1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
10 * New modules (see the manual for details)
12 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', multithreading support
13 ** The `(ice-9 i18n)' module provides internationalization support
15 * Changes to the distribution
17 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
19 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
20 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
23 ** Guile now uses Gnulib as a portability aid
25 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
26 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
28 ** A new 'memoize-symbol evaluator trap has been added. This trap can
29 be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code coverage.
31 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
32 This slightly improves program startup times.
34 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
35 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
37 * Changes to the C interface
39 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
41 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
43 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
46 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
47 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
49 ** Primitive procedures (aka. "subrs") are now stored in double cells
50 This removes the subr table and simplifies the code.
52 ** Primitive procedures with more than 3 arguments (aka. "gsubrs") are
53 no longer implemented using the "compiled closure" mechanism. This
54 simplifies code and reduces both the storage and run-time overhead.
57 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
59 * New modules (see the manual for details)
61 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
65 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
66 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
67 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
68 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
69 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
70 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
71 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
72 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
73 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
75 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
77 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
78 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
79 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
82 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
85 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
87 * New features (see the manual for details)
89 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
91 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
93 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
94 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
95 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
97 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
99 * Changes to the distribution
101 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
103 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
104 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
106 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
108 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
109 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
114 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
115 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
116 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
117 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
118 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
119 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
120 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
121 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
122 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
123 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
124 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
125 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
126 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
127 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
129 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
130 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
131 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
132 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
133 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
136 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
138 * Infrastructure changes
140 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
142 The new repository can be accessed using
143 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
144 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
146 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
148 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
150 * New modules (see the manual for details)
154 * New features (see the manual for details)
156 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
157 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
158 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
160 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
161 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
162 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
163 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
165 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
167 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
168 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
169 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
173 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
174 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
176 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
177 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
179 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
180 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
182 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
183 lead to a stack overflow.
185 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
186 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
187 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
188 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
189 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
190 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
191 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
192 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
193 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
194 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
195 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
196 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
197 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
198 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
199 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
200 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
202 * Changes to the distribution
206 We've started collecting Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), and will
207 distribute these (with answers!) in future Guile releases.
210 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
214 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
215 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
216 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
217 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
218 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
219 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
220 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
221 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
222 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
223 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
224 system and library calls.
225 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
226 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
227 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
228 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
229 uniform vectors on AIX.
230 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
231 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
232 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
233 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
234 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
236 * New modules (see the manual for details)
240 * Documentation fixes and improvements
242 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
244 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
245 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
247 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
249 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
251 * Changes to the distribution
253 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
255 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
256 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
257 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
259 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
261 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
264 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
266 * New modules (see the manual for details)
273 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
274 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
275 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
276 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
277 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
278 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
279 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
281 * Implementation improvements
283 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
284 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
287 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
289 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
291 ** set-program-arguments
294 * Incompatible changes
296 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
298 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
299 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
300 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
301 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
306 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
307 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
308 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
309 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
310 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
311 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
313 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
314 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
315 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
316 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
317 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
318 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
319 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
320 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
321 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
322 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
323 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
324 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
325 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
326 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
327 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
328 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
331 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
333 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
335 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
337 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
338 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
339 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
340 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
341 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
342 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
350 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
352 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
354 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
356 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
358 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
360 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
362 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
363 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
364 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
366 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
368 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
370 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
371 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
373 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
375 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
376 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
378 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
380 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
382 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
384 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
386 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
388 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
390 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
392 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
394 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
396 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
397 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
398 file was on a different device.
401 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
403 * Changes to the distribution
405 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
407 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
409 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
411 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
413 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
415 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
418 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
420 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
421 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
422 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
423 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
424 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
425 items like the versioned share directory name
426 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
428 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
429 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
430 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
431 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
432 with each micro release during a stable series.
434 ** Thread implementation has changed.
436 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
437 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
438 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
439 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
440 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
443 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
444 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
445 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
446 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
449 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
450 in which case "null" threads are used.
452 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
453 "Blocking", and others.
455 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
457 This is a milder form of deprecation.
459 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
460 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
461 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
462 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
463 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
465 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
466 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
468 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
470 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
471 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
473 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
476 This SRFI is always available.
478 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
480 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
481 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
482 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
483 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
486 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
488 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
489 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
490 parameters without currying.
492 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
494 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
495 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
497 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
498 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
501 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
502 with a renaming import, for example.
504 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
506 The official version is good enough now.
508 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
510 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
511 provided. Use 'make html'.
513 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
515 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
516 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
517 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
518 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
520 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
522 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
525 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
527 ** New command line option `-L'.
529 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
531 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
533 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
534 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
536 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
538 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
539 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
541 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
543 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
544 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
547 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
550 (define-module (demo)
554 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
557 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
559 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
561 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
562 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
563 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
565 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
567 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
568 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
570 ** New function hashx-remove!
572 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
574 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
575 barriers and dynamic states.
577 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
578 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
579 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
582 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
583 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
584 Barriers" in the manual.
586 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
587 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
589 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
591 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
592 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
593 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
596 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
598 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
599 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
601 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
602 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
603 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
605 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
606 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
608 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
609 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
610 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
612 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
613 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
614 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
617 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
618 substrings and read-only strings.
620 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
621 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
624 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
626 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
635 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
636 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
637 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
639 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
640 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
641 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
644 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
645 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
648 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
650 See the manual for details.
652 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
654 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
657 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
659 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
660 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
661 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
662 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
664 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
665 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
666 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
669 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
671 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
672 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
683 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
687 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
692 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
696 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
700 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
703 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
704 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
705 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
706 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
708 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
709 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
712 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
715 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
719 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
721 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
722 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
723 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
726 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
729 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
731 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
734 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
735 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
743 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
744 has been detected is to
746 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
747 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
748 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
751 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
754 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
756 to your .guile init file.
758 ** New define-module option: :replace
760 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
763 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
764 for the core binding `format'.
766 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
768 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
769 a prefix to all imported bindings.
772 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
774 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
777 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
779 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
780 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
781 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
783 ** New function: effective-version
785 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
786 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
787 to the distribution" above.
789 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
791 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
792 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
794 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
796 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
797 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
799 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
801 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
802 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
805 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
807 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
809 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
811 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
812 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
813 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
816 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
817 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
818 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
821 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
822 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
824 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
825 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
826 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
829 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
831 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
832 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
835 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
836 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
838 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
839 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
840 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
841 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
842 level for the current thread.
844 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
846 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
848 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
849 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
852 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
854 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
856 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
859 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
861 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
864 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
865 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
866 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
868 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
869 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
870 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
871 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
882 ERROR: Numerical overflow
884 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
887 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
889 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
890 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
891 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
902 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
904 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
905 them is also done exactly, of course:
910 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
913 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
914 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
916 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
918 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
919 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
920 equal to a floating point number. For example:
922 (inexact->exact 1.234)
923 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
925 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
927 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
930 ** New function 'rationalize'.
932 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
933 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
935 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
938 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
939 result when both its arguments are exact.
941 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
943 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
944 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
945 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
947 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
949 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
950 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
951 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
953 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
956 ** pretty-print has more options.
958 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
959 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
960 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
962 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
964 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
965 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
966 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
968 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
970 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
971 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
973 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
975 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
976 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
979 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
981 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
982 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
983 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
984 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
985 without the soft port blocking.
987 ** Deprecated: undefine
989 There is no replacement for undefine.
991 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
992 have been discouraged.
994 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
995 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
996 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
999 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
1001 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
1003 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
1004 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
1005 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
1006 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
1009 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
1010 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
1011 be removed in the next major Guile release.
1013 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
1015 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
1016 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
1017 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
1018 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
1019 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
1020 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
1022 * Changes to the C interface
1024 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
1025 take a 'delete' function argument.
1027 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
1028 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
1030 This is an incompatible change.
1032 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
1034 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
1035 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
1036 --disable-deprecated.
1038 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
1040 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
1041 Scheme values has been added.
1043 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
1044 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
1047 - int scm_is_* (...)
1049 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
1050 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
1052 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
1054 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
1055 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
1058 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
1060 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
1061 scm_from_int for ints.
