577 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
4579 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
4581 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
4582 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
4584 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
4586 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
4587 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
4595 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
4597 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
4598 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
4599 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
4600 a more informative way.
4602 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
4603 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
4604 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
4605 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
4606 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
4607 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
4609 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
4610 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
4613 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
4614 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
4615 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
4618 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
4619 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
4620 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
4621 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
4622 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
4623 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
4625 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
4626 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
4627 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
4628 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
4631 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
4632 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
4633 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
4634 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
4635 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
4636 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
4638 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
4639 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
4640 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
4641 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
4642 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
4644 *** regexp functions
4646 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
4647 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
4648 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
4650 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
4651 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
4652 with SCSH regular expressions.
4654 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
4655 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
4656 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
4657 position of STR at which to begin matching.
4659 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
4660 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
4661 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
4662 `string-match' returns `#f'.
4664 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
4665 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
4666 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
4667 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
4668 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
4669 match strings against the compiled regexp.
4671 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
4672 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
4673 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
4674 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
4675 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
4677 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4679 **** Constant: regexp/extended
4680 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
4681 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
4682 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
4684 **** Constant: regexp/icase
4685 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
4686 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
4688 **** Constant: regexp/newline
4689 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
4691 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
4694 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
4695 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4696 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
4698 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
4699 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
4700 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
4702 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
4703 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
4704 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
4705 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
4706 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
4709 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
4711 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
4712 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
4713 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
4714 used when different portions of a string are passed to
4715 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
4716 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
4718 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
4719 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
4720 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
4722 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
4723 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
4726 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
4727 and replace them with the contents of another string.
4729 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
4730 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
4731 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
4732 may be one of the following arguments:
4734 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
4736 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
4738 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
4739 the regexp match is written.
4741 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
4742 following the regexp match is written.
4744 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
4745 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
4748 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
4749 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
4750 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
4751 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
4752 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
4753 which should be matched against this regular expression.
4755 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
4758 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
4759 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
4760 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
4761 written out to PORT.
4763 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
4764 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
4765 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
4766 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
4767 will return after processing a single match.
4769 *** Match Structures
4771 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
4772 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
4773 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
4774 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
4775 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
4776 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
4779 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
4780 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
4781 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
4782 information about the original target string that was matched against a
4783 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
4785 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
4786 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
4787 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
4789 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
4790 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
4791 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
4792 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
4793 number N did not match, return `#f'.
4795 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
4796 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
4798 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
4799 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
4801 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
4802 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
4804 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
4805 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
4807 **** Function: match:count MATCH
4808 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
4809 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
4810 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
4812 **** Function: match:string MATCH
4813 Return the original TARGET string.
4815 *** Backslash Escapes
4817 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
4818 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
4819 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
4820 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
4821 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
4822 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
4824 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
4825 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
4826 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
4827 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
4828 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
4829 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
4830 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
4831 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
4833 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
4834 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
4835 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
4836 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
4837 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
4838 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
4839 each match a single backslash in the target string.
4841 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
4842 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
4843 return the resulting string.
4845 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
4846 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
4847 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
4848 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
4849 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
4850 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
4851 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
4852 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
4853 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
4854 translated to the single character `*'.
4856 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
4857 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
4858 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
4859 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
4860 consecutive backslashes:
4862 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
4864 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
4865 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
4866 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
4868 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
4869 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
4870 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
4871 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
4872 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
4873 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
4875 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
4877 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
4878 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
4879 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
4880 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
4881 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
4882 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
4883 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
4884 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
4885 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
4886 cumbersome escape syntax.
4888 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4890 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4892 * Changes to system call interfaces:
4894 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
4897 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
4899 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
4901 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
4904 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
4905 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
4906 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
4907 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
4908 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
4910 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
4911 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
4912 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
4913 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
4914 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
4915 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
4916 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
4919 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
4920 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
4921 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
4924 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
4925 `force-output' on every port open for output.
