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, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
8 (During the 1.9 series, we will keep an incremental NEWS for the latest
9 prerelease, and a full NEWS corresponding to 1.8 -> 2.0.)
11 Changes in 1.9.11 (since the 1.9.10 prerelease):
13 ** And of course, the usual collection of bugfixes
15 Interested users should see the ChangeLog for more information.
19 Changes in 1.9.x (since the 1.8.x series):
21 * New modules (see the manual for details)
23 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
24 ** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
25 ** `(rnrs bytevector)', the R6RS bytevector API
26 ** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
27 ** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
28 ** `(ice-9 vlist)', lists with constant-time random access; hash lists
29 ** `(system foreign)', foreign function interface
31 ** Imported statprof, SSAX, and texinfo modules from Guile-Lib
33 The statprof statistical profiler, the SSAX XML toolkit, and the texinfo
34 toolkit from Guile-Lib have been imported into Guile proper. See
35 "Standard Library" in the manual for more details.
37 ** Integration of lalr-scm, a parser generator
39 Guile has included Dominique Boucher's fine `lalr-scm' parser generator
40 as `(system base lalr)'. See "LALR(1) Parsing" in the manual, for more
43 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
45 ** Guile now can compile Scheme to bytecode for a custom virtual machine.
47 Compiled code loads much faster than Scheme source code, and runs around
48 3 or 4 times as fast, generating much less garbage in the process.
50 ** Evaluating Scheme code does not use the C stack.
52 Besides when compiling Guile itself, Guile no longer uses a recursive C
53 function as an evaluator. This obviates the need to check the C stack
54 pointer for overflow. Continuations still capture the C stack, however.
56 ** New environment variables: GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH,
57 GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH
59 GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is for compiled files what GUILE_LOAD_PATH is
60 for source files. It is a different path, however, because compiled
61 files are architecture-specific. GUILE_SYSTEM_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH is like
64 ** New read-eval-print loop (REPL) implementation
66 Running Guile with no arguments drops the user into the new REPL. While
67 it is self-documenting to an extent, the new REPL has not yet been
68 documented in the manual. This will be fixed before 2.0.
70 ** New reader options: `square-brackets' and `r6rs-hex-escapes'
72 The reader supports a new option (changeable via `read-options'),
73 `square-brackets', which instructs it to interpret square brackets as
74 parentheses. This option is on by default.
76 When the new `r6rs-hex-escapes' reader option is enabled, the reader
77 will recognize string escape sequences as defined in R6RS.
79 ** Function profiling and tracing at the REPL
81 The `,profile FORM' REPL meta-command can now be used to statistically
82 profile execution of a form, to see which functions are taking the most
83 time. See `,help profile' for more information.
85 Similarly, `,trace FORM' traces all function applications that occur
86 during the execution of `FORM'. See `,help trace' for more information.
90 By default, if an exception is raised at the REPL and not caught by user
91 code, Guile will drop the user into a debugger. The user may request a
92 backtrace, inspect frames, or continue raising the exception. Full
93 documentation is available from within the debugger.
95 ** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
97 Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
100 ** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
102 Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
103 `/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
104 include `/path/to/lib'.
106 ** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
108 Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
111 ** Load path change: search in version-specific paths before site paths
113 When looking for a module, Guile now searches first in Guile's
114 version-specific path (the library path), *then* in the site dir. This
115 allows Guile's copy of SSAX to override any Guile-Lib copy the user has
116 installed. Also it should cut the number of `stat' system calls by half,
119 ** Interactive Guile follows GNU conventions
121 As recommended by the GPL, Guile now shows a brief copyright and
122 warranty disclaimer on startup, along with pointers to more information.
124 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
126 ** New implementation of `primitive-eval'
128 Guile's `primitive-eval' is now implemented in Scheme. Actually there is
129 still a C evaluator, used when building a fresh Guile to interpret the
130 compiler, so we can compile eval.scm. Thereafter all calls to
131 primitive-eval are implemented by VM-compiled code.
133 This allows all of Guile's procedures, be they interpreted or compiled,
134 to execute on the same stack, unifying multiple-value return semantics,
135 providing for proper tail recursion between interpreted and compiled
136 code, and simplifying debugging.
138 As part of this change, the evaluator no longer mutates the internal
139 representation of the code being evaluated in a thread-unsafe manner.
141 There are two negative aspects of this change, however. First, Guile
142 takes a lot longer to compile now. Also, there is less debugging
143 information available for debugging interpreted code. We hope to improve
144 both of these situations.
146 There are many changes to the internal C evalator interface, but all
147 public interfaces should be the same. See the ChangeLog for details. If
148 we have inadvertantly changed an interface that you were using, please
149 contact bug-guile@gnu.org.
151 ** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
153 This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
154 not apply to the compiler.
156 ** No more `local-eval'
158 `local-eval' used to exist so that one could evaluate code in the
159 lexical context of a function. Since there is no way to get the lexical
160 environment any more, as that concept has no meaning for the compiler,
161 and a different meaning for the interpreter, we have removed the
164 If you think you need `local-eval', you should probably implement your
165 own metacircular evaluator. It will probably be as fast as Guile's
168 ** Scheme source files will now be compiled automatically.
170 If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
171 not fresh, the .scm file will be compiled on the fly, and the resulting
172 .go file stored away. An advisory note will be printed on the console.
174 Note that this mechanism depends on preservation of the .scm and .go
175 modification times; if the .scm or .go files are moved after
176 installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
179 Autocompiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
180 directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
181 will be created if needed.
183 To inhibit autocompilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
184 variable to 0, or pass --no-autocompile on the Guile command line.
186 ** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
188 Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
189 in the next prerelease.
191 ** New POSIX procedure: `getsid'
193 Scheme binding for the `getsid' C library call.
195 ** New POSIX procedure: `getaddrinfo'
197 Scheme binding for the `getaddrinfo' C library function.
199 ** New procedure in `(oops goops)': `method-formals'
201 ** New procedures in (ice-9 session): `add-value-help-handler!',
202 `remove-value-help-handler!', `add-name-help-handler!'
203 `remove-name-help-handler!', `procedure-arguments'
205 The value and name help handlers provide some minimal extensibility to
206 the help interface. Guile-lib's `(texinfo reflection)' uses them, for
207 example, to make stexinfo help documentation available. See those
208 procedures' docstrings for more information.
210 `procedure-arguments' describes the arguments that a procedure can take,
211 combining arity and formals. For example:
213 (procedure-arguments resolve-interface)
214 => ((required . (name)) (rest . args))
216 Additionally, `module-commentary' is now publically exported from
219 ** Removed: `procedure->memoizing-macro', `procedure->syntax'
221 These procedures created primitive fexprs for the old evaluator, and are
222 no longer supported. If you feel that you need these functions, you
223 probably need to write your own metacircular evaluator (which will
224 probably be as fast as Guile's, anyway).
226 ** New language: ECMAScript
228 Guile now ships with one other high-level language supported,
229 ECMAScript. The goal is to support all of version 3.1 of the standard,
230 but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
231 documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
233 ** New language: Brainfuck
235 Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
236 brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
237 languages. See the manual for details, or
238 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
239 Brainfuck language itself.
241 ** New language: Elisp
243 Guile now has an experimental Emacs Lisp compiler and runtime. You can
244 now switch to Elisp at the repl: `,language elisp'. All kudos to Daniel
245 Kraft, and all bugs to bug-guile@gnu.org.
247 ** Better documentation infrastructure for macros
249 It is now possible to introspect on the type of a macro, e.g.
250 syntax-rules, identifier-syntax, etc, and extract information about that
251 macro, such as the syntax-rules patterns or the defmacro arguments.
252 `(texinfo reflection)' takes advantage of this to give better macro
255 ** Support for arbitrary procedure metadata
257 Building on its support for docstrings, Guile now supports multiple
258 docstrings, adding them to the tail of a compiled procedure's
259 properties. For example:
265 (procedure-properties foo)
266 => ((name . foo) (documentation . "one") (documentation . "two"))
268 Also, vectors of pairs are now treated as additional metadata entries:
271 #((quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
273 (procedure-properties bar)
274 => ((name . bar) (quz . #f) (docstring . "xyzzy"))
276 This allows arbitrary literals to be embedded as metadata in a compiled
279 ** The psyntax expander now knows how to interpret the @ and @@ special
282 ** The psyntax expander is now hygienic with respect to modules.
284 Free variables in a macro are scoped in the module that the macro was
285 defined in, not in the module the macro is used in. For example, code
288 (define-module (foo) #:export (bar))
289 (define (helper x) ...)
291 (syntax-rules () ((_ x) (helper x))))
293 (define-module (baz) #:use-module (foo))
296 It used to be you had to export `helper' from `(foo)' as well.
297 Thankfully, this has been fixed.
299 ** Complete support for version information in Guile's `module' form
301 Guile modules now have a `#:version' field. They may be loaded by
302 version as well. See "R6RS Version References", "General Information
303 about Modules", "Using Guile Modules", and "Creating Guile Modules" in
304 the manual for more information.
306 ** Support for renaming bindings on module export
308 Wherever Guile accepts a symbol as an argument to specify a binding to
309 export, it now also accepts a pair of symbols, indicating that a binding
310 should be renamed on export. See "Creating Guile Modules" in the manual
311 for more information.
313 ** `eval-case' has been deprecated, and replaced by `eval-when'.
315 The semantics of `eval-when' are easier to understand. See "Eval When"
316 in the manual, for more information.
318 ** Guile is now more strict about prohibiting definitions in expression
321 Although previous versions of Guile accepted it, the following
322 expression is not valid, in R5RS or R6RS:
324 (if test (define foo 'bar) (define foo 'baz))
326 In this specific case, it would be better to do:
328 (define foo (if test 'bar 'baz))
330 It is certainly possible to circumvent this resriction with e.g.
331 `(module-define! (current-module) 'foo 'baz)'. We would appreciate
332 feedback about this change (a consequence of using psyntax as the
333 default expander), and may choose to revisit this situation before 2.0
334 in response to user feedback.
336 ** Defmacros must now produce valid Scheme expressions.
338 It used to be that defmacros could unquote in Scheme values, as a way of
339 supporting partial evaluation, and avoiding some hygiene issues. For
342 (define (helper x) ...)