1063 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
1064 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
1065 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
1067 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
1069 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
1070 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
1071 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
1074 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
1076 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
1078 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
1080 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
1081 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
1082 following alternatives.
1084 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
1085 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
1086 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
1087 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
1089 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
1090 do the validating for you.
1092 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
1093 have been discouraged.
1095 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
1096 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
1099 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
1101 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
1102 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
1105 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
1107 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
1110 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
1113 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
1115 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
1116 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
1118 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
1119 scm_truncate_number should have.
1121 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
1122 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
1124 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
1127 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
1128 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
1129 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
1131 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
1132 easier to use from C.
1134 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
1135 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
1137 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
1138 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
1139 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
1142 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
1143 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
1144 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
1145 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
1148 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
1149 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
1150 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
1151 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
1152 and is thus quite efficient.
1154 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
1156 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
1157 about the character encoding.
1159 Replace according to the following table:
1161 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
1162 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
1163 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
1164 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
1165 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
1166 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
1167 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
1168 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
1169 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
1171 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
1172 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
1174 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
1176 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
1177 now also available to C code.
1179 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
1181 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
1182 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
1183 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
1185 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
1188 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
1190 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
1191 unceremoniously removed.
1193 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
1194 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
1195 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
1197 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
1198 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
1199 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1200 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1201 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
1202 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
1205 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
1207 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
1208 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
1209 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
1210 manual for more details.
1212 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1213 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1215 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
1216 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
1217 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1219 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
1221 Migrate according to the following table:
1223 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
1224 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
1225 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
1226 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
1227 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
1228 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
1229 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
1231 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
1232 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
1233 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
1234 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
1235 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
1236 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
1237 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
1239 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
1241 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
1242 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
1244 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
1245 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
1246 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
1247 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
1249 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
1251 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
1252 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
1253 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
1255 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
1256 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
1258 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
1259 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
1260 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
1261 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
1263 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
1265 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
1266 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
1267 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
1268 prevent a potential memory leak:
1275 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
1277 mem = scm_malloc (100);
1278 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
1280 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
1281 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
1288 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
1289 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
1293 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
1295 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
1297 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
1298 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
1299 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
1301 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1302 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
1304 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
1306 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
1308 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
1309 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
1310 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
1312 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
1313 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
1315 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
1316 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
1317 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
1318 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
1321 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
1323 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
1324 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1325 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
1327 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
1329 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
1330 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
1332 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
1334 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
1335 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
1337 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
1339 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
1340 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
1341 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
1343 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
1345 You should not have used them.
1347 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
1349 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
1350 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
1352 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
1354 This macro is not intended for public use.
1356 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
1358 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
1360 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
1362 Use scm_is_real instead.
1364 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
1366 Use scm_is_complex instead.
1368 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
1370 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
1371 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
1373 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
1374 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
1376 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
1377 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
1379 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
1381 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
1384 ** New function: scm_effective_version
1386 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1387 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1388 to the distribution" above.
1390 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
1392 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
1393 arguments are now passed directly:
1395 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
1397 This is an incompatible change.
1399 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
1401 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
1402 function in the init section.
1404 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
1406 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
1408 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
1409 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
1410 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
1411 stays roughly constant.
1413 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
1414 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
1415 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
1416 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
1417 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
1420 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
1421 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
1422 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
1423 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
1425 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
1426 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
1427 objects for every type.
1430 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
1432 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
1434 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
1436 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
1437 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
1438 initializes a new cell (see below).
1440 ** New functions for memory management
1442 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
1443 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
1444 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
1445 cause aborts in long running programs.
1447 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
1448 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
1450 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
1451 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
1452 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
1453 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
1454 details and for upgrading instructions.
1456 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
1457 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
1458 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
1460 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
1462 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
1463 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
1464 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
1465 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
1466 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
1468 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
1469 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
1470 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
1472 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
1473 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
1475 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
1477 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
1478 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
1479 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
1480 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
1481 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
1483 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
1485 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
1488 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
1490 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
1492 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
1494 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
1495 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
1497 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
1499 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
1500 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
1502 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
1503 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
1505 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
1507 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
1509 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
1510 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
1511 blocking it is not well defined.
1513 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
1515 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
1516 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
1517 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
1518 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
1519 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
1520 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
1521 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
1522 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
1523 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
1524 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
1525 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1526 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
1527 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
1528 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
1529 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
1530 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
1531 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
1532 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1533 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
1534 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
1535 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
1536 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
1537 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
1538 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
1539 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
1540 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
1541 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
1542 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
1543 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
1544 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
1545 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
1547 * Changes to bundled modules
1551 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
1552 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
1553 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
1554 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
1555 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
1558 Changes since Guile 1.4:
1560 * Changes to the distribution
1562 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
1564 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
1566 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
1567 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
1568 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
1569 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
1570 indicate major changes in Guile.
1572 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
1573 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
1574 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
1575 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
1577 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
1578 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
1579 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
1580 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
1581 micro version number.
1583 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
1585 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
1587 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
1588 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
1590 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
1592 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
1593 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
1594 See INSTALL and README for more information.
1596 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
1598 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
1599 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
1600 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
1603 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
1605 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
1608 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
1610 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
1611 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
1613 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
1615 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
1616 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
1619 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
1621 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
1624 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
1627 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
1629 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
1631 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
1632 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
1633 open-output-string, get-output-string.
1635 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
1637 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
1639 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
1642 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
1644 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
1646 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1648 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1649 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1650 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1652 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1654 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1656 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1657 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1666 See README there for more info.
1668 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1669 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1672 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1674 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1676 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1678 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1679 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1680 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1682 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1684 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1685 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1686 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1688 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1689 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1691 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1694 (oop goops describe)
1696 (oop goops active-slot)
1697 (oop goops composite-slot)
1699 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1700 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1701 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1703 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1705 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1706 in the default environment:
1708 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1709 %read-line write-line
1711 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1712 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1714 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1716 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1719 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1720 can be used for similar functionality.
1722 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1724 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1725 it defines two procedures:
1727 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1729 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1730 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1731 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1734 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1736 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1737 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1738 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1739 write large strings.
1741 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1743 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1744 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1746 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1748 for complete documentation.
1750 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1752 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1753 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1754 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1755 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1757 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1758 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1762 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1763 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1764 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1767 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1770 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1771 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1773 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1774 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1777 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1780 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1782 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1784 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1786 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1788 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1789 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1790 Scheme programs easier.
1792 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1793 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1794 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1795 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1796 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1799 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1800 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1802 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1805 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1807 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1808 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1809 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1812 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1814 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1816 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1817 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1818 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1819 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1820 was also ASCII, for example.
1822 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1824 tag - no replacement.
1825 fseek - replaced by seek.
1826 list* - replaced by cons*.
1828 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1832 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1833 (define m (make-safe-module))
1834 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1835 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1836 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1838 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1840 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1841 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1842 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1844 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1846 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1847 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1848 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1849 from the issues related to the module system.
1851 *** New function: load-extension
1853 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1855 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1857 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1858 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1859 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1861 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1863 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1864 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1865 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1866 support dynamic linking).
1868 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1870 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1871 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1872 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1873 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1876 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1877 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1878 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1879 library and initialize it explicitly.
1881 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1882 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1884 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1886 (define-module (foo bar))
1888 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1890 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1892 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1893 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1895 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1896 (null-environment 5)
1897 (interaction-environment)
1903 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1905 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1906 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1907 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1908 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1910 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1911 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1912 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1913 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1914 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1915 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1916 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1917 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1918 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1919 one eval to the next.
1921 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1922 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1923 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1924 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1925 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1927 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1928 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1929 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1930 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1931 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1932 used in a lexical environment.
1934 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1935 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1936 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1937 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1938 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1939 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1941 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1943 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1944 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1945 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1946 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1947 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1949 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1950 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1951 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1953 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1954 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1956 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1957 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1958 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1960 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1961 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1963 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1964 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1965 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1966 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1969 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1970 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1971 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1972 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1974 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1975 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1976 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1978 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1979 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1980 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1981 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1982 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1984 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1986 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1987 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1988 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1990 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1991 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1992 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1994 See manual for more info.