4927 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
4928 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
4929 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
4930 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
4931 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
4932 installed, you can say:
4934 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
4937 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4939 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
4940 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
4941 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
4942 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
4943 new dynamic roots and threads.
4946 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
4948 * Changes to the distribution.
4950 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
4952 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
4953 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
4954 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
4955 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
4956 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
4957 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
4958 programming language. These are packaged together because the
4959 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
4961 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
4964 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
4965 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
4970 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4972 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
4973 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
4975 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
4976 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
4977 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
4978 the (command-line) function.
4979 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
4980 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
4981 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
4983 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
4984 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
4985 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
4986 command line arguments
4987 -ds do -s script at this point
4988 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
4989 -h, --help display this help and exit
4990 -v, --version display version information and exit
4991 \ read arguments from following script lines
4993 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
4994 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
4996 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4999 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5003 (main (command-line))
5005 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
5007 ekko a speckled gecko
5009 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
5010 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
5011 following list of command-line arguments:
5013 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
5015 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
5016 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
5017 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
5018 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
5019 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5021 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
5023 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
5025 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
5026 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
5029 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
5030 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
5031 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
5032 SCSH) for circumventing them.
5034 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
5035 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
5036 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
5037 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
5039 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
5043 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
5047 If the user invokes this script as follows:
5049 ekko a speckled gecko
5051 Unix expands this into
5053 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
5055 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
5056 read from the second line of the script, producing:
5058 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5060 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
5061 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
5063 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
5064 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
5065 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
5066 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
5067 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
5068 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
5069 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
5070 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
5071 it only terminates the argument list.)
5072 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
5073 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
5074 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
5075 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
5076 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
5077 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
5078 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
5079 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
5081 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5083 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
5084 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
5085 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
5086 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
5087 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
5089 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
5090 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
5091 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
5093 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
5095 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
5096 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
5097 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
5098 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
5101 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
5102 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5103 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5105 * Changes to Scheme functions
5107 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
5108 and disabled by default.
5110 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
5111 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
5112 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
5113 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
5115 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
5117 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
5119 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
5120 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
5122 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
5123 (read-set! keywords #f)
5125 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
5126 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
5127 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
5130 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
5131 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
5132 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
5135 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
5136 support for Scheme functions.
5138 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5139 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
5140 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
5141 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
5144 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
5145 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
5146 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
5149 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
5150 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
5151 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
5154 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
5155 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
5156 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
5157 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
5158 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
5159 display the result as a prompt.
5160 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
5162 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
5163 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
5164 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
5167 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
5168 procedure of zero arguments.
5170 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
5171 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
5172 argument is bound in the current module.
5174 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
5175 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
5176 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
5177 public bindings into the current module.
5179 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
5180 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
5182 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
5183 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
5185 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
5186 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
5188 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
5189 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
5191 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
5192 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
5194 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
5195 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
5196 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
5197 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
5198 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
5200 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
5201 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
5202 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
5203 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
5205 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
5208 ** Changes to I/O functions
5210 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
5211 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
5212 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
5214 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
5215 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
5216 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
5218 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
5219 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
5221 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
5222 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
5223 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
5224 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
5226 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
5228 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
5229 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
5231 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
5232 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
5233 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
5234 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
5235 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
5238 'trim omit delimiter from result
5239 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
5240 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
5241 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
5243 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
5245 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
5246 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
5248 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
5249 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
5250 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
5251 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
5252 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
5254 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
5255 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
5256 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
5258 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
5259 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
5260 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
5261 above, and defaults to 'peek.
5263 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
5264 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5266 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
5267 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
5269 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
5271 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
5272 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
5273 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
5274 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
5275 a delimiting character.
5276 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
5278 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
5279 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
5280 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
5281 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
5282 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
5283 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
5285 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
5286 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
5288 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
5289 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
5290 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
5292 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
5293 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
5294 the array to read and write.
5296 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
5297 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
5300 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
5302 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
5305 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
5306 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
5307 Values for COMMAND are:
5309 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
5310 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
5311 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
5312 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
5313 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
5314 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
5315 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
5316 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
5318 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
5320 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
5321 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
5322 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
5323 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
5324 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
5325 corresponding return set will be the same.