343 (define-macro (foo bar)
346 Assuming this macro is in the `(baz)' module, the direct translation of
349 (define (helper x) ...)
350 (define-macro (foo bar)
351 `((@@ (baz) helper) ,bar))
353 Of course, one could just use a hygienic macro instead:
357 ((_ bar) (helper bar))))
359 ** Guile's psyntax now supports docstrings and internal definitions.
361 The following Scheme is not strictly legal:
368 However its intent is fairly clear. Guile interprets "bar" to be the
369 docstring of `foo', and the definition of `baz' is still in definition
372 ** Macros need to be defined before their first use.
374 It used to be that with lazy memoization, this might work:
378 (define-macro (ref x) x)
381 But now, the body of `foo' is interpreted to mean a call to the toplevel
382 `ref' function, instead of a macro expansion. The solution is to define
383 macros before code that uses them.
385 ** Functions needed by macros at expand-time need to be present at
388 For example, this code will work at the REPL:
390 (define (double-helper x) (* x x))
391 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
392 (double-literal 2) => 4
394 But it will not work when a file is compiled, because the definition of
395 `double-helper' is not present at expand-time. The solution is to wrap
396 the definition of `double-helper' in `eval-when':
398 (eval-when (load compile eval)
399 (define (double-helper x) (* x x)))
400 (define-macro (double-literal x) (double-helper x))
401 (double-literal 2) => 4
403 See the documentation for eval-when for more information.
405 ** `macroexpand' produces structures, not S-expressions.
407 Given the need to maintain referential transparency, both lexically and
408 modular, the result of expanding Scheme expressions is no longer itself
409 an s-expression. If you want a human-readable approximation of the
410 result of `macroexpand', call `tree-il->scheme' from `(language
413 ** Removed function: `macroexpand-1'
415 It is unclear how to implement `macroexpand-1' with syntax-case, though
416 PLT Scheme does prove that it is possible.
418 ** New reader macros: #' #` #, #,@
420 These macros translate, respectively, to `syntax', `quasisyntax',
421 `unsyntax', and `unsyntax-splicing'. See the R6RS for more information.
422 These reader macros may be overridden by `read-hash-extend'.
424 ** Incompatible change to #'
426 Guile did have a #' hash-extension, by default, which just returned the
427 subsequent datum: #'foo => foo. In the unlikely event that anyone
428 actually used this, this behavior may be reinstated via the
429 `read-hash-extend' mechanism.
431 ** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
433 #; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
436 ** Prompts: Delimited, composable continuations
438 Guile now has prompts as part of its primitive language. See "Prompts"
439 in the manual, for more information.
441 Expressions entered in at the REPL, or from the command line, are
442 surrounded by a prompt with the default prompt tag.
444 ** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
445 works (with compiled procedures)
447 It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
448 calls only up to or from a certain procedure, even if that procedure
449 already tail-called another procedure. This was because the debug
450 information from the original procedure was kept on the stack.
452 Now with the new compiler, the stack only contains active frames from
453 the current continuation. A narrow to a procedure that is not in the
454 stack will result in an empty stack. To fix this, narrow to a procedure
455 that is active in the current continuation, or narrow to a specific
456 number of stack frames.
458 ** Backtraces through compiled procedures only show procedures that are
459 active in the current continuation
461 Similarly to the previous issue, backtraces in compiled code may be
462 different from backtraces in interpreted code. There are no semantic
463 differences, however. Please mail bug-guile@gnu.org if you see any
464 deficiencies with Guile's backtraces.
466 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case macros now propagate source information
467 through to the expanded code
469 This should result in better backtraces.
471 ** The currying behavior of `define' has been removed.
473 Before, `(define ((f a) b) (* a b))' would translate to
475 (define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
477 Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
478 default. Use the `(ice-9 curried-definitions)' module to get back the
481 ** New procedure, `define!'
483 `define!' is a procedure that takes two arguments, a symbol and a value,
484 and binds the value to the symbol in the current module. It's useful to
485 programmatically make definitions in the current module, and is slightly
486 less verbose than `module-define!'.
488 ** All modules have names now
490 Before, you could have anonymous modules: modules without names. Now,
491 because of hygiene and macros, all modules have names. If a module was
492 created without a name, the first time `module-name' is called on it, a
493 fresh name will be lazily generated for it.
495 ** Many syntax errors have different texts now
497 Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
498 are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
499 using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
501 ** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
502 values to the expected number
504 For example, the interpreter would raise an error evaluating the form,
505 `(+ (values 1 2) (values 3 4))', because it would see the operands as
506 being two compound "values" objects, to which `+' does not apply.
508 The compiler, on the other hand, receives multiple values on the stack,
509 not as a compound object. Given that it must check the number of values
510 anyway, if too many values are provided for a continuation, it chooses
511 to truncate those values, effectively evaluating `(+ 1 3)' instead.
513 The idea is that the semantics that the compiler implements is more
514 intuitive, and the use of the interpreter will fade out with time.
515 This behavior is allowed both by the R5RS and the R6RS.
517 ** Multiple values in compiled code are not represented by compound
520 This change may manifest itself in the following situation:
522 (let ((val (foo))) (do-something) val)
524 In the interpreter, if `foo' returns multiple values, multiple values
525 are produced from the `let' expression. In the compiler, those values
526 are truncated to the first value, and that first value is returned. In
527 the compiler, if `foo' returns no values, an error will be raised, while
528 the interpreter would proceed.
530 Both of these behaviors are allowed by R5RS and R6RS. The compiler's
531 behavior is more correct, however. If you wish to preserve a potentially
532 multiply-valued return, you will need to set up a multiple-value
533 continuation, using `call-with-values'.
535 ** Defmacros are now implemented in terms of syntax-case.
537 The practical ramification of this is that the `defmacro?' predicate has
538 been removed, along with `defmacro-transformer', `macro-table',
539 `xformer-table', `assert-defmacro?!', `set-defmacro-transformer!' and
540 `defmacro:transformer'. This is because defmacros are simply macros. If
541 any of these procedures provided useful facilities to you, we encourage
542 you to contact the Guile developers.
544 ** Hygienic macros documented as the primary syntactic extension mechanism.
546 The macro documentation was finally fleshed out with some documentation
547 on `syntax-rules' and `syntax-case' macros, and other parts of the macro
548 expansion process. See "Macros" in the manual, for details.
550 ** psyntax is now the default expander
552 Scheme code is now expanded by default by the psyntax hygienic macro
553 expander. Expansion is performed completely before compilation or
556 Notably, syntax errors will be signalled before interpretation begins.
557 In the past, many syntax errors were only detected at runtime if the
558 code in question was memoized.
560 As part of its expansion, psyntax renames all lexically-bound
561 identifiers. Original identifier names are preserved and given to the
562 compiler, but the interpreter will see the renamed variables, e.g.,
563 `x432' instead of `x'.
565 Note that the psyntax that Guile uses is a fork, as Guile already had
566 modules before incompatible modules were added to psyntax -- about 10
567 years ago! Thus there are surely a number of bugs that have been fixed
568 in psyntax since then. If you find one, please notify bug-guile@gnu.org.
570 ** syntax-rules and syntax-case are available by default.
572 There is no longer any need to import the `(ice-9 syncase)' module
573 (which is now deprecated). The expander may be invoked directly via
574 `macroexpand', though it is normally searched for via the current module
577 Also, the helper routines for syntax-case are available in the default
578 environment as well: `syntax->datum', `datum->syntax',
579 `bound-identifier=?', `free-identifier=?', `generate-temporaries',
580 `identifier?', and `syntax-violation'. See the R6RS for documentation.
582 ** Tail patterns in syntax-case
584 Guile has pulled in some more recent changes from the psyntax portable
585 syntax expander, to implement support for "tail patterns". Such patterns
586 are supported by syntax-rules and syntax-case. This allows a syntax-case
587 match clause to have ellipses, then a pattern at the end. For example:
591 ((_ val match-clause ... (else e e* ...))
594 Note how there is MATCH-CLAUSE, which is ellipsized, then there is a
595 tail pattern for the else clause. Thanks to Andreas Rottmann for the
596 patch, and Kent Dybvig for the code.
598 ** Lexical bindings introduced by hygienic macros may not be referenced
599 by nonhygienic macros.
601 If a lexical binding is introduced by a hygienic macro, it may not be
602 referenced by a nonhygienic macro. For example, this works:
605 (define-macro (bind-x val body)
606 `(let ((x ,val)) ,body))
607 (define-macro (ref x)
614 (define-syntax bind-x
616 ((_ val body) (let ((x val)) body))))
617 (define-macro (ref x)
621 It is not normal to run into this situation with existing code. However,
622 as code is ported over from defmacros to syntax-case, it is possible to
623 run into situations like this. In the future, Guile will probably port
624 its `while' macro to syntax-case, which makes this issue one to know
627 ** Macros may no longer be referenced as first-class values.
629 In the past, you could evaluate e.g. `if', and get its macro value. Now,
630 expanding this form raises a syntax error.
632 Macros still /exist/ as first-class values, but they must be
633 /referenced/ via the module system, e.g. `(module-ref (current-module)
636 ** Macros may now have docstrings.
638 `object-documentation' from `(ice-9 documentation)' may be used to
639 retrieve the docstring, once you have a macro value -- but see the above
640 note about first-class macros. Docstrings are associated with the syntax
641 transformer procedures.
643 ** `case-lambda' is now available in the default environment.
645 The binding in the default environment is equivalent to the one from the
646 `(srfi srfi-16)' module. Use the srfi-16 module explicitly if you wish
647 to maintain compatibility with Guile 1.8 and earlier.
649 ** Procedures may now have more than one arity.
651 This can be the case, for example, in case-lambda procedures. The
652 arities of compiled procedures may be accessed via procedures from the
653 `(system vm program)' module; see "Compiled Procedures", "Optional
654 Arguments", and "Case-lambda" in the manual.
656 ** `lambda*' and `define*' are now available in the default environment
658 As with `case-lambda', `(ice-9 optargs)' continues to be supported, for
659 compatibility purposes. No semantic change has been made (we hope).
660 Optional and keyword arguments now dispatch via special VM operations,
661 without the need to cons rest arguments, making them very fast.