1996 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1998 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1999 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
2000 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
2002 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
2004 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
2005 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
2006 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
2008 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
2009 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
2010 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
2011 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
2013 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
2015 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
2016 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
2018 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
2019 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
2020 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
2021 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
2022 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
2025 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
2026 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
2027 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
2028 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
2029 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
2030 successful and #f if it wasn't.
2032 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
2033 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
2034 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
2035 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
2036 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
2038 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
2039 objects are usually permanent.
2041 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
2042 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
2044 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
2046 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
2047 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
2050 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
2054 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
2059 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
2061 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
2062 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
2063 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
2064 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
2066 ** New function `make-object-property'
2068 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
2069 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
2073 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
2074 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
2078 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
2079 source properties eventually.
2081 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
2083 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
2084 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
2085 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
2087 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
2088 will be removed in the next release.
2090 ** New define-module option: pure
2092 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
2097 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
2100 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
2102 Export names NAME1 ...
2104 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
2105 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
2109 (define-module (foo)
2111 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
2114 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
2119 ** New function: object->string OBJ
2121 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
2123 ** New function: port? X
2125 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
2126 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
2128 ** New function: file-port?
2130 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
2132 ** New function: port-for-each proc
2134 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
2135 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
2136 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
2137 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
2138 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
2140 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
2142 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
2143 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
2144 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
2145 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
2146 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
2149 ** New function: close-fdes fd
2151 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
2152 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
2153 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
2154 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
2157 ** New function: crypt password salt
2159 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
2162 ** New function: chroot path
2164 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
2166 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
2168 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
2171 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
2173 Get or set the priority of the running process.
2175 ** New function: getpass prompt
2177 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
2180 ** New function: flock file operation
2182 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
2184 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
2186 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
2189 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
2191 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
2192 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
2193 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
2194 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
2195 of the temporary file.
2197 ** New function: open-input-string string
2199 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
2200 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
2201 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
2203 ** New function: open-output-string
2205 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
2206 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
2208 ** New function: get-output-string
2210 Return the contents of an output string port.
2212 ** New function: identity
2214 Return the argument.
2216 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
2217 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
2219 ** New function: inet-pton family address
2221 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
2222 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
2223 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2226 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
2227 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
2229 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
2231 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
2232 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
2233 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2236 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
2237 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
2238 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
2242 Use `identity' instead.
2248 ** Deprecated: return-it
2252 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
2254 Use `string-length' instead.
2256 ** Deprecated: flags
2258 Use `logior' instead.
2260 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
2262 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
2263 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
2264 port-for-each is more flexible.
2266 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
2267 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
2268 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
2270 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
2272 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
2274 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
2276 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
2278 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
2280 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
2281 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
2283 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
2284 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
2286 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
2287 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
2289 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
2291 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
2292 Removed function: builtin-bindings
2294 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
2295 Use module system operations for all variables.
2297 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
2299 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
2302 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
2304 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
2305 The following bugs have been fixed:
2307 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
2308 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
2311 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
2312 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
2313 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
2315 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
2316 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
2318 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
2319 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
2322 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
2323 The expansion used to be like so:
2325 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
2327 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
2329 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
2331 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
2332 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
2334 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
2336 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
2337 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
2338 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
2342 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
2343 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
2345 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
2350 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
2351 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
2353 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
2354 and `d', other keywords allowed.
2355 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
2357 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
2360 * Changes to the C interface
2362 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
2364 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
2365 with "_t". What a concept.
2367 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
2369 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
2371 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
2375 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
2376 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
2378 *** C Functions removed
2380 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
2381 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
2382 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
2383 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
2384 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
2385 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
2386 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
2388 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
2390 Use scm_mem2string instead.
2392 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
2394 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
2396 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
2397 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
2399 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
2401 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
2404 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
2406 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
2408 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
2410 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
2411 Evaluation" in the manual.
2413 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
2415 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
2416 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
2418 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
2420 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
2421 Constructors" in the manual.
2423 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
2425 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
2426 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
2428 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
2430 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
2432 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
2433 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
2434 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
2436 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2438 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
2440 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
2441 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
2442 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
2445 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2447 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
2449 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
2450 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
2452 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
2454 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
2455 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
2456 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
2457 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
2459 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
2460 scm_primitive_property_ref
2461 scm_primitive_property_set_x
2462 scm_primitive_property_del_x
2464 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
2465 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
2467 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
2469 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
2470 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
2471 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
2472 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
2474 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
2476 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
2477 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
2478 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
2479 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
2480 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
2481 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
2482 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
2484 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
2485 scm_remember_upto_here
2487 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
2489 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
2491 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
2492 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
2494 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
2496 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
2498 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
2500 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
2502 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
2504 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
2505 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
2506 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
2507 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
2508 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
2509 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
2511 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
2513 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2515 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
2516 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2517 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
2519 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
2521 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
2522 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2523 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
2525 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
2527 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
2528 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
2531 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
2534 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
2535 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2538 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2540 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
2542 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
2544 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2546 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
2548 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
2550 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
2551 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
2552 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
2553 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2554 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
2555 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
2556 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
2557 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2558 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
2559 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
2560 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
2561 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
2562 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
2563 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
2564 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
2566 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
2567 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
2568 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
2569 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
2570 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
2571 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
2572 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
2573 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
2574 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2575 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
2576 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
2577 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
2578 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
2579 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
2580 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
2581 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2582 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2583 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
2584 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
2585 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
2586 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
2587 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
2588 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
2589 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
2590 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
2591 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
2592 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
2593 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
2594 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
2596 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
2598 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
2600 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
2601 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
2603 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
2605 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
2607 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
2609 Use scm_string_hash instead.
2611 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
2613 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
2615 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
2617 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
2619 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
2622 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
2623 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
2625 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
2627 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
2629 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
2631 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
2633 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
2635 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
2637 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
2639 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2642 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2644 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2646 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2648 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2649 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2651 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2652 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2654 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2656 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2657 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2658 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2660 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2662 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2664 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2665 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2667 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2668 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2669 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2670 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2672 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2673 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2674 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2676 Use the new ones from above instead.
2678 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2680 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2681 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2682 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2684 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2685 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2687 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2688 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2691 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2692 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2694 Use the new functions instead.
2696 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2699 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2701 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2703 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2706 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2708 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2711 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2713 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2716 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2717 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2718 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2720 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2722 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2723 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2725 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2726 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2727 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2728 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2731 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2733 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2734 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2735 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2736 inexact for an exact.
2738 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2739 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2740 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2743 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2744 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2745 accept an inexact argument.
2747 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2748 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2750 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2753 ** New number validation macros:
2754 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2758 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2760 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2761 scm_unprotect_object.
2763 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2765 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2767 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2770 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2772 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2776 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2778 * Changes to the distribution
2780 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2782 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2783 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2784 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2785 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2786 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2787 obtain these programs.
2788 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2789 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2791 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2792 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2793 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2794 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2795 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2797 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2798 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2799 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2800 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2804 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2807 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2808 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2809 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2810 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2812 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2814 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2816 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2817 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2819 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2820 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2822 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2823 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2825 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2826 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2827 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2828 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2830 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2832 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2836 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2837 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2839 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2841 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2842 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2844 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2845 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2846 number of objects of that kind.
2848 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2850 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2851 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2852 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2853 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2854 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2856 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2858 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2860 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2862 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2865 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2867 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2869 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2871 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2873 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2875 ** New command line option --debug
2877 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2879 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2881 ** New help facility
2883 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2884 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2885 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2886 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2887 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2888 (help) gives this text
2890 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2891 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2893 Examples: (help help)
2895 (help "output-string")
2897 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2899 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2901 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2902 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2905 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2906 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2907 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2910 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2911 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2912 use absolute filenames when possible.
2914 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2915 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2916 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2919 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2921 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2922 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2923 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2924 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2926 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2928 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2930 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2931 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2932 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2934 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2935 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2936 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2938 (read-enable 'positions)
2939 (debug-enable 'debug)
2941 ** Backtraces in scripts
2943 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2947 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2949 at the top of the script.
2951 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2952 The second enables backtraces.)