5327 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
5330 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
5331 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
5332 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
5333 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
5334 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
5335 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
5336 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
5337 special file being created.
5339 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
5340 clashing with various SCSH forks.
5342 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
5343 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
5344 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
5345 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
5346 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
5347 and originating address.
5349 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
5350 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
5351 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
5353 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
5356 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
5357 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
5360 (status:exit-val STATUS)
5361 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
5362 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
5363 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
5364 this function returns #f.
5366 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
5367 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
5368 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
5371 (status:term-sig STATUS)
5372 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
5373 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
5376 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
5377 a valid STATUS value.
5379 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
5381 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
5382 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
5384 Component Accessor Setter
5385 ========================= ============ ============
5386 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
5387 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
5388 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
5389 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
5390 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
5391 year tm:year set-tm:year
5392 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
5393 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
5394 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
5395 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
5396 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
5398 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
5399 describing the host system:
5402 ============================================== ================
5403 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
5404 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
5405 release level of the operating system utsname:release
5406 version level of the operating system utsname:version
5407 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
5409 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
5410 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
5411 system's user database:
5414 ====================== =================
5415 user name passwd:name
5416 user password passwd:passwd
5419 real name passwd:gecos
5420 home directory passwd:dir
5421 shell program passwd:shell
5423 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
5424 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
5425 system's group database:
5428 ======================= ============
5429 group name group:name
5430 group password group:passwd
5432 group members group:mem
5434 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
5435 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
5439 ========================= ===============
5440 official name of host hostent:name
5441 alias list hostent:aliases
5442 host address type hostent:addrtype
5443 length of address hostent:length
5444 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
5446 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
5447 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
5451 ========================= ===============
5452 official name of net netent:name
5453 alias list netent:aliases
5454 net number type netent:addrtype
5455 net number netent:net
5457 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
5458 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
5462 ========================= ===============
5463 official protocol name protoent:name
5464 alias list protoent:aliases
5465 protocol number protoent:proto
5467 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
5468 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
5472 ========================= ===============
5473 official service name servent:name
5474 alias list servent:aliases
5475 port number servent:port
5476 protocol to use servent:proto
5478 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
5479 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
5482 ======================================== ===============
5483 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
5484 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
5485 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
5486 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
5488 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
5489 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
5490 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
5492 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
5493 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
5495 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
5496 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
5498 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
5499 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
5501 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
5503 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
5505 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
5506 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
5507 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
5509 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
5510 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
5511 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
5512 return the remaining characters as a string.
5514 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
5515 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
5516 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
5518 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
5520 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5522 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
5525 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
5528 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
5529 and returns the array
5531 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
5532 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
5533 the user to interpret the data both ways.
5535 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5537 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
5538 symbol's value from C code:
5540 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
5541 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
5542 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
5543 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
5545 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
5546 without assigning them a value.
5548 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
5549 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
5550 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
5552 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
5553 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
5554 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
5556 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
5557 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
5559 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
5560 doesn't actually care about that.
5562 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
5563 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
5564 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
5566 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
5567 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
5568 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
5569 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
5570 which we have just created and initialized.
5572 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
5573 should one occur. We call it like this:
5574 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
5576 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
5577 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
5578 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
5579 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
5580 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
5581 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
5584 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
5585 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
5586 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
5587 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
5588 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
5589 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
5590 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
5593 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
5594 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
5595 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
5596 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
5597 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
5600 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
5601 scm_internal_catch, except:
5603 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
5604 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
5605 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
5606 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
5609 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
5610 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
5611 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
5613 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
5614 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
5615 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
5616 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
5619 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
5620 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
5621 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
5623 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
5624 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
5625 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
5626 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
5627 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
5629 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
5630 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
5631 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
5633 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
5634 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
5635 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
5637 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
5638 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
5640 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
5641 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
5642 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
5645 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
5646 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
5647 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
5648 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
5649 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
5650 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
5651 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
5654 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
5655 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
5657 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
5658 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
5659 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
5660 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
5661 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
5664 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
5665 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
5667 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
5668 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
5671 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
5672 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
5674 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5677 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
5678 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
5679 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
5680 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
5681 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
5682 given the following arguments:
5684 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
5686 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
5688 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
5690 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5693 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
5694 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
5695 command-line arguments.