663 ** New function, `truncated-print', with `format' support
665 `(ice-9 pretty-print)' now exports `truncated-print', a printer that
666 will ensure that the output stays within a certain width, truncating the
667 output in what is hopefully an intelligent manner. See the manual for
670 There is a new `format' specifier, `~@y', for doing a truncated
671 print (as opposed to `~y', which does a pretty-print). See the `format'
672 documentation for more details.
674 ** SRFI-4 vectors reimplemented in terms of R6RS bytevectors
676 Guile now implements SRFI-4 vectors using bytevectors. Often when you
677 have a numeric vector, you end up wanting to write its bytes somewhere,
678 or have access to the underlying bytes, or read in bytes from somewhere
679 else. Bytevectors are very good at this sort of thing. But the SRFI-4
680 APIs are nicer to use when doing number-crunching, because they are
681 addressed by element and not by byte.
683 So as a compromise, Guile allows all bytevector functions to operate on
684 numeric vectors. They address the underlying bytes in the native
685 endianness, as one would expect.
687 Following the same reasoning, that it's just bytes underneath, Guile
688 also allows uniform vectors of a given type to be accessed as if they
689 were of any type. One can fill a u32vector, and access its elements with
690 u8vector-ref. One can use f64vector-ref on bytevectors. It's all the
693 In this way, uniform numeric vectors may be written to and read from
694 input/output ports using the procedures that operate on bytevectors.
696 Calls to SRFI-4 accessors (ref and set functions) from Scheme are now
697 inlined to the VM instructions for bytevector access.
699 See "SRFI-4" in the manual, for more information.
701 ** Nonstandard SRFI-4 procedures now available from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'
703 Guile's `(srfi srfi-4)' now only exports those srfi-4 procedures that
704 are part of the standard. Complex uniform vectors and the
705 `any->FOOvector' family are now available only from `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)'.
707 Guile's default environment imports `(srfi srfi-4)', and probably should
708 import `(srfi srfi-4 gnu)' as well.
710 See "SRFI-4 Extensions" in the manual, for more information.
712 ** New syntax: include-from-path.
714 `include-from-path' is like `include', except it looks for its file in
715 the load path. It can be used to compile other files into a file.
717 ** New syntax: quasisyntax.
719 `quasisyntax' is to `syntax' as `quasiquote' is to `quote'. See the R6RS
720 documentation for more information. Thanks to Andre van Tonder for the
723 ** Unicode characters
725 Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
726 created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
727 probably be introduced at some point.
731 Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
732 encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
733 character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
735 Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
736 hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
737 or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
738 encoding of the port on which the string is read.
742 One may now use U+03BB (GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMBDA) as an identifier.
744 ** Support for non-ASCII source code files
746 The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
747 non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
748 should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
749 there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
750 declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
753 The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
754 code. This use is now discouraged.
756 ** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
758 Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
759 operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
760 have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
763 See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
764 `set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
765 and `port-conversion-strategy'.
767 ** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
769 ** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
771 The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
772 characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
773 character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
774 Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
776 ** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
778 `char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
779 Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
782 ** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
784 These variables contained the names of control characters and were
785 used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
786 never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
789 ** EBCDIC support is removed
791 There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
792 processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
793 and was unmaintained.
795 ** Compile-time warnings
797 Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
798 -Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
799 `#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
802 Guile can also warn when you pass the wrong number of arguments to a
803 procedure, with -Warity-mismatch, or `arity-mismatch' in the
804 `#:warnings' as above.
806 Other warnings include `-Wunused-variable' and `-Wunused-toplevel', to
807 warn about unused local or global (top-level) variables.
809 ** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
811 This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
814 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
816 This slightly improves program startup times.
818 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
820 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
822 ** GOOPS dispatch in scheme
824 As an implementation detail, GOOPS dispatch is no longer implemented by
825 special evaluator bytecodes, but rather directly via a Scheme function
826 associated with an applicable struct. There is some VM support for the
827 underlying primitives, like `class-of'.
829 This change will in the future allow users to customize generic function
830 dispatch without incurring a performance penalty, and allow us to
831 implement method combinations.
833 ** Applicable struct support
835 One may now make structs from Scheme that may be applied as procedures.
836 To do so, make a struct whose vtable is `<applicable-struct-vtable>'.
837 That struct will be the vtable of your applicable structs; instances of
838 that new struct are assumed to have the procedure in their first slot.
839 `<applicable-struct-vtable>' is like Common Lisp's
840 `funcallable-standard-class'. Likewise there is
841 `<applicable-struct-with-setter-vtable>', which looks for the setter in
842 the second slot. This needs to be better documented.
846 GOOPS had a number of concepts that were relevant to the days of Tcl,
847 but not any more: operators and entities, mainly. These objects were
848 never documented, and it is unlikely that they were ever used. Operators
849 were a kind of generic specific to the Tcl support. Entities were
850 replaced by applicable structs, mentioned above.
852 ** New struct slot allocation: "hidden"
854 A hidden slot is readable and writable, but will not be initialized by a
855 call to make-struct. For example in your layout you would say "ph"
856 instead of "pw". Hidden slots are useful for adding new slots to a
857 vtable without breaking existing invocations to make-struct.
859 ** eqv? not a generic
861 One used to be able to extend `eqv?' as a primitive-generic, but no
862 more. Because `eqv?' is in the expansion of `case' (via `memv'), which
863 should be able to compile to static dispatch tables, it doesn't make
864 sense to allow extensions that would subvert this optimization.
866 ** `inet-ntop' and `inet-pton' are always available.
868 Guile now use a portable implementation of `inet_pton'/`inet_ntop', so
869 there is no more need to use `inet-aton'/`inet-ntoa'. The latter
870 functions are deprecated.
872 ** Fast bit operations.
874 The bit-twiddling operations `ash', `logand', `logior', and `logxor' now
875 have dedicated bytecodes. Guile is not just for symbolic computation,
876 it's for number crunching too.
878 ** Faster SRFI-9 record access
880 SRFI-9 records are now implemented directly on top of Guile's structs,
881 and their accessors are defined in such a way that normal call-sites
882 inline to special VM opcodes, while still allowing for the general case
883 (e.g. passing a record accessor to `apply').
885 ** R6RS block comment support
887 Guile now supports R6RS nested block comments. The start of a comment is
888 marked with `#|', and the end with `|#'.
890 ** `guile-2' cond-expand feature
892 To test if your code is running under Guile 2.0 (or its alpha releases),
893 test for the `guile-2' cond-expand feature. Like this:
895 (cond-expand (guile-2 (eval-when (compile)
896 ;; This must be evaluated at compile time.
897 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
899 ;; Earlier versions of Guile do not have a
900 ;; separate compilation phase.
901 (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
903 ** Fix bad interaction between `false-if-exception' and stack-call.
905 Exceptions thrown by `false-if-exception' were erronously causing the
906 stack to be saved, causing later errors to show the incorrectly-saved
907 backtrace. This has been fixed.
909 ** New global variables: %load-compiled-path, %load-compiled-extensions
911 These are analogous to %load-path and %load-extensions.
913 ** New procedure, `make-promise'
915 `(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
917 ** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
919 Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
921 ** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
923 ** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
925 `module-bound?' was returning true if a module did have a local
926 variable, but one that was unbound, but another imported module bound
927 the variable. This was an error, and was fixed.
929 ** `(ice-9 syncase)' has been deprecated.
931 As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
932 no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
934 ** New readline history functions
936 The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
937 write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
938 History library functions.
940 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
941 dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
943 Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
946 ** Deprecated: `lazy-catch'
948 `lazy-catch' was a form that captured the stack at the point of a
949 `throw', but the dynamic state at the point of the `catch'. It was a bit
950 crazy. Please change to use `catch', possibly with a throw-handler, or
951 `with-throw-handler'.
953 ** Last but not least, the `λ' macro can be used in lieu of `lambda'
955 * Changes to the C interface
957 ** Guile now uses libgc, the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
959 The semantics of `scm_gc_malloc ()' have been changed, in a
960 backward-compatible way. A new allocation routine,
961 `scm_gc_malloc_pointerless ()', was added.
963 Libgc is a conservative GC, which we hope will make interaction with C
964 code easier and less error-prone.
966 ** New type definitions for `scm_t_intptr' and friends.
968 `SCM_T_UINTPTR_MAX', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MIN', `SCM_T_INTPTR_MAX',
969 `SIZEOF_SCM_T_BITS', `scm_t_intptr' and `scm_t_uintptr' are now
970 available to C. Have fun!
972 ** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
974 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
976 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
979 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
980 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
982 ** Procedures-with-setters are now implemented using applicable structs
984 From a user's perspective this doesn't mean very much. But if, for some
985 odd reason, you used the SCM_PROCEDURE_WITH_SETTER_P, SCM_PROCEDURE, or
986 SCM_SETTER macros, know that they're deprecated now. Also, scm_tc7_pws
989 ** Remove old evaluator closures
991 There used to be ranges of typecodes allocated to interpreted data
992 structures, but that it no longer the case, given that interpreted
993 procedure are now just regular VM closures. As a result, there is a
994 newly free tc3, and a number of removed macros. See the ChangeLog for
997 ** Primitive procedures are now VM trampoline procedures
999 It used to be that there were something like 12 different typecodes
1000 allocated to primitive procedures, each with its own calling convention.
1001 Now there is only one, the gsubr. This may affect user code if you were
1002 defining a procedure using scm_c_make_subr rather scm_c_make_gsubr. The
1003 solution is to switch to use scm_c_make_gsubr. This solution works well
1004 both with the old 1.8 and and with the current 1.9 branch.
1006 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying "gsubrs",
1007 primitive procedures with specified numbers of required, optional, and
1008 rest arguments. Now, however, Guile represents gsubrs as normal VM
1009 procedures, with appropriate bytecode to parse out the correct number of
1010 arguments, including optional and rest arguments, and then with a
1011 special bytecode to apply the gsubr.
1013 This allows primitive procedures to appear on the VM stack, allowing
1014 them to be accurately counted in profiles. Also they now have more
1015 debugging information attached to them -- their number of arguments, for
1016 example. In addition, the VM can completely inline the application
1017 mechanics, allowing for faster primitive calls.