2954 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2956 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2957 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2958 substantially faster than before.
2960 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2961 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2963 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2964 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2966 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2968 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2969 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2970 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2972 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2973 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2974 when this hook is run in the future.
2976 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2977 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2979 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2981 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2982 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2985 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2986 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2987 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2989 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2990 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2992 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2993 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2995 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2996 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2997 in order not to need further allocation.)
2999 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
3002 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
3003 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
3004 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
3005 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
3007 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
3009 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
3012 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
3014 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
3017 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
3018 GC in percent of total heap size
3021 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
3022 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
3024 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
3026 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
3027 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
3029 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
3031 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
3032 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
3034 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
3036 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
3037 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
3041 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
3042 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
3044 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
3046 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3048 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
3050 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
3052 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
3054 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
3055 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
3057 (simple-format port message . args)
3058 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
3059 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
3060 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
3061 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
3062 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
3063 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
3064 Does not add a trailing newline."
3066 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
3068 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
3069 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
3071 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
3072 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
3074 ** Deprecated: list*
3076 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
3078 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
3080 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
3081 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
3083 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
3084 is returned as result.
3086 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
3088 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
3090 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
3092 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
3093 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
3096 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
3098 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
3100 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
3101 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
3103 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3105 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
3107 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
3109 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3111 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
3113 Thanks to Greg Badros!
3115 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3117 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3118 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
3119 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
3121 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
3124 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
3126 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
3127 the readability of argument checking.
3129 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
3131 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
3133 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
3135 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
3136 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
3137 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
3138 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
3139 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
3140 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
3141 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
3143 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
3145 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
3147 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
3148 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
3150 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
3152 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
3153 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
3156 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
3158 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
3159 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
3160 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
3162 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
3163 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
3164 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
3166 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
3167 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
3168 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
3169 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
3170 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
3171 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
3172 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
3174 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
3175 scm_end_input (object);
3176 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
3177 ptob->flush (object);
3179 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
3180 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
3183 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
3185 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
3187 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
3188 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
3189 removed in a future version.
3191 ** The format of error message strings has changed
3193 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
3194 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
3195 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
3196 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
3198 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
3199 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
3201 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
3204 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
3206 in your configure.in.
3208 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
3213 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
3219 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
3221 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
3225 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
3226 (define make-message string-append)
3228 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
3230 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
3234 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
3239 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
3243 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
3245 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
3246 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
3248 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
3250 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
3251 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
3252 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
3253 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
3254 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
3255 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
3257 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
3258 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
3259 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
3261 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
3262 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
3263 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
3266 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
3267 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
3268 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
3269 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
3270 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
3272 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
3273 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
3274 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
3275 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
3276 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
3277 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
3278 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
3280 Destructors are not yet implemented.
3282 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
3283 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
3284 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
3286 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
3287 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
3288 KEY in the calling thread.
3290 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
3291 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
3292 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
3293 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
3294 associated with the key.
3296 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
3298 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
3299 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
3301 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
3303 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
3304 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
3305 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
3307 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
3309 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
3310 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
3312 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
3314 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
3316 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
3317 returned is undefined.
3319 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
3320 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
3321 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
3323 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
3324 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
3325 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
3327 ** New C level GC hooks
3329 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
3331 scm_before_gc_c_hook
3334 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
3335 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
3336 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
3338 scm_before_mark_c_hook
3339 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
3340 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
3342 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
3343 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
3346 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
3348 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
3349 allocation parameters
3351 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
3352 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
3353 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
3357 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
3358 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
3359 scm_default_max_segment_size
3361 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
3363 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
3364 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
3366 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
3368 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
3369 object and count on the object being protected until
3370 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
3372 The functions also have better time complexity.
3374 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
3375 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
3376 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
3377 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
3378 are no longer needed.
3380 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
3382 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
3383 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
3384 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
3385 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
3387 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
3389 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
3391 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
3393 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
3394 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
3395 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
3396 until this issue has been settled.
3398 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
3400 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
3402 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
3405 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
3407 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3409 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
3410 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
3411 descriptors were checked.
3413 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
3414 atomically written to a pipe.
3416 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
3417 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
3418 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
3419 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
3420 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
3421 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
3422 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
3425 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
3426 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
3427 is changed without calling tzset.
3429 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
3431 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
3432 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
3433 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
3435 (define write-network-long
3436 (lambda (value port)
3437 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3438 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
3439 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
3441 (define read-network-long
3443 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3444 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
3445 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
3447 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
3448 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
3450 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
3451 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
3452 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
3453 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
3455 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
3456 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
3457 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
3458 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
3462 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
3464 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3468 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
3469 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
3470 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
3476 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
3477 for a description of available commands.
3479 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
3480 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
3481 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
3483 (debug-enable 'backwards)
3485 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
3486 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
3488 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
3490 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
3492 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
3493 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
3494 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
3495 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
3496 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
3497 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
3500 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
3502 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
3503 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
3504 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
3505 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
3507 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
3508 the file and should not be affected by this change.
3510 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
3512 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3514 ** Readline support has changed again.
3516 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
3517 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
3518 to activate readline is now
3520 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
3523 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
3525 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
3526 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
3527 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
3530 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
3531 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
3532 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
3535 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
3536 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
3537 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
3538 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
3539 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
3540 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
3542 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
3543 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
3545 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
3547 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
3548 object it receives is the same string passed to
3549 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
3550 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
3551 string, not the suffix.
3553 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
3554 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
3555 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
3557 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
3559 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
3560 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
3561 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
3562 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
3565 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3567 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
3569 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
3570 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
3571 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
3572 appear from left to right.
3574 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
3577 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
3579 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
3580 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
3582 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3586 *** New function: hook? OBJ
3588 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
3590 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
3592 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
3593 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
3594 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
3596 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
3598 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
3600 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
3602 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
3605 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
3607 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
3608 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
3609 mentioning it here anyway.
3611 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
3613 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
3614 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
3615 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
3616 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
3619 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
3621 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
3623 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
3625 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
3626 otherwise return #f.
3628 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
3630 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
3631 returned by `opendir'.
3633 ** New function: using-readline?
3635 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
3637 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3639 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
3640 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3642 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3644 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3646 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3647 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3648 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3650 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3652 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3653 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3655 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3657 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3658 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3659 documentation slots are not yet used.
3661 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3663 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3664 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3665 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3670 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3671 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3672 (string-append x y))
3674 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3675 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3677 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3678 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3679 be made in a clean way.]
3681 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3683 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3685 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3687 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3688 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3690 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3692 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3694 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3696 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3698 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3699 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3700 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3701 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3704 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3706 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3708 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3710 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3712 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3713 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3715 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3717 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3719 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3721 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3723 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3724 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3725 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3726 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3727 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3728 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3730 This should not make any difference for most users.
3732 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3734 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3735 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3737 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3739 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3740 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3741 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3742 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3743 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3745 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3747 It is now replaced by:
3749 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3751 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3752 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3754 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3756 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3757 This might change when we get the new module system.
3759 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3763 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3765 * Changes to mailing lists
3767 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3769 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3772 * Changes to the distribution
3774 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3776 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3777 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3778 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3779 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3780 you explicitly specify it.
3782 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3783 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3784 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3785 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3786 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3789 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3790 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3791 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3792 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3794 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3795 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3796 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3799 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3801 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3804 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3806 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3808 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3809 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3810 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3811 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3813 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3814 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3817 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3819 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3820 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3821 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3822 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3823 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3824 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3825 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3826 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3838 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3839 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3840 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3841 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3842 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3847 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3848 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3856 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3861 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3862 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3865 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3866 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3867 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3868 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3870 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3872 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3874 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3875 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3877 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3879 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3881 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3882 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3884 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3887 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3889 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3891 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3893 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3895 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3897 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3899 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3900 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3901 when the hook was created.
3903 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3904 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3905 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3906 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3907 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3908 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3909 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3910 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3911 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3913 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3914 the dlopen family of functions.
3916 ** New function `provided?'
3918 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3919 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3920 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3921 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3923 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3925 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3926 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3927 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3928 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3931 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3932 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3933 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3934 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3936 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3937 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3938 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3941 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3942 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3943 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3944 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3945 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3946 but with the flag set.