5697 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
5698 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
5699 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
5700 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
5701 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
5702 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
5705 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
5708 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
5709 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
5711 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
5712 rearranged slightly. They are now:
5714 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5715 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5716 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
5717 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
5719 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5720 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5722 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5723 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
5724 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
5725 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
5727 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
5728 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
5730 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
5731 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
5733 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
5735 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
5736 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
5737 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
5740 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
5741 returns a port instead of an FD object.
5743 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
5744 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
5749 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
5752 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
5754 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
5755 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
5756 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
5757 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
5759 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
5761 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
5763 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
5764 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
5765 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
5766 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
5767 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
5768 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
5769 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
5770 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
5771 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
5772 for more information.
5774 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
5775 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
5777 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
5778 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
5779 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
5780 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
5781 following two lines at the top of the file:
5783 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5786 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
5787 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
5788 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
5790 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
5792 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
5794 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
5797 (display (car args))
5798 (if (pair? (cdr args))
5800 (loop (cdr args)))))
5803 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
5804 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
5805 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
5806 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
5807 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
5808 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
5812 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
5815 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
5818 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
5820 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
5821 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
5822 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
5823 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
5824 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
5827 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
5828 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
5829 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
5830 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
5831 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
5834 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
5837 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
5838 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
5839 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
5842 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
5843 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
5844 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
5846 to see a backtrace, and
5847 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
5848 to see them by default.
5852 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
5854 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
5856 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
5857 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
5860 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
5861 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
5862 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
5863 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
5866 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
5867 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
5868 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
5869 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
5870 functions which inspired them.
5872 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
5873 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
5877 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
5879 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
5881 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
5882 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
5885 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
5886 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
5887 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
5889 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
5890 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
5891 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
5892 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
5893 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
5895 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
5897 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
5898 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
5899 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
5902 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
5905 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
5907 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
5908 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
5909 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
5910 above should serve their purposes.
5912 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
5913 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
5914 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
5915 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
5917 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
5920 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
5921 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
5922 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
5923 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
5925 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
5926 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
5927 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
5928 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
5930 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
5931 for the `read' function.
5934 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
5935 to that of `integer?'.
5937 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
5938 use the R4RS names for these functions.
5940 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
5941 it simply returns the object's property list.
5943 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
5944 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
5945 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
5946 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
5948 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
5950 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
5953 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
5955 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
5956 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
5958 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
5960 void (*main_func) (),
5963 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
5964 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
5965 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
5966 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
5967 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
5969 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
5970 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
5971 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
5972 know which arguments have been processed.
5974 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
5975 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
5976 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
5977 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
5978 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
5980 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
5981 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
5982 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
5983 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
5984 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
5985 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
5986 people from making that mistake.
5988 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
5989 convenient ways to override these when desired.
5991 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
5993 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
5997 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
6000 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
6001 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
6002 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
6003 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
6006 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
6007 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
6008 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
6009 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
6012 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
6013 have been added to the Guile library.
6015 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
6016 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
6017 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
6020 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
6021 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
6022 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
6024 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
6025 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
6026 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
6027 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
6028 argument from the list.
6031 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
6034 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
6035 null-terminated string, and returns it.
6037 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
6038 to a Scheme port object.
6040 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
6041 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
6046 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
6048 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
6049 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
6050 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
6051 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
6052 code as a special datatype.
6054 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
6055 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
6056 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
6057 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
6058 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
6061 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
6062 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
6063 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
6064 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
6065 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
6067 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
6070 Copyright information:
6072 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6074 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6075 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6076 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6077 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6079 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6080 of this document, or of portions of it,
6081 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6082 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6087 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"