1019 However there are some changes on the C level. There is no more
1020 `scm_tc7_gsubr' or `scm_tcs_subrs' typecode for primitive procedures, as
1021 they are just VM procedures. Likewise the macros `SCM_GSUBR_TYPE',
1022 `SCM_GSUBR_MAKTYPE', `SCM_GSUBR_REQ', `SCM_GSUBR_OPT', and
1023 `SCM_GSUBR_REST' are gone, as are `SCM_SUBR_META_INFO', `SCM_SUBR_PROPS'
1024 `SCM_SET_SUBR_GENERIC_LOC', and `SCM_SUBR_ARITY_TO_TYPE'.
1026 Perhaps more significantly, `scm_c_make_subr',
1027 `scm_c_make_subr_with_generic', `scm_c_define_subr', and
1028 `scm_c_define_subr_with_generic'. They all operated on subr typecodes,
1029 and there are no more subr typecodes. Use the scm_c_make_gsubr family
1032 Normal users of gsubrs should not be affected, though, as the
1033 scm_c_make_gsubr family still is the correct way to create primitive
1036 ** Remove deprecated array C interfaces
1038 Removed the deprecated array functions `scm_i_arrayp',
1039 `scm_i_array_ndim', `scm_i_array_mem', `scm_i_array_v',
1040 `scm_i_array_base', `scm_i_array_dims', and the deprecated macros
1041 `SCM_ARRAYP', `SCM_ARRAY_NDIM', `SCM_ARRAY_CONTP', `SCM_ARRAY_MEM',
1042 `SCM_ARRAY_V', `SCM_ARRAY_BASE', and `SCM_ARRAY_DIMS'.
1044 ** Remove unused snarf macros
1046 `SCM_DEFINE1', `SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC_1', `SCM_PROC1, and `SCM_GPROC1'
1047 are no more. Use SCM_DEFINE or SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC instead.
1049 ** New functions: `scm_call_n', `scm_c_run_hookn'
1051 `scm_call_n' applies to apply a function to an array of arguments.
1052 `scm_c_run_hookn' runs a hook with an array of arguments.
1054 ** Some SMOB types changed to have static typecodes
1056 Fluids, dynamic states, and hash tables used to be SMOB objects, but now
1057 they have statically allocated tc7 typecodes.
1059 ** Preparations for changing SMOB representation
1061 If things go right, we'll be changing the SMOB representation soon. To
1062 that end, we did a lot of cleanups to calls to e.g. SCM_CELL_WORD_2(x) when
1063 the code meant SCM_SMOB_DATA_2(x); user code will need similar changes
1064 in the future. Code accessing SMOBs using SCM_CELL macros was never
1065 correct, but until now things still worked. Users should be aware of
1068 ** Changed invocation mechanics of applicable SMOBs
1070 Guile's old evaluator used to have special cases for applying SMOB
1071 objects. Now, with the VM, when Guile sees a SMOB, it looks up a VM
1072 trampoline procedure for it, and use the normal mechanics to apply the
1073 trampoline. This simplifies procedure application in the normal,
1076 The upshot is that the mechanics used to apply a SMOB are different from
1077 1.8. Descriptors no longer have `apply_0', `apply_1', `apply_2', and
1078 `apply_3' functions, and the macros SCM_SMOB_APPLY_0 and friends are now
1079 deprecated. Just use the scm_call_0 family of procedures.
1081 ** New C function: scm_module_public_interface
1083 This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
1085 ** Undeprecate `scm_the_root_module ()'
1087 It's useful to be able to get the root module from C without doing a
1090 ** Inline vector allocation
1092 Instead of having vectors point out into the heap for their data, their
1093 data is now allocated inline to the vector object itself. The same is
1094 true for bytevectors, by default, though there is an indirection
1095 available which should allow for making a bytevector from an existing
1098 ** New struct constructors that don't involve making lists
1100 `scm_c_make_struct' and `scm_c_make_structv' are new varargs and array
1101 constructors, respectively, for structs. You might find them useful.
1105 In Guile 1.8, there were debugging frames on the C stack. Now there is
1106 no more need to explicitly mark the stack in this way, because Guile has
1107 a VM stack that it knows how to walk, which simplifies the C API
1108 considerably. See the ChangeLog for details; the relevant interface is
1109 in libguile/stacks.h. The Scheme API has not been changed significantly.
1111 ** Removal of Guile's primitive object system.
1113 There were a number of pieces in `objects.[ch]' that tried to be a
1114 minimal object system, but were never documented, and were quickly
1115 obseleted by GOOPS' merge into Guile proper. So `scm_make_class_object',
1116 `scm_make_subclass_object', `scm_metaclass_standard', and like symbols
1117 from objects.h are no more. In the very unlikely case in which these
1118 were useful to you, we urge you to contact guile-devel.
1122 Actually the future is still in the state that it was, is, and ever
1123 shall be, Amen, except that `futures.c' and `futures.h' are no longer a
1124 part of it. These files were experimental, never compiled, and would be
1125 better implemented in Scheme anyway. In the future, that is.
1127 ** Deprecate trampolines
1129 There used to be C functions `scm_trampoline_0', `scm_trampoline_1', and
1130 so on. The point was to do some precomputation on the type of the
1131 procedure, then return a specialized "call" procedure. However this
1132 optimization wasn't actually an optimization, so it is now deprecated.
1133 Just use `scm_call_0', etc instead.
1135 ** Better support for Lisp `nil'.
1137 The bit representation of `nil' has been tweaked so that it is now very
1138 efficient to check e.g. if a value is equal to Scheme's end-of-list or
1139 Lisp's nil. Additionally there are a heap of new, specific predicates
1140 like scm_is_null_or_nil.
1142 ** Better integration of Lisp `nil'.
1144 `scm_is_boolean', `scm_is_false', and `scm_is_null' all return true now
1145 for Lisp's `nil'. This shouldn't affect any Scheme code at this point,
1146 but when we start to integrate more with Emacs, it is possible that we
1147 break code that assumes that, for example, `(not x)' implies that `x' is
1148 `eq?' to `#f'. This is not a common assumption. Refactoring affected
1149 code to rely on properties instead of identities will improve code
1150 correctness. See "Nil" in the manual, for more details.
1152 ** Support for static allocation of strings, symbols, and subrs.
1154 Calls to snarfing CPP macros like SCM_DEFINE macro will now allocate
1155 much of their associated data as static variables, reducing Guile's
1158 ** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
1159 ** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
1161 ** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
1163 Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
1164 definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
1166 ** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
1168 ** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
1169 scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
1170 scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
1171 scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
1173 These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
1175 * Changes to the distribution
1177 ** Guile's license is now LGPLv3+
1179 In other words the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or
1180 later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
1183 ** GOOPS documentation folded into Guile reference manual
1185 GOOPS, Guile's object system, used to be documented in separate manuals.
1186 This content is now included in Guile's manual directly.
1188 ** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
1190 `guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
1191 `pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
1192 guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
1195 ** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
1197 Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
1198 macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
1200 ** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
1202 If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
1203 to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
1205 ** Parallel installability fixes
1207 Guile now installs its header files to a effective-version-specific
1208 directory, and includes the effective version (e.g. 2.0) in the library
1209 name (e.g. libguile-2.0.so).
1211 This change should be transparent to users, who should detect Guile via
1212 the guile.m4 macro, or the guile-2.0.pc pkg-config file. It will allow
1213 parallel installs for multiple versions of Guile development
1216 ** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
1218 Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
1219 (e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
1220 be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
1221 directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensionsdir
1222 guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
1224 ** New dependency: libgc
1226 See http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/, for more information.
1228 ** New dependency: GNU libunistring
1230 See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
1231 Unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
1233 ** New dependency: libffi
1235 See http://sourceware.org/libffi/, for more information.
1239 Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
1243 ** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
1244 ** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
1245 ** Fix `wrong type arg' exceptions with IPv6 addresses
1248 Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
1250 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1252 ** `(srfi srfi-98)', an interface to access environment variables
1256 ** Fix compilation with `--disable-deprecated'
1257 ** Fix %fast-slot-ref/set!, to avoid possible segmentation fault
1258 ** Fix MinGW build problem caused by HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC confusion
1259 ** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
1260 ** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
1261 ** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
1262 ** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
1263 ** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
1264 ** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
1265 ** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
1266 ** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
1268 ** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
1270 Previously, use of the @ macro in a module whose code is being
1271 transformed by (ice-9 syncase) would cause an "Invalid syntax" error.
1272 Now it works as you would expect (giving the value of the specified
1275 ** Have `scm_take_locale_symbol ()' return an interned symbol (bug #25865)
1278 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
1280 * New features (see the manual for details)
1282 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
1284 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
1286 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
1287 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
1288 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
1290 ** New "guile(1)" man page!
1292 * Changes to the distribution
1294 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
1296 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
1297 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
1299 ** `ChangeLog' files are no longer updated
1301 Instead, changes are detailed in the version control system's logs. See
1302 the top-level `ChangeLog' files for details.
1307 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
1308 ** Fix incorrect handling of the FLAGS argument of `fold-matches'
1309 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
1310 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
1311 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
1312 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
1313 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
1314 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
1315 ** Fix build issue on i386-unknown-freebsd7.0 ("break strict-aliasing rules")
1316 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
1317 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
1318 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
1319 ** Fix `Stack overflow' errors seen when building on some platforms
1320 ** Fix bug when `scm_with_guile ()' was called several times from the
1322 ** The handler of SRFI-34 `with-exception-handler' is now invoked in the
1323 dynamic environment of the call to `raise'
1324 ** Fix potential deadlock in `make-struct'
1325 ** Fix compilation problem with libltdl from Libtool 2.2.x
1326 ** Fix sloppy bound checking in `string-{ref,set!}' with the empty string
1329 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
1331 * Infrastructure changes
1333 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
1335 The new repository can be accessed using
1336 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
1337 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
1339 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
1341 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
1343 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1347 * New features (see the manual for details)
1349 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
1350 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
1351 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
1353 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
1354 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
1355 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
1356 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
1358 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
1360 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
1361 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
1362 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
1366 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
1367 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
1369 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
1370 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
1372 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
1373 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
1375 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
1376 lead to a stack overflow.