3948 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3950 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3951 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3953 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3954 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3955 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3956 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3957 available Scheme format implementations.
3959 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3960 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3961 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3962 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3963 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3964 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3965 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3966 output is to the current error port if available by the
3967 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3970 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3971 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3972 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3973 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3974 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3975 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3976 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3977 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3979 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3980 be executed at a time.
3983 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3985 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3986 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3987 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3989 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3990 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3991 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3992 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3993 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3994 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3995 general form of a directive is:
3997 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3999 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
4001 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
4003 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
4004 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
4005 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
4008 Any (print as `display' does).
4012 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
4016 S-expression (print as `write' does).
4020 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
4026 print number sign always.
4029 print comma separated.
4031 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
4037 print number sign always.
4040 print comma separated.
4042 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
4048 print number sign always.
4051 print comma separated.
4053 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
4059 print number sign always.
4062 print comma separated.
4064 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
4069 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
4073 print a number as a Roman numeral.
4076 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
4079 print a number as an ordinal English number.
4082 print a number as a cardinal English number.
4087 prints `y' and `ies'.
4090 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4093 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4098 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
4102 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
4105 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
4106 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
4108 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4111 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
4112 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
4114 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4117 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
4119 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
4121 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4124 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
4126 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
4128 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4131 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
4134 The sign appears before the padding.
4142 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
4144 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
4149 print N page separators.
4159 newline is ignored, white space left.
4162 newline is left, white space ignored.
4167 relative tabulation.
4173 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
4175 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
4178 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
4180 converts by `string-capitalize'.
4183 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
4186 converts by `string-upcase'.
4189 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
4191 jumps N arguments forward.
4194 jumps 1 argument backward.
4197 jumps N arguments backward.
4200 jumps to the 0th argument.
4203 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
4205 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
4206 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
4208 take argument from N.
4211 true test conditional.
4214 if-else-then conditional.
4220 default clause follows.
4223 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
4225 at most N iterations.
4228 args from next arg (a list of lists).
4231 args from the rest of arguments.
4234 args from the rest args (lists).
4245 aborts if N <= M <= K
4247 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
4250 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4253 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4259 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
4261 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
4263 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
4264 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
4265 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
4266 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
4267 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
4268 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
4272 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
4276 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
4282 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
4285 Print a `#\space' character
4287 print N `#\space' characters.
4290 Print a `#\tab' character
4292 print N `#\tab' characters.
4295 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
4296 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
4297 must be a positive decimal number.
4300 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4301 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4302 be processed by `read'.
4305 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4306 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4307 be processed by `read'.
4310 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
4313 prints format version.
4316 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
4317 and format it accordingly.
4319 *** Configuration Variables
4321 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
4322 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
4323 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
4324 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
4327 format:symbol-case-conv
4328 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
4329 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
4330 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
4331 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
4332 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
4334 format:iobj-case-conv
4335 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
4336 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
4339 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
4342 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
4348 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
4349 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
4350 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
4351 `format' padding style.
4354 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
4355 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
4356 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
4357 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
4361 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
4362 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
4363 directive parameters or modifiers)).
4366 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
4367 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
4368 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
4369 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
4370 parameters or modifiers)).
4373 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
4375 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
4377 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
4378 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
4380 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
4381 string-downcase! functions.
4383 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
4384 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
4386 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
4389 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
4392 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
4393 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
4395 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
4397 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
4398 the symbol had be read by `read'.
4400 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
4401 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
4402 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
4403 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
4404 would if STRING were input.
4406 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
4408 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
4409 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
4410 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
4411 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
4414 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
4416 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
4417 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
4420 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
4422 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
4423 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
4425 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
4426 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
4428 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
4429 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
4430 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
4431 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
4433 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
4434 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
4436 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
4437 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
4438 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
4440 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
4441 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
4443 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
4444 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
4445 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
4446 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
4447 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
4449 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
4450 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
4451 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
4452 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
4453 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
4454 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
4456 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
4457 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
4458 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
4461 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
4462 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
4463 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
4464 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
4465 the following grammar:
4466 ((apples (single-char #\a))
4467 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
4468 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
4469 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
4470 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
4471 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
4472 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
4473 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
4474 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
4475 last option in its combination)
4477 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
4478 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
4479 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
4480 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
4482 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
4483 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
4484 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
4486 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4487 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4488 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
4490 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
4491 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
4492 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
4493 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
4494 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
4495 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
4496 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
4497 ordinary argument strings.
4499 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
4500 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
4501 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
4502 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
4504 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
4505 as a list, associated with the empty list.
4507 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
4508 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
4509 - a required option is omitted
4510 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
4511 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
4512 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
4513 - an option predicate fails
4518 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
4521 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
4522 (verbose (required? #f)
4525 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
4526 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
4527 (predicate ,string?))))
4529 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
4530 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4532 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4533 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
4534 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
4535 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
4538 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
4540 It will be removed in a few releases.
4542 ** New syntax: lambda*
4543 ** New syntax: define*
4544 ** New syntax: define*-public
4545 ** New syntax: defmacro*
4546 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
4547 Guile now supports optional arguments.
4549 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
4550 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
4551 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
4552 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
4553 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
4555 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
4556 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
4557 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
4559 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
4561 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
4562 and examples for `lambda*':
4565 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
4567 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
4568 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
4569 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
4570 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
4571 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
4572 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
4573 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
4574 can be checked with the bound? macro.
4576 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
4578 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
4579 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
4580 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
4581 are given as keywords are bound to values.
4583 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
4584 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
4585 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
4586 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
4587 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
4588 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
4589 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
4590 and until the procedure is called.
4592 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
4594 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
4595 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
4596 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
4597 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
4598 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
4599 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
4600 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
4601 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
4602 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
4603 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
4605 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
4606 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
4607 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
4608 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
4611 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
4613 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
4614 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
4615 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
4616 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
4618 ** New syntax: and-let*
4619 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
4621 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
4622 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
4623 (<variable> <expression>)
4626 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
4627 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
4628 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
4631 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
4632 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
4633 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
4634 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
4635 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
4636 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
4637 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
4639 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
4640 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
4641 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4642 shadow earlier bindings.
4644 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4646 ** New sorting functions
4648 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4649 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4650 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4651 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4653 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4654 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4657 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4658 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4659 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4661 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4662 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4663 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4664 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4666 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4667 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4668 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4669 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4670 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4673 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4674 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4675 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4676 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4677 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4678 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4680 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4681 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4682 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4684 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4685 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4686 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4689 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4690 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4691 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4693 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4694 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4696 ** New built-in random number support
4698 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4699 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4700 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4701 returned have a uniform distribution.
4703 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4704 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4705 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4706 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4707 effect of the `random' operation.
4709 *** New variable: *random-state*
4710 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4711 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4712 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4713 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4714 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4717 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4718 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4719 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4720 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4721 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4723 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4724 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4725 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4726 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4727 initialized using SEED.
4729 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4730 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4731 range between 0 and 1.
4733 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4734 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4735 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4736 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4737 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4738 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4739 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4741 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4742 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4743 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4744 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4745 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4746 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4748 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4749 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4750 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4751 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4753 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4754 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4755 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4756 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4758 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4759 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4760 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4762 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4764 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4767 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4768 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4771 ** New function: make-guardian
4772 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4773 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4774 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4775 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4776 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4778 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4779 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4780 one object if at all.
4782 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4783 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4784 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4786 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4787 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4788 read again in last-in first-out order.
4790 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4791 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4793 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4795 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4796 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4797 file position is used.
4799 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4800 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4801 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4803 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4804 redefined using seek.
4806 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4807 size is not supplied.
4809 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4810 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4812 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4813 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4815 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4817 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4818 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4819 and returns the contents as a single string.
4821 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4822 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4823 lists in serial order.
4825 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4826 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4827 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4829 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4830 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4831 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4832 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4834 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4835 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4836 and #f if an error occured.
4838 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4840 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4841 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4842 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4843 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4845 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4847 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4850 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4852 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4855 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4859 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4860 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4862 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4863 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4867 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4869 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4871 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4872 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4874 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4876 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4877 might change when we get the new module system.
4879 ** The smob interface
4881 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4882 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4884 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4886 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4890 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4891 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4892 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4893 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4894 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4895 will be freed by the default free function.
4897 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4898 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4899 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4900 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4902 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4903 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4904 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4905 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4907 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4909 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4910 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4914 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4915 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4916 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4918 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4919 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4920 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4921 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4923 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4924 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4925 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4927 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4928 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4929 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4930 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4932 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4933 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4934 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4936 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4940 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4942 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4943 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4944 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4946 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4947 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4948 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4950 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4951 a string port's buffer.
4953 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4954 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4955 function pointers which together define the current random number
4956 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4957 number library functions.
4959 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4962 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4963 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4966 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4967 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4969 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4970 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4972 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4973 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4976 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4977 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4978 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4979 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4981 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4982 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4983 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4984 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4985 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4986 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4987 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4989 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4990 by libguile and the application.
4992 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4993 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4994 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4995 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4997 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4998 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
5000 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
5001 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
5002 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
5004 ** Random number library functions
5005 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
5006 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
5007 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
5009 The default random state is stored in:
5011 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
5012 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
5013 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
5018 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
5020 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
5021 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
5022 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
5023 isn't a random state.
5025 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
5026 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
5028 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
5029 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
5030 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
5031 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
5033 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5034 Return 32 random bits.
5036 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5037 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
5039 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5040 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
5042 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
5043 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
5045 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
5046 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
5048 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
5049 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
5050 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
5054 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
5056 * Changes to the distribution
5058 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
5059 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
5060 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
5063 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
5064 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
5065 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
5067 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
5068 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
5069 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
5070 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
5073 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
5074 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
5075 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
5077 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5079 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
5081 *** Function: batch-mode?
5083 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
5086 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
5088 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
5089 case has not been implemented.
5091 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
5092 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
5093 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
5096 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
5097 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
5099 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
5101 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5103 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
5105 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
5106 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
5109 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
5110 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
5111 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
5112 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
5115 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
5117 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
5118 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
5119 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
5120 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
5121 find those libraries.
5123 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
5124 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
5127 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
5129 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
5130 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
5131 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
5132 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
5134 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
5135 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
5136 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
5140 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
5142 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
5143 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
5144 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
5147 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
5148 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
5149 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
5150 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
5152 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
5153 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
5156 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
5157 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
5158 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
5159 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
5160 compiler where to find the libraries.
5162 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
5163 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
5164 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
5166 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
5167 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
5168 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
5169 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
5170 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
5174 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5176 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
5177 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
5178 internationalization support.
5180 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
5181 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
5182 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
5183 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
5184 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
5186 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
5187 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
5188 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
5189 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
5190 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
5192 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
5193 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
5194 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
5195 any GNU mirror site.
5197 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
5199 ** New function: add-history STRING
5200 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
5201 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
5202 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
5204 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
5206 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
5207 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
5208 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
5211 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
5212 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
5213 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
5215 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
5217 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
5220 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
5221 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
5224 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
5225 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
5226 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
5227 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
5228 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
5229 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
5231 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
5232 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
5233 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
5234 of the form mentioned above.
5236 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
5237 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
5238 returned in the special `rest' list.
5240 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
5241 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
5243 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
5245 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
5247 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
5249 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
5250 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
5251 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
5252 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
5253 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
5254 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
5255 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
5256 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
5259 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
5261 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
5263 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
5264 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
5267 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
5268 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
5269 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
5273 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
5274 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
5275 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
5276 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
5277 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
5278 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
5279 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
5280 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
5283 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
5285 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
5286 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
5287 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
5289 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
5291 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
5292 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
5294 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
5295 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
5296 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
5298 Why do we have this function?
5299 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
5300 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
5301 primitive, and display it differently, and
5302 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
5303 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
5306 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
5307 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
5310 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
5311 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
5312 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
5313 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
5315 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
5316 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
5319 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
5320 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
5322 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
5324 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
5325 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
5326 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
5327 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
5328 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
5329 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
5330 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
5333 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
5335 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
5336 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
5338 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
5339 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
5340 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
5341 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
5342 properly continue the print chain.
5344 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
5345 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
5346 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
5347 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
5348 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
5349 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
5350 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
5351 print-state, it is simply ignored.
5353 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
5354 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
5355 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
5356 safest to not check for these pairs.
5358 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
5359 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
5360 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
5361 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
5363 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
5365 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
5366 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
5368 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
5370 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
5372 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
5373 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
5374 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
5376 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
5377 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
5378 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
5380 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
5381 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
5382 the following functions and macros:
5384 Function: make-fluid
5386 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
5387 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
5388 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
5389 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
5390 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
5392 Function: fluid? OBJ
5394 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
5396 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
5397 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
5399 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
5400 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
5402 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
5404 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
5405 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
5406 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
5407 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
5408 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
5409 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
5410 modified by `with-fluids*'.
5412 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
5414 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
5415 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
5416 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
5417 should evaluate to a fluid.
5419 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
5421 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
5422 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
5423 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
5424 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
5425 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
5427 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
5430 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
5432 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
5434 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
5436 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
5439 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
5440 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
5441 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
5442 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
5443 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
5446 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
5447 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
5448 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
5450 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
5451 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
5452 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
5454 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
5455 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
5456 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5457 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
5459 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
5460 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
5461 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5462 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
5464 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
5465 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
5466 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
5467 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
5469 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
5470 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
5471 their revealed counts set to zero.
5473 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5474 Returns an integer file descriptor.
5476 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5477 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
5479 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5480 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
5482 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5483 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
5484 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
5486 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
5487 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
5488 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
5490 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
5491 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
5492 default environment inherited by child processes.
5494 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
5495 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
5496 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
5498 The return value is unspecified.
5500 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
5501 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
5502 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
5503 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
5504 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
5506 The return value is unspecified.
5508 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
5509 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
5517 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
5518 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
5521 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
5524 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
5525 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
5526 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
5528 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
5529 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
5530 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
5531 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
5534 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
5535 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
5537 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
5538 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
5539 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
5540 the `environ' procedure.
5542 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
5543 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
5546 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
5547 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
5549 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
5550 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
5551 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
5552 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
5554 *** procedure: times
5555 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
5556 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
5557 return a selected component:
5560 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
5564 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
5567 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
5571 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
5572 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
5576 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
5577 terminated child processes.
5579 ** Removed: list-length
5580 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
5581 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
5583 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
5585 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
5587 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
5589 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
5590 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
5591 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
5592 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
5594 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
5595 extra complexity it introduces.
5597 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
5598 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
5600 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
5601 variable to any non-empty value.
5603 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
5604 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
5606 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5608 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
5609 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
5611 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
5613 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
5614 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
5616 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
5618 ** vector handling routines
5620 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
5621 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
5622 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
5623 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
5624 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
5626 ** pair and list routines
5628 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
5631 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
5633 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
5636 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5638 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
5640 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
5641 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5642 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5643 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5644 site-specific initialization code.
5646 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5647 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5648 initialization processes.
5650 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5651 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5652 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5653 initialized properly.
5655 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5656 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5657 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5659 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5660 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5661 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5662 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5663 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5665 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5667 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5668 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5669 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5670 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5671 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5673 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5674 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5675 which look like this:
5678 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5680 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5681 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5684 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5685 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5688 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5690 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5691 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5692 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5694 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5695 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5696 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5697 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5698 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5700 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5701 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5703 int (*free) (SCM port);
5704 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5705 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5706 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5710 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5711 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5712 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5714 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5717 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5718 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5719 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5721 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5722 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5723 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5726 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5730 struct timeval *timeout);
5732 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5733 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5734 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5735 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5736 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5737 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5739 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5740 scm_catch_body_t body,
5742 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5745 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5746 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5747 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5748 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5749 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5750 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5752 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5754 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5757 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5758 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5759 spawning threads from application C code.
5761 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5762 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5763 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5764 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5765 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5766 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5768 ** Removed functions:
5770 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5771 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5773 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5775 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5776 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5778 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5780 ** mbstrings are now removed
5782 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5783 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5785 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5787 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5788 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5789 their new names and arguments:
5791 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5792 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5793 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5794 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5797 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5799 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5801 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5804 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5806 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5807 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5808 pass a #f arg to catch.