1378 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
1379 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
1380 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
1381 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
1382 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
1383 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
1384 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
1385 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
1386 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
1387 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
1388 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
1389 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
1390 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
1391 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
1392 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
1393 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
1396 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
1400 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
1401 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
1402 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
1403 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
1404 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
1405 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
1406 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
1407 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
1408 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
1409 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
1410 system and library calls.
1411 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
1412 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
1413 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
1414 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
1415 uniform vectors on AIX.
1416 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
1417 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
1418 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
1419 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
1420 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
1422 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1426 * Documentation fixes and improvements
1428 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
1430 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
1431 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
1433 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
1435 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
1437 * Changes to the distribution
1439 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
1441 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
1442 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
1443 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
1445 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
1447 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
1450 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
1452 * New modules (see the manual for details)
1459 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
1460 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
1461 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
1462 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
1463 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
1464 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
1465 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
1467 * Implementation improvements
1469 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
1470 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
1473 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
1475 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
1477 ** set-program-arguments
1480 * Incompatible changes
1482 ** The body of a top-level `define' no longer sees the binding being created
1484 In a top-level `define', the binding being created is no longer visible
1485 from the `define' body. This breaks code like
1486 "(define foo (begin (set! foo 1) (+ foo 1)))", where `foo' is now
1487 unbound in the body. However, such code was not R5RS-compliant anyway,
1492 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
1493 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
1494 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
1495 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
1496 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
1497 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
1499 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
1500 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
1501 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
1502 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
1503 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
1504 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
1505 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
1506 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
1507 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
1508 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
1509 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
1510 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
1511 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
1512 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
1513 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
1514 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
1517 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
1519 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
1521 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
1523 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
1524 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
1525 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
1526 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
1527 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
1528 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
1536 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
1538 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
1540 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
1542 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
1544 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
1546 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
1548 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
1549 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
1550 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
1552 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
1554 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
1556 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
1557 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
1559 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
1561 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
1562 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
1564 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
1566 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
1568 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
1570 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
1572 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
1574 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
1576 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
1578 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
1580 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
1582 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
1583 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
1584 file was on a different device.
1587 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
1589 * Changes to the distribution
1591 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
1593 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
1595 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
1597 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
1599 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
1601 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
1604 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
1606 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
1607 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
1608 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
1609 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
1610 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
1611 items like the versioned share directory name
1612 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
1614 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
1615 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
1616 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
1617 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
1618 with each micro release during a stable series.
1620 ** Thread implementation has changed.
1622 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
1623 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
1624 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
1625 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
1626 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
1629 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
1630 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
1631 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
1632 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
1635 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
1636 in which case "null" threads are used.
1638 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
1639 "Blocking", and others.
1641 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
1643 This is a milder form of deprecation.
1645 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
1646 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
1647 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
1648 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
1649 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
1651 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
1652 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
1654 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
1656 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
1657 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
1659 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
1662 This SRFI is always available.
1664 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
1666 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
1667 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
1668 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
1669 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
1672 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
1674 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
1675 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
1676 parameters without currying.
1678 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
1680 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
1681 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
1683 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
1684 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
1687 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
1688 with a renaming import, for example.
1690 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
1692 The official version is good enough now.
1694 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
1696 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
1697 provided. Use 'make html'.
1699 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
1701 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
1702 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
1703 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
1704 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
1706 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
1708 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
1711 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1713 ** New command line option `-L'.
1715 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
1717 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
1719 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
1720 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
1722 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
1724 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
1725 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
1727 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
1729 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
1730 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
1733 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
1736 (define-module (demo)
1740 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
1743 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1745 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
1747 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
1748 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
1749 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
1751 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
1753 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
1754 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
1756 ** New function hashx-remove!
1758 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
1760 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
1761 barriers and dynamic states.
1763 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
1764 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
1765 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
1768 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
1769 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
1770 Barriers" in the manual.
1772 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
1773 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
1775 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
1777 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
1778 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
1779 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
1780 variable %load-path.
1782 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
1784 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
1785 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
1787 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
1788 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
1789 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
1791 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
1792 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
1794 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
1795 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
1796 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
1798 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
1799 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
1800 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
1803 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
1804 substrings and read-only strings.
1806 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
1807 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
1810 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
1812 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
1821 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
1822 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
1823 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
1825 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
1826 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
1827 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
1828 on an ANSI terminal:
1830 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
1831 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
1834 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
1836 See the manual for details.
1838 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
1840 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
1843 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
1845 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
1846 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
1847 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
1848 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
1850 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
1851 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
1852 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
1855 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
1857 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
1858 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
1869 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
1873 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
1878 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
1882 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
1886 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
1889 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
1890 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
1891 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
1892 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
1894 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
1895 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
1898 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
1901 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
1905 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
1907 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
1908 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
1909 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
1912 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
1915 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
1917 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
1920 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
1921 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
1924 (define-module (foo)
1929 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
1930 has been detected is to
1932 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
1933 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
1934 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
1937 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
1940 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
1942 to your .guile init file.
1944 ** New define-module option: :replace
1946 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
1949 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
1950 for the core binding `format'.
1952 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
1954 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
1955 a prefix to all imported bindings.
1957 (define-module (foo)
1958 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
1960 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
1963 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
1965 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
1966 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
1967 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
1969 ** New function: effective-version
1971 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1972 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1973 to the distribution" above.
1975 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
1977 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
1978 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
1980 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
1982 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
1983 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
1985 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
1987 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
1988 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
1991 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
1993 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
1995 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
1997 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
1998 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
1999 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
2002 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
2003 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
2004 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
2005 'system-async-mark'.
2007 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
2008 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
2010 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
2011 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
2012 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
2015 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
2017 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
2018 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
2021 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
2022 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
2024 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
2025 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
2026 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
2027 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
2028 level for the current thread.
2030 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
2032 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
2034 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
2035 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
2038 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
2040 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
2042 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
2045 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
2047 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
2050 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
2051 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
2052 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
2054 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
2055 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
2056 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
2057 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
2068 ERROR: Numerical overflow
2070 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
2073 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
2075 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
2076 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
2077 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
2088 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
2090 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
2091 them is also done exactly, of course:
2096 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
2097 for exact arguments.
2099 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
2100 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
2102 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
2104 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
2105 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
2106 equal to a floating point number. For example:
2108 (inexact->exact 1.234)
2109 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
2111 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
2113 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
2116 ** New function 'rationalize'.
2118 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
2119 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
2121 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
2124 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
2125 result when both its arguments are exact.
2127 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
2129 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
2130 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
2131 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
2133 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
2135 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
2136 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
2137 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
2139 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
2142 ** pretty-print has more options.
2144 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
2145 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
2146 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
2148 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
2150 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
2151 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
2152 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
2154 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
2156 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
2157 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
2159 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
2161 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
2162 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
2165 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
2167 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
2168 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
2169 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
2170 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
2171 without the soft port blocking.
2173 ** Deprecated: undefine
2175 There is no replacement for undefine.
2177 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
2178 have been discouraged.
2180 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
2181 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
2182 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
2185 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
2187 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
2189 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
2190 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
2191 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
2192 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
2195 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
2196 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
2197 be removed in the next major Guile release.
2199 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
2201 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
2202 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
2203 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
2204 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
2205 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
2206 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
2208 * Changes to the C interface
2210 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
2211 take a 'delete' function argument.
2213 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
2214 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
2216 This is an incompatible change.
2218 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
2220 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
2221 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
2222 --disable-deprecated.
2224 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
2226 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
2227 Scheme values has been added.
2229 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
2230 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
2233 - int scm_is_* (...)
2235 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
2236 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
2238 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
2240 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
2241 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
2244 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
2246 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
2247 scm_from_int for ints.
2249 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
2250 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
2251 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
2253 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
2255 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
2256 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
2257 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
2260 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
2262 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
2264 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
2266 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
2267 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
2268 following alternatives.
2270 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
2271 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
2272 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
2273 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
2275 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
2276 do the validating for you.
2278 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
2279 have been discouraged.
2281 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
2282 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
2285 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
2287 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
2288 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
2291 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
2293 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
2296 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
2299 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
2301 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
2302 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
2304 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
2305 scm_truncate_number should have.
2307 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
2308 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
2310 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
2313 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
2314 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
2315 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
2317 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
2318 easier to use from C.
2320 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
2321 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
2323 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
2324 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
2325 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
2328 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
2329 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
2330 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
2331 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
2334 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
2335 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
2336 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
2337 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
2338 and is thus quite efficient.
2340 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
2342 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
2343 about the character encoding.
2345 Replace according to the following table:
2347 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
2348 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
2349 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
2350 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
2351 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
2352 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
2353 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
2354 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
2355 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
2357 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
2358 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
2360 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
2362 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
2363 now also available to C code.
2365 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
2367 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
2368 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
2369 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
2371 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
2374 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
2376 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
2377 unceremoniously removed.
2379 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
2380 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
2381 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
2383 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
2384 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
2385 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2386 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
2387 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
2388 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
2391 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
2393 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
2394 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
2395 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
2396 manual for more details.
2398 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
2399 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
2401 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
2402 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
2403 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
2405 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
2407 Migrate according to the following table:
2409 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
2410 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
2411 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
2412 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
2413 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
2414 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
2415 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
2417 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
2418 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
2419 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
2420 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
2421 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
2422 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
2423 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
2425 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
2427 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
2428 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
2430 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
2431 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
2432 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
2433 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
2435 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
2437 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
2438 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
2439 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
2441 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
2442 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
2444 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
2445 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
2446 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
2447 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
2449 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
2451 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
2452 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
2453 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
2454 prevent a potential memory leak:
2461 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
2463 mem = scm_malloc (100);
2464 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
2466 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
2467 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
2474 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
2475 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
2479 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
2481 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
2483 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
2484 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
2485 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
2487 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
2488 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
2490 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
2492 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
2494 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
2495 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
2496 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
2498 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
2499 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
2501 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
2502 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
2503 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
2504 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
2507 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
2509 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
2510 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
2511 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
2513 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
2515 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
2516 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
2518 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
2520 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
2521 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
2523 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
2525 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
2526 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
2527 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
2529 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
2531 You should not have used them.
2533 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
2535 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
2536 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
2538 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
2540 This macro is not intended for public use.
2542 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
2544 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
2546 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
2548 Use scm_is_real instead.
2550 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
2552 Use scm_is_complex instead.
2554 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
2556 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
2557 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
2559 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
2560 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
2562 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
2563 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
2565 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
2567 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
2570 ** New function: scm_effective_version
2572 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
2573 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
2574 to the distribution" above.