5810 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5812 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5813 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5816 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5817 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5818 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5819 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5820 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5821 reclaim its storage.
5823 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5824 worrying that some other function you call will call
5825 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5826 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5827 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5828 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5831 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5833 * Changes to the distribution
5835 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5836 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5839 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5840 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5842 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5843 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5845 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5847 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5848 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5849 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5851 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5853 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5854 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5855 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5856 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5857 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5858 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5860 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5861 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5862 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5865 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5866 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5867 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5868 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5870 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5871 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5872 libraries to your link command:
5874 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5875 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5876 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5877 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5879 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5880 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5881 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5883 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5885 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5886 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5889 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5891 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5892 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5893 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5894 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5895 searched is system dependent.
5897 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5899 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5901 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5903 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5904 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5906 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5908 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5909 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5910 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5911 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5912 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5915 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5917 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5918 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5919 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5920 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5921 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5923 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5925 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5926 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5928 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5930 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5931 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5932 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5935 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5937 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5938 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5939 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5940 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5942 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5943 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5945 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5947 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5948 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5950 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5952 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5953 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5961 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5963 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5964 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5965 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5966 a more informative way.
5968 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5969 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5970 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5971 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5972 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5973 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5975 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5976 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5979 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5980 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5981 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5984 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5985 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5986 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5987 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5988 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5989 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5991 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5992 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5993 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5994 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5997 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5998 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5999 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
6000 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
6001 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
6002 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
6004 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
6005 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
6006 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
6007 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
6008 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
6010 *** regexp functions
6012 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
6013 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
6014 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
6016 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
6017 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
6018 with SCSH regular expressions.
6020 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
6021 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
6022 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
6023 position of STR at which to begin matching.
6025 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
6026 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
6027 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
6028 `string-match' returns `#f'.
6030 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
6031 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
6032 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
6033 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
6034 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
6035 match strings against the compiled regexp.
6037 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
6038 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
6039 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
6040 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
6041 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
6043 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
6045 **** Constant: regexp/extended
6046 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
6047 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
6048 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
6050 **** Constant: regexp/icase
6051 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
6052 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
6054 **** Constant: regexp/newline
6055 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
6057 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
6060 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
6061 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
6062 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
6064 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
6065 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
6066 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
6068 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
6069 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
6070 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
6071 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
6072 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
6075 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
6077 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
6078 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
6079 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
6080 used when different portions of a string are passed to
6081 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
6082 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
6084 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
6085 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
6086 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
6088 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
6089 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
6092 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
6093 and replace them with the contents of another string.
6095 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
6096 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
6097 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
6098 may be one of the following arguments:
6100 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
6102 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
6104 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
6105 the regexp match is written.
6107 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
6108 following the regexp match is written.
6110 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
6111 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
6114 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
6115 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
6116 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
6117 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
6118 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
6119 which should be matched against this regular expression.
6121 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
6124 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
6125 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
6126 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
6127 written out to PORT.
6129 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
6130 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
6131 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
6132 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
6133 will return after processing a single match.
6135 *** Match Structures
6137 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
6138 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
6139 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
6140 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
6141 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
6142 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
6145 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
6146 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
6147 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
6148 information about the original target string that was matched against a
6149 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
6151 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
6152 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
6153 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
6155 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
6156 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
6157 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
6158 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
6159 number N did not match, return `#f'.
6161 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
6162 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
6164 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
6165 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
6167 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
6168 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
6170 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
6171 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
6173 **** Function: match:count MATCH
6174 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
6175 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
6176 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
6178 **** Function: match:string MATCH
6179 Return the original TARGET string.
6181 *** Backslash Escapes
6183 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
6184 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
6185 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
6186 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
6187 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
6188 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
6190 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
6191 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
6192 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
6193 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
6194 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
6195 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
6196 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
6197 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
6199 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
6200 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
6201 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
6202 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
6203 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
6204 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
6205 each match a single backslash in the target string.
6207 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
6208 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
6209 return the resulting string.
6211 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
6212 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
6213 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
6214 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
6215 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
6216 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
6217 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
6218 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
6219 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
6220 translated to the single character `*'.
6222 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
6223 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
6224 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
6225 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
6226 consecutive backslashes:
6228 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
6230 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
6231 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
6232 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
6234 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
6235 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
6236 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
6237 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
6238 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
6239 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
6241 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
6243 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
6244 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
6245 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
6246 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
6247 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
6248 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
6249 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
6250 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
6251 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
6252 cumbersome escape syntax.
6254 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6256 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6258 * Changes to system call interfaces:
6260 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
6263 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
6265 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
6267 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
6270 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
6271 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
6272 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
6273 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
6274 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
6276 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
6277 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
6278 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
6279 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
6280 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
6281 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
6282 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
6285 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
6286 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
6287 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
6290 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
6291 `force-output' on every port open for output.
6293 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
6294 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
6295 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
6296 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
6297 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
6298 installed, you can say:
6300 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
6303 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6305 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
6306 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
6307 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
6308 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
6309 new dynamic roots and threads.
6312 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
6314 * Changes to the distribution.
6316 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
6318 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
6319 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
6320 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
6321 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
6322 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
6323 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
6324 programming language. These are packaged together because the
6325 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
6327 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
6330 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
6331 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
6336 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6338 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
6339 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
6341 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
6342 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
6343 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
6344 the (command-line) function.
6345 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
6346 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
6347 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
6349 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
6350 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
6351 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
6352 command line arguments
6353 -ds do -s script at this point
6354 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
6355 -h, --help display this help and exit
6356 -v, --version display version information and exit
6357 \ read arguments from following script lines
6359 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
6360 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
6362 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6365 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6369 (main (command-line))
6371 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
6373 ekko a speckled gecko
6375 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
6376 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
6377 following list of command-line arguments:
6379 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
6381 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
6382 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
6383 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
6384 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
6385 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6387 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
6389 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
6391 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
6392 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
6395 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
6396 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
6397 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
6398 SCSH) for circumventing them.
6400 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
6401 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
6402 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
6403 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
6405 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
6409 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6413 If the user invokes this script as follows:
6415 ekko a speckled gecko
6417 Unix expands this into
6419 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
6421 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
6422 read from the second line of the script, producing:
6424 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6426 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
6427 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6429 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
6430 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
6431 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
6432 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
6433 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
6434 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
6435 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
6436 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
6437 it only terminates the argument list.)
6438 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
6439 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
6440 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
6441 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
6442 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
6443 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
6444 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
6445 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
6447 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6449 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
6450 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
6451 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
6452 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
6453 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
6455 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
6456 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
6457 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
6459 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
6461 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
6462 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
6463 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
6464 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
6467 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
6468 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6469 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6471 * Changes to Scheme functions
6473 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
6474 and disabled by default.
6476 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
6477 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
6478 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
6479 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
6481 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
6483 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
6485 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
6486 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
6488 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
6489 (read-set! keywords #f)
6491 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
6492 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
6493 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
6496 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
6497 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
6498 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
6501 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
6502 support for Scheme functions.
6504 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6505 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
6506 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
6507 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
6510 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6511 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
6512 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
6515 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
6516 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
6517 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
6520 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
6521 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
6522 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
6523 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
6524 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
6525 display the result as a prompt.
6526 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
6528 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
6529 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
6530 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
6533 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
6534 procedure of zero arguments.
6536 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
6537 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
6538 argument is bound in the current module.
6540 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
6541 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
6542 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
6543 public bindings into the current module.
6545 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
6546 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
6548 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
6549 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
6551 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
6552 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
6554 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
6555 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
6557 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
6558 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
6560 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
6561 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
6562 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
6563 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
6564 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
6566 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
6567 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
6568 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
6569 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
6571 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
6574 ** Changes to I/O functions
6576 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
6577 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
6578 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
6580 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
6581 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
6582 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
6584 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
6585 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
6587 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
6588 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
6589 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
6590 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
6592 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
6594 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
6595 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
6597 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
6598 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
6599 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
6600 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
6601 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
6604 'trim omit delimiter from result
6605 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
6606 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
6607 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
6609 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
6611 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
6612 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
6614 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
6615 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
6616 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
6617 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
6618 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
6620 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
6621 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
6622 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
6624 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
6625 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
6626 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
6627 above, and defaults to 'peek.