2576 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
2578 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
2579 arguments are now passed directly:
2581 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
2583 This is an incompatible change.
2585 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
2587 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
2588 function in the init section.
2590 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
2592 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
2594 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
2595 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
2596 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
2597 stays roughly constant.
2599 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
2600 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
2601 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
2602 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
2603 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
2606 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
2607 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
2608 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
2609 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
2611 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
2612 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
2613 objects for every type.
2616 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
2618 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
2620 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
2622 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
2623 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
2624 initializes a new cell (see below).
2626 ** New functions for memory management
2628 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
2629 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
2630 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
2631 cause aborts in long running programs.
2633 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
2634 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
2636 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
2637 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
2638 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
2639 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
2640 details and for upgrading instructions.
2642 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
2643 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
2644 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
2646 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
2648 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
2649 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
2650 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
2651 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
2652 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
2654 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
2655 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
2656 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
2658 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
2659 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
2661 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
2663 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
2664 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
2665 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
2666 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
2667 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
2669 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
2671 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
2674 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
2676 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
2678 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
2680 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
2681 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
2683 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
2685 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
2686 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
2688 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
2689 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
2691 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
2693 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
2695 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
2696 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
2697 blocking it is not well defined.
2699 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
2701 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
2702 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
2703 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
2704 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
2705 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
2706 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
2707 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
2708 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
2709 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
2710 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
2711 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2712 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
2713 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
2714 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
2715 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
2716 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
2717 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
2718 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2719 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
2720 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
2721 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
2722 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
2723 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
2724 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
2725 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
2726 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
2727 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
2728 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
2729 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
2730 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
2731 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
2733 * Changes to bundled modules
2737 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
2738 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
2739 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
2740 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
2741 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
2744 Changes since Guile 1.4:
2746 * Changes to the distribution
2748 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
2750 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
2752 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
2753 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
2754 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
2755 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
2756 indicate major changes in Guile.
2758 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
2759 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
2760 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
2761 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
2763 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
2764 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
2765 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
2766 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
2767 micro version number.
2769 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
2771 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
2773 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
2774 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
2776 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
2778 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
2779 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
2780 See INSTALL and README for more information.
2782 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
2784 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
2785 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
2786 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
2789 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
2791 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
2794 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
2796 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
2797 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
2799 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
2801 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
2802 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
2805 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
2807 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
2810 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
2813 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
2815 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
2817 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
2818 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
2819 open-output-string, get-output-string.
2821 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
2823 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
2825 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
2828 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
2830 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
2832 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
2834 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
2835 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
2836 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
2838 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
2840 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
2842 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
2843 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
2852 See README there for more info.
2854 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
2855 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
2858 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
2860 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
2862 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
2864 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
2865 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
2866 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
2868 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
2870 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
2871 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
2872 to be named `and-let*', of course.
2874 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
2875 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
2877 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
2880 (oop goops describe)
2882 (oop goops active-slot)
2883 (oop goops composite-slot)
2885 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
2886 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
2887 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
2889 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
2891 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
2892 in the default environment:
2894 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
2895 %read-line write-line
2897 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
2898 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
2900 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
2902 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
2905 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
2906 can be used for similar functionality.
2908 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
2910 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
2911 it defines two procedures:
2913 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
2915 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
2916 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
2917 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
2920 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
2922 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
2923 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
2924 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
2925 write large strings.
2927 ** New module (ice-9 match)
2929 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
2930 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
2932 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
2934 for complete documentation.
2936 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
2938 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
2939 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
2940 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
2941 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
2943 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
2944 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
2948 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
2949 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
2950 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
2953 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
2956 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
2957 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
2959 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
2960 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
2963 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
2966 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
2968 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
2970 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2972 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
2974 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
2975 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
2976 Scheme programs easier.
2978 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
2979 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
2980 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
2981 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
2982 `cond-expand' when using this option.
2985 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
2986 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
2988 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
2991 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
2993 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
2994 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
2995 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
2998 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3000 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
3002 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
3003 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
3004 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
3005 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
3006 was also ASCII, for example.
3008 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
3010 tag - no replacement.
3011 fseek - replaced by seek.
3012 list* - replaced by cons*.
3014 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
3018 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
3019 (define m (make-safe-module))
3020 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
3021 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
3022 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
3024 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
3026 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
3027 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
3028 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
3030 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
3032 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
3033 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
3034 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
3035 from the issues related to the module system.
3037 *** New function: load-extension
3039 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
3041 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
3043 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
3044 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
3045 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
3047 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
3049 This function registers a initialization function for use by
3050 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
3051 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
3052 support dynamic linking).
3054 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
3056 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
3057 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
3058 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
3059 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
3062 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
3063 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
3064 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
3065 library and initialize it explicitly.
3067 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
3068 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
3070 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
3072 (define-module (foo bar))
3074 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
3076 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
3078 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
3079 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
3081 (scheme-report-environment 5)
3082 (null-environment 5)
3083 (interaction-environment)
3089 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
3091 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
3092 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
3093 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
3094 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
3096 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
3097 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
3098 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
3099 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
3100 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
3101 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
3102 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
3103 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
3104 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
3105 one eval to the next.
3107 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
3108 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
3109 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
3110 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
3111 subforms are at the top-level as well.
3113 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
3114 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
3115 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
3116 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
3117 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
3118 used in a lexical environment.
3120 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
3121 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
3122 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
3123 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
3124 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
3125 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
3127 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
3129 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
3130 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
3131 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
3132 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
3133 new facilities: selection and renaming.
3135 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
3136 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
3137 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
3139 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
3140 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
3142 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
3143 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
3144 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3146 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3147 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
3149 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
3150 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
3151 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
3152 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
3155 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
3156 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
3157 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
3158 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3160 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3161 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
3162 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
3164 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
3165 ;; and all four by upcasing.
3166 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
3167 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
3168 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
3170 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
3172 (remove-if . zonk-y)
3173 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
3174 :renamer upcase-symbol))
3176 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
3177 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
3178 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
3180 See manual for more info.
3182 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
3184 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
3185 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
3186 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
3188 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
3190 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
3191 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
3192 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
3194 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
3195 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
3196 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
3197 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
3199 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
3201 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
3202 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
3204 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
3205 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
3206 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
3207 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
3208 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
3211 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
3212 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
3213 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
3214 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
3215 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
3216 successful and #f if it wasn't.
3218 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
3219 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
3220 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
3221 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
3222 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
3224 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
3225 objects are usually permanent.
3227 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
3228 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
3230 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
3232 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
3233 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
3236 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
3240 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
3245 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
3247 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
3248 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
3249 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
3250 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
3252 ** New function `make-object-property'
3254 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
3255 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
3259 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
3260 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
3264 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
3265 source properties eventually.
3267 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
3269 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
3270 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
3271 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
3273 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
3274 will be removed in the next release.
3276 ** New define-module option: pure
3278 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
3283 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
3286 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
3288 Export names NAME1 ...
3290 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
3291 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
3295 (define-module (foo)
3297 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
3300 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
3305 ** New function: object->string OBJ
3307 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
3309 ** New function: port? X
3311 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
3312 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
3314 ** New function: file-port?
3316 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
3318 ** New function: port-for-each proc
3320 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
3321 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
3322 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
3323 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
3324 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
3326 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
3328 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
3329 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
3330 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
3331 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
3332 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
3335 ** New function: close-fdes fd
3337 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
3338 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
3339 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
3340 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
3343 ** New function: crypt password salt
3345 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
3348 ** New function: chroot path
3350 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
3352 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
3354 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
3357 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
3359 Get or set the priority of the running process.
3361 ** New function: getpass prompt
3363 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
3366 ** New function: flock file operation
3368 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
3370 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
3372 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
3375 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
3377 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
3378 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
3379 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
3380 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
3381 of the temporary file.
3383 ** New function: open-input-string string
3385 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
3386 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
3387 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
3389 ** New function: open-output-string
3391 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
3392 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
3394 ** New function: get-output-string
3396 Return the contents of an output string port.
3398 ** New function: identity
3400 Return the argument.
3402 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
3403 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
3405 ** New function: inet-pton family address
3407 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
3408 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
3409 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
3412 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
3413 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
3415 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
3417 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
3418 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
3419 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
3422 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
3423 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
3424 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
3428 Use `identity' instead.
3434 ** Deprecated: return-it
3438 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
3440 Use `string-length' instead.
3442 ** Deprecated: flags
3444 Use `logior' instead.
3446 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
3448 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
3449 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
3450 port-for-each is more flexible.
3452 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
3453 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
3454 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
3456 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
3458 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
3460 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
3462 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
3464 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
3466 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
3467 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
3469 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
3470 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
3472 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
3473 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
3475 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
3477 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
3478 Removed function: builtin-bindings
3480 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
3481 Use module system operations for all variables.
3483 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
3485 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
3488 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
3490 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
3491 The following bugs have been fixed:
3493 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
3494 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
3497 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
3498 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
3499 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
3501 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
3502 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
3504 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
3505 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
3508 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
3509 The expansion used to be like so:
3511 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
3513 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
3515 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
3517 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
3518 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
3520 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
3522 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
3523 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
3524 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
3528 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
3529 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
3531 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
3536 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
3537 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
3539 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
3540 and `d', other keywords allowed.
3541 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
3543 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
3546 * Changes to the C interface
3548 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
3550 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
3551 with "_t". What a concept.
3553 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
3555 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
3557 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
3561 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
3562 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
3564 *** C Functions removed
3566 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
3567 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
3568 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
3569 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
3570 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
3571 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
3572 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
3574 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
3576 Use scm_mem2string instead.
3578 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
3580 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
3582 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
3583 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
3585 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
3587 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
3590 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
3592 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
3594 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
3596 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
3597 Evaluation" in the manual.
3599 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
3601 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
3602 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
3604 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
3606 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
3607 Constructors" in the manual.
3609 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
3611 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
3612 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
3614 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
3616 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
3618 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
3619 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
3620 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
3622 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
3624 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
3626 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
3627 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
3628 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
3631 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
3633 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
3635 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
3636 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
3638 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
3640 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
3641 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
3642 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
3643 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
3645 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
3646 scm_primitive_property_ref
3647 scm_primitive_property_set_x
3648 scm_primitive_property_del_x
3650 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
3651 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
3653 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
3655 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
3656 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
3657 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
3658 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
3660 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
3662 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
3663 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
3664 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
3665 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
3666 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
3667 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
3668 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
3670 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
3671 scm_remember_upto_here
3673 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
3675 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
3677 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
3678 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
3680 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
3682 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
3684 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
3686 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
3688 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
3690 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
3691 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
3692 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
3693 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
3694 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
3695 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
3697 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
3699 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
3701 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
3702 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
3703 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
3705 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
3707 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
3708 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
3709 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
3711 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
3713 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
3714 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
3717 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
3720 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
3721 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
3724 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
3726 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
3728 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
3730 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
3732 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
3734 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
3736 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
3737 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
3738 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
3739 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
3740 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
3741 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
3742 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
3743 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
3744 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
3745 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
3746 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
3747 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
3748 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
3749 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
3750 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
3752 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
3753 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
3754 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
3755 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
3756 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
3757 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
3758 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
3759 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
3760 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
3761 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
3762 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
3763 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
3764 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
3765 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
3766 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
3767 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
3768 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
3769 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
3770 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
3771 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
3772 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
3773 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
3774 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
3775 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
3776 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
3777 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
3778 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
3779 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
3780 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
3782 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
3784 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
3786 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
3787 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
3789 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
3791 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
3793 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
3795 Use scm_string_hash instead.
3797 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
3799 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
3801 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
3803 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
3805 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
3808 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
3809 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
3811 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
3813 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
3815 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
3817 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
3819 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
3821 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
3823 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
3825 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
3828 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
3830 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
3832 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
3834 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
3835 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
3837 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
3838 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
3840 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
3842 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
3843 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
3844 scm_module_define, scm_define.
3846 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
3848 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
3850 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
3851 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
3853 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
3854 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
3855 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
3856 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
3858 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
3859 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
3860 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
3862 Use the new ones from above instead.
3864 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
3866 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
3867 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
3868 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
3870 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
3871 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
3873 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
3874 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
3877 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
3878 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
3880 Use the new functions instead.
3882 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
3885 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
3887 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
3889 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
3892 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
3894 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
3897 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
3899 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
3902 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
3903 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
3904 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
3906 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
3908 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
3909 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
3911 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
3912 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
3913 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
3914 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
3917 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
3919 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
3920 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
3921 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
3922 inexact for an exact.
3924 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
3925 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
3926 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
3929 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
3930 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
3931 accept an inexact argument.
3933 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
3934 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
3936 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
3939 ** New number validation macros:
3940 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
3944 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
3946 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
3947 scm_unprotect_object.
3949 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
3951 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
3953 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
3956 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
3958 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
3962 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
3964 * Changes to the distribution
3966 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
3968 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
3969 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
3970 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
3971 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
3972 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
3973 obtain these programs.
3974 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
3975 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
3977 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
3978 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
3979 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
3980 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
3981 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
3983 However, this approach means that minor differences between
3984 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
3985 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
3986 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
3990 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
3993 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
3994 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
3995 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
3996 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
3998 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
4000 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
4002 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
4003 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
4005 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
4006 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
4008 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
4009 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
4011 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
4012 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
4013 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
4014 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
4016 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
4018 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
4022 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
4023 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
4025 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
4027 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
4028 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
4030 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
4031 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
4032 number of objects of that kind.
4034 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
4036 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
4037 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
4038 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
4039 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
4040 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
4042 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
4044 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
4046 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
4048 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
4051 ** New module (ice-9 time)
4053 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
4055 ** New module (ice-9 history)
4057 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
4059 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4061 ** New command line option --debug
4063 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
4065 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
4067 ** New help facility
4069 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
4070 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
4071 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
4072 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
4073 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
4074 (help) gives this text
4076 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
4077 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
4079 Examples: (help help)
4081 (help "output-string")
4083 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
4085 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
4087 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
4088 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
4091 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
4092 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
4093 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
4096 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
4097 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
4098 use absolute filenames when possible.
4100 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
4101 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
4102 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
4105 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
4107 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
4108 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
4109 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
4110 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
4112 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
4114 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
4116 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
4117 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
4118 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
4120 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
4121 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
4122 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
4124 (read-enable 'positions)
4125 (debug-enable 'debug)
4127 ** Backtraces in scripts
4129 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
4133 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
4135 at the top of the script.
4137 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
4138 The second enables backtraces.)
4140 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
4142 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
4143 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
4144 substantially faster than before.
4146 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
4147 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
4149 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
4150 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
4152 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
4154 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
4155 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
4156 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
4158 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
4159 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
4160 when this hook is run in the future.
4162 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
4163 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
4165 ** Improvements to garbage collector
4167 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
4168 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
4171 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
4172 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
4173 more and more memory for certain programs.)
4175 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
4176 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
4178 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
4179 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
4181 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
4182 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
4183 in order not to need further allocation.)
4185 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
4188 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
4189 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
4190 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
4191 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
4193 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
4195 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
4198 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
4200 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
4203 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
4204 GC in percent of total heap size
4207 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
4208 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
4210 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
4212 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
4213 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
4215 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
4217 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
4218 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
4220 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
4222 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
4223 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
4227 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
4228 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
4230 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
4232 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4234 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
4236 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
4238 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
4240 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
4241 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
4243 (simple-format port message . args)
4244 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
4245 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
4246 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
4247 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
4248 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
4249 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
4250 Does not add a trailing newline."
4252 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
4254 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
4255 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
4257 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
4258 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
4260 ** Deprecated: list*
4262 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
4264 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
4266 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
4267 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
4269 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
4270 is returned as result.
4272 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
4274 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
4276 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
4278 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
4279 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
4282 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
4284 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
4286 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
4287 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
4289 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4291 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
4293 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
4295 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4297 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
4299 Thanks to Greg Badros!
4301 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
4303 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
4304 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
4305 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
4307 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
4310 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
4312 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
4313 the readability of argument checking.
4315 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
4317 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
4319 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
4321 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
4322 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
4323 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
4324 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
4325 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
4326 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
4327 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
4329 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
4331 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
4333 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
4334 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
4336 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
4338 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
4339 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
4342 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
4344 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
4345 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
4346 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
4348 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
4349 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
4350 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
4352 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
4353 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
4354 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
4355 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
4356 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
4357 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
4358 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
4360 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
4361 scm_end_input (object);
4362 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
4363 ptob->flush (object);
4365 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
4366 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
4369 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
4371 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
4373 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
4374 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
4375 removed in a future version.
4377 ** The format of error message strings has changed
4379 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
4380 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
4381 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
4382 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
4384 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
4385 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
4387 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
4390 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
4392 in your configure.in.
4394 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
4399 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
4405 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
4407 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
4411 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
4412 (define make-message string-append)
4414 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
4416 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
4420 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
4425 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
4429 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
4431 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
4432 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
4434 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
4436 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
4437 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
4438 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
4439 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
4440 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
4441 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
4443 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
4444 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
4445 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
4447 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
4448 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
4449 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
4452 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
4453 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
4454 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
4455 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
4456 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
4458 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
4459 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
4460 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
4461 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
4462 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
4463 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
4464 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
4466 Destructors are not yet implemented.
4468 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
4469 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
4470 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
4472 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
4473 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
4474 KEY in the calling thread.
4476 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
4477 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
4478 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
4479 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
4480 associated with the key.
4482 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
4484 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
4485 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
4487 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
4489 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
4490 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
4491 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
4493 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
4495 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
4496 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
4498 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
4500 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
4502 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
4503 returned is undefined.
4505 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
4506 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
4507 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
4509 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
4510 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
4511 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
4513 ** New C level GC hooks
4515 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
4517 scm_before_gc_c_hook
4520 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
4521 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
4522 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
4524 scm_before_mark_c_hook
4525 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
4526 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
4528 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
4529 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
4532 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
4534 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
4535 allocation parameters
4537 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
4538 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
4539 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
4543 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
4544 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
4545 scm_default_max_segment_size
4547 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
4549 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
4550 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
4552 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
4554 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
4555 object and count on the object being protected until
4556 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
4558 The functions also have better time complexity.
4560 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
4561 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
4562 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
4563 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
4564 are no longer needed.
4566 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
4568 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
4569 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
4570 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
4571 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
4573 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
4575 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
4577 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
4579 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
4580 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
4581 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
4582 until this issue has been settled.
4584 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
4586 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
4588 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
4591 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
4593 * Changes to system call interfaces:
4595 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
4596 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
4597 descriptors were checked.
4599 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
4600 atomically written to a pipe.
4602 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
4603 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
4604 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
4605 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
4606 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
4607 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
4608 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
4611 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
4612 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
4613 is changed without calling tzset.
4615 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
4617 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
4618 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
4619 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
4621 (define write-network-long
4622 (lambda (value port)
4623 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
4624 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
4625 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
4627 (define read-network-long
4629 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
4630 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
4631 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
4633 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
4634 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
4636 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
4637 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
4638 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
4639 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
4641 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
4642 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
4643 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
4644 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
4648 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
4650 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4654 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
4655 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
4656 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
4662 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
4663 for a description of available commands.
4665 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
4666 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
4667 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
4669 (debug-enable 'backwards)
4671 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
4672 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
4674 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
4676 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
4678 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
4679 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
4680 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
4681 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
4682 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
4683 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
4686 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
4688 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
4689 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
4690 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
4691 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
4693 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
4694 the file and should not be affected by this change.
4696 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
4698 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4700 ** Readline support has changed again.
4702 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
4703 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
4704 to activate readline is now
4706 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
4709 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
4711 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
4712 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
4713 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
4716 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
4717 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
4718 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
4721 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
4722 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
4723 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
4724 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
4725 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
4726 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
4728 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
4729 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
4731 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
4733 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
4734 object it receives is the same string passed to
4735 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
4736 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
4737 string, not the suffix.