6629 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
6630 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6632 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
6633 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
6635 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
6637 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
6638 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
6639 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
6640 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
6641 a delimiting character.
6642 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6644 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6645 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6646 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6647 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6648 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6649 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6651 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6652 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6654 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6655 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6656 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6658 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6659 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6660 the array to read and write.
6662 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6663 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6666 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6668 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6671 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6672 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6673 Values for COMMAND are:
6675 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6676 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6677 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6678 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6679 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6680 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6681 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6682 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6684 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6686 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6687 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6688 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6689 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6690 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6691 corresponding return set will be the same.
6693 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6696 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6697 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6698 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6699 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6700 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6701 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6702 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6703 special file being created.
6705 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6706 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6708 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6709 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6710 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6711 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6712 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6713 and originating address.
6715 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6716 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6717 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6719 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6722 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6723 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6726 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6727 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6728 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6729 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6730 this function returns #f.
6732 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6733 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6734 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6737 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6738 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6739 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6742 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6743 a valid STATUS value.
6745 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6747 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6748 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6750 Component Accessor Setter
6751 ========================= ============ ============
6752 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6753 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6754 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6755 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6756 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6757 year tm:year set-tm:year
6758 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6759 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6760 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6761 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6762 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6764 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6765 describing the host system:
6768 ============================================== ================
6769 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6770 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6771 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6772 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6773 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6775 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6776 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6777 system's user database:
6780 ====================== =================
6781 user name passwd:name
6782 user password passwd:passwd
6785 real name passwd:gecos
6786 home directory passwd:dir
6787 shell program passwd:shell
6789 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6790 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6791 system's group database:
6794 ======================= ============
6795 group name group:name
6796 group password group:passwd
6798 group members group:mem
6800 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6801 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6805 ========================= ===============
6806 official name of host hostent:name
6807 alias list hostent:aliases
6808 host address type hostent:addrtype
6809 length of address hostent:length
6810 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6812 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6813 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6817 ========================= ===============
6818 official name of net netent:name
6819 alias list netent:aliases
6820 net number type netent:addrtype
6821 net number netent:net
6823 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6824 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6828 ========================= ===============
6829 official protocol name protoent:name
6830 alias list protoent:aliases
6831 protocol number protoent:proto
6833 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6834 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6838 ========================= ===============
6839 official service name servent:name
6840 alias list servent:aliases
6841 port number servent:port
6842 protocol to use servent:proto
6844 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6845 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6848 ======================================== ===============
6849 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6850 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6851 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6852 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6854 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6855 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6856 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6858 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6859 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6861 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6862 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6864 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6865 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6867 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6869 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6871 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6872 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6873 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6875 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6876 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6877 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6878 return the remaining characters as a string.
6880 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6881 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6882 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6884 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6886 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6888 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6891 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6894 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6895 and returns the array
6897 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6898 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6899 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6901 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6903 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6904 symbol's value from C code:
6906 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6907 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6908 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6909 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6911 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6912 without assigning them a value.
6914 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6915 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6916 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6918 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6919 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6920 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6922 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6923 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6925 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6926 doesn't actually care about that.
6928 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6929 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6930 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6932 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6933 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6934 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6935 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6936 which we have just created and initialized.
6938 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6939 should one occur. We call it like this:
6940 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6942 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6943 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6944 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6945 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6946 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6947 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6950 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6951 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6952 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6953 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6954 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6955 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6956 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6959 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6960 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6961 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6962 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6963 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6966 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6967 scm_internal_catch, except:
6969 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6970 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6971 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6972 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6975 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6976 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6977 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6979 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6980 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6981 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6982 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6985 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6986 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6987 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6989 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6990 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6991 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6992 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6993 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6995 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6996 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6997 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6999 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
7000 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
7001 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
7003 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
7004 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
7006 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
7007 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
7008 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
7011 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
7012 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
7013 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
7014 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
7015 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
7016 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
7017 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
7020 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
7021 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
7023 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
7024 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
7025 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
7026 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
7027 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
7030 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
7031 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
7033 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
7034 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
7037 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
7038 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
7040 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7043 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
7044 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
7045 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
7046 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
7047 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
7048 given the following arguments:
7050 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
7052 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
7054 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
7056 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7059 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
7060 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
7061 command-line arguments.
7063 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
7064 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
7065 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
7066 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
7067 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
7068 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
7071 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7074 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
7075 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
7077 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
7078 rearranged slightly. They are now:
7080 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7081 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
7082 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
7083 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
7085 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7086 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
7088 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7089 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
7090 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
7091 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
7093 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7094 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
7096 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
7097 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
7099 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
7101 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
7102 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
7103 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
7106 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
7107 returns a port instead of an FD object.
7109 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
7110 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
7115 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
7118 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
7120 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
7121 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
7122 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
7123 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
7125 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
7127 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
7129 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
7130 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
7131 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
7132 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
7133 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
7134 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
7135 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
7136 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
7137 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
7138 for more information.
7140 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
7141 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
7143 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
7144 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
7145 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
7146 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
7147 following two lines at the top of the file:
7149 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7152 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
7153 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
7154 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
7156 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
7158 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7160 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
7163 (display (car args))
7164 (if (pair? (cdr args))
7166 (loop (cdr args)))))
7169 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
7170 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
7171 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
7172 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
7173 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
7174 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
7178 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
7181 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
7184 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
7186 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
7187 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
7188 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
7189 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
7190 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
7193 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
7194 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
7195 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
7196 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
7197 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
7200 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
7203 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
7204 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
7205 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
7208 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
7209 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
7210 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
7212 to see a backtrace, and
7213 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
7214 to see them by default.
7218 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
7220 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
7222 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
7223 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
7226 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
7227 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
7228 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
7229 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
7232 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
7233 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
7234 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
7235 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
7236 functions which inspired them.
7238 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
7239 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
7243 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
7245 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
7247 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
7248 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
7251 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
7252 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
7253 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
7255 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
7256 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
7257 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
7258 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
7259 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
7261 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
7263 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
7264 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
7265 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
7268 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
7271 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
7273 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
7274 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
7275 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
7276 above should serve their purposes.
7278 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
7279 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
7280 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
7281 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
7283 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
7286 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
7287 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
7288 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
7289 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
7291 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
7292 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
7293 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
7294 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
7296 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
7297 for the `read' function.
7300 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
7301 to that of `integer?'.
7303 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
7304 use the R4RS names for these functions.
7306 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
7307 it simply returns the object's property list.
7309 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
7310 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
7311 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
7312 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
7314 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
7316 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
7319 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
7321 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
7322 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
7324 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
7326 void (*main_func) (),
7329 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
7330 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
7331 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
7332 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
7333 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
7335 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
7336 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
7337 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
7338 know which arguments have been processed.
7340 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
7341 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
7342 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
7343 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
7344 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
7346 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
7347 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
7348 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
7349 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
7350 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
7351 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
7352 people from making that mistake.
7354 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
7355 convenient ways to override these when desired.
7357 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
7359 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
7363 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
7366 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
7367 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
7368 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
7369 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
7372 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
7373 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
7374 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
7375 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
7378 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
7379 have been added to the Guile library.
7381 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
7382 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
7383 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
7386 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
7387 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
7388 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
7390 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
7391 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
7392 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
7393 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
7394 argument from the list.
7397 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
7400 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
7401 null-terminated string, and returns it.
7403 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
7404 to a Scheme port object.
7406 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
7407 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
7412 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
7414 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
7415 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
7416 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
7417 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
7418 code as a special datatype.
7420 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
7421 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
7422 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
7423 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
7424 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
7427 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
7428 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
7429 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
7430 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
7431 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
7433 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
7436 Copyright information:
7438 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7440 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7441 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7442 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7443 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7445 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7446 of this document, or of portions of it,
7447 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7448 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7453 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"