4739 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
4740 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
4741 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
4743 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
4745 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
4746 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
4747 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
4748 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
4751 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
4753 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
4755 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
4756 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
4757 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
4758 appear from left to right.
4760 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
4763 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
4765 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
4766 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
4768 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
4772 *** New function: hook? OBJ
4774 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
4776 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
4778 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
4779 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
4780 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
4782 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
4784 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
4786 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
4788 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
4791 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
4793 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
4794 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
4795 mentioning it here anyway.
4797 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
4799 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
4800 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
4801 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
4802 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
4805 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
4807 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
4809 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
4811 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
4812 otherwise return #f.
4814 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
4816 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
4817 returned by `opendir'.
4819 ** New function: using-readline?
4821 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
4823 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
4825 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
4826 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
4828 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4830 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
4832 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
4833 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
4834 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
4836 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
4838 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
4839 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
4841 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
4843 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
4844 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
4845 documentation slots are not yet used.
4847 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
4849 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
4850 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
4851 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
4856 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
4857 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
4858 (string-append x y))
4860 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
4861 can also be used for concatenating strings.
4863 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
4864 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
4865 be made in a clean way.]
4867 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
4869 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
4871 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
4873 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
4874 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
4876 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4878 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
4880 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
4882 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
4884 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
4885 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
4886 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
4887 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
4890 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4892 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
4894 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
4896 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
4898 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
4899 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
4901 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
4903 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
4905 Evaluates the body of a special form.
4907 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
4909 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
4910 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
4911 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
4912 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
4913 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
4914 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
4916 This should not make any difference for most users.
4918 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
4920 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
4921 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
4923 *** New functions for applying generic functions
4925 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
4926 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
4927 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
4928 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
4929 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
4931 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
4933 It is now replaced by:
4935 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
4937 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4938 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4940 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4942 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
4943 This might change when we get the new module system.
4945 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
4949 Changes since Guile 1.3:
4951 * Changes to mailing lists
4953 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
4955 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
4958 * Changes to the distribution
4960 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
4962 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
4963 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
4964 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
4965 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
4966 you explicitly specify it.
4968 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
4969 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
4970 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
4971 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
4972 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
4975 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
4976 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
4977 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
4978 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
4980 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
4981 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
4982 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
4985 You can activate the readline support by issuing
4987 (use-modules (readline-activator))
4990 from your ".guile" file, for example.
4992 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4994 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
4995 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
4996 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
4997 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
4999 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
5000 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
5003 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5005 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
5006 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
5007 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
5008 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
5009 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
5010 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
5011 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
5012 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
5024 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
5025 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
5026 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
5027 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
5028 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
5033 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
5034 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
5042 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
5047 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
5048 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
5051 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
5052 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
5053 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
5054 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
5056 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
5058 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
5060 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
5061 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
5063 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
5065 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
5067 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
5068 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
5070 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
5073 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
5075 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
5077 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
5079 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
5081 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
5083 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
5085 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
5086 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
5087 when the hook was created.
5089 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
5090 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
5091 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
5092 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
5093 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
5094 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
5095 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
5096 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
5097 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
5099 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
5100 the dlopen family of functions.
5102 ** New function `provided?'
5104 - Function: provided? FEATURE
5105 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
5106 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
5107 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
5109 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
5111 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
5112 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
5113 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
5114 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
5117 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
5118 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
5119 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
5120 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
5122 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
5123 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
5124 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
5127 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
5128 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
5129 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
5130 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
5131 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
5132 but with the flag set.
5134 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
5136 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
5137 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
5139 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
5140 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
5141 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
5142 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
5143 available Scheme format implementations.
5145 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
5146 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
5147 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
5148 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
5149 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
5150 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
5151 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
5152 output is to the current error port if available by the
5153 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
5156 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
5157 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
5158 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
5159 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
5160 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
5161 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
5162 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
5163 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
5165 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
5166 be executed at a time.
5169 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
5171 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
5172 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
5173 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
5175 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
5176 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
5177 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
5178 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
5179 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
5180 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
5181 general form of a directive is:
5183 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
5185 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
5187 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
5189 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
5190 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
5191 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
5194 Any (print as `display' does).
5198 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
5202 S-expression (print as `write' does).
5206 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
5212 print number sign always.
5215 print comma separated.
5217 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
5223 print number sign always.
5226 print comma separated.
5228 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
5234 print number sign always.
5237 print comma separated.
5239 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
5245 print number sign always.
5248 print comma separated.
5250 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
5255 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
5259 print a number as a Roman numeral.
5262 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
5265 print a number as an ordinal English number.
5268 print a number as a cardinal English number.
5273 prints `y' and `ies'.
5276 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
5279 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
5284 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
5288 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
5291 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
5292 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
5294 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5297 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
5298 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
5300 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5303 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
5305 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
5307 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5310 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
5312 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
5314 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
5317 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
5320 The sign appears before the padding.
5328 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
5330 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
5335 print N page separators.
5345 newline is ignored, white space left.
5348 newline is left, white space ignored.
5353 relative tabulation.
5359 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
5361 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
5364 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
5366 converts by `string-capitalize'.
5369 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
5372 converts by `string-upcase'.
5375 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
5377 jumps N arguments forward.
5380 jumps 1 argument backward.
5383 jumps N arguments backward.
5386 jumps to the 0th argument.
5389 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
5391 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
5392 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
5394 take argument from N.
5397 true test conditional.
5400 if-else-then conditional.
5406 default clause follows.
5409 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
5411 at most N iterations.
5414 args from next arg (a list of lists).
5417 args from the rest of arguments.
5420 args from the rest args (lists).
5431 aborts if N <= M <= K
5433 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
5436 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
5439 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
5445 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
5447 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
5449 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
5450 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
5451 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
5452 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
5453 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
5454 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
5458 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
5462 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
5468 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
5471 Print a `#\space' character
5473 print N `#\space' characters.
5476 Print a `#\tab' character
5478 print N `#\tab' characters.
5481 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
5482 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
5483 must be a positive decimal number.
5486 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
5487 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
5488 be processed by `read'.
5491 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
5492 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
5493 be processed by `read'.
5496 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
5499 prints format version.
5502 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
5503 and format it accordingly.
5505 *** Configuration Variables
5507 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
5508 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
5509 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
5510 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
5513 format:symbol-case-conv
5514 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
5515 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
5516 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
5517 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
5518 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
5520 format:iobj-case-conv
5521 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
5522 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
5525 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
5528 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
5534 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
5535 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
5536 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
5537 `format' padding style.
5540 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
5541 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
5542 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
5543 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
5547 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
5548 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
5549 directive parameters or modifiers)).
5552 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
5553 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
5554 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
5555 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
5556 parameters or modifiers)).
5559 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
5561 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
5563 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
5564 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
5566 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
5567 string-downcase! functions.
5569 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
5570 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
5572 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
5575 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
5578 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
5579 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
5581 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
5583 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
5584 the symbol had be read by `read'.
5586 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
5587 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
5588 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
5589 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
5590 would if STRING were input.
5592 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
5594 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
5595 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
5596 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
5597 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
5600 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
5602 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
5603 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
5606 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
5608 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
5609 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
5611 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
5612 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
5614 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
5615 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
5616 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
5617 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
5619 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
5620 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
5622 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
5623 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
5624 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
5626 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
5627 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
5629 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
5630 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
5631 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
5632 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
5633 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
5635 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
5636 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
5637 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
5638 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
5639 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
5640 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
5642 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
5643 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
5644 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
5647 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
5648 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
5649 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
5650 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
5651 the following grammar:
5652 ((apples (single-char #\a))
5653 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
5654 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
5655 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
5656 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
5657 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
5658 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
5659 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
5660 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
5661 last option in its combination)
5663 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
5664 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
5665 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
5666 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
5668 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
5669 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
5670 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
5672 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
5673 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
5674 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
5676 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
5677 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
5678 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
5679 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
5680 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
5681 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
5682 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
5683 ordinary argument strings.
5685 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
5686 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
5687 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
5688 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
5690 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
5691 as a list, associated with the empty list.
5693 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
5694 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
5695 - a required option is omitted
5696 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
5697 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
5698 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
5699 - an option predicate fails
5704 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
5707 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
5708 (verbose (required? #f)
5711 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
5712 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
5713 (predicate ,string?))))
5715 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
5716 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
5718 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
5719 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
5720 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
5721 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
5724 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
5726 It will be removed in a few releases.
5728 ** New syntax: lambda*
5729 ** New syntax: define*
5730 ** New syntax: define*-public
5731 ** New syntax: defmacro*
5732 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
5733 Guile now supports optional arguments.
5735 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
5736 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
5737 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
5738 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
5739 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
5741 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
5742 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
5743 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
5745 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
5747 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
5748 and examples for `lambda*':
5751 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
5753 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
5754 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
5755 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
5756 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
5757 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
5758 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
5759 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
5760 can be checked with the bound? macro.
5762 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
5764 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
5765 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
5766 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
5767 are given as keywords are bound to values.
5769 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
5770 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
5771 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
5772 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
5773 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
5774 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
5775 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
5776 and until the procedure is called.
5778 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
5780 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
5781 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
5782 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
5783 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
5784 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
5785 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
5786 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
5787 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
5788 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
5789 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
5791 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
5792 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
5793 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
5794 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
5797 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
5799 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
5800 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
5801 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
5802 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
5804 ** New syntax: and-let*
5805 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
5807 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
5808 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
5809 (<variable> <expression>)
5812 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
5813 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
5814 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
5817 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
5818 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
5819 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
5820 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
5821 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
5822 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
5823 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
5825 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
5826 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
5827 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
5828 shadow earlier bindings.
5830 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
5832 ** New sorting functions
5834 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
5835 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
5836 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
5837 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
5839 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
5840 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
5843 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
5844 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
5845 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
5847 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
5848 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
5849 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
5850 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
5852 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
5853 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
5854 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
5855 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
5856 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
5859 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
5860 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
5861 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
5862 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
5863 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
5864 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
5866 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
5867 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
5868 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
5870 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
5871 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
5872 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
5875 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
5876 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
5877 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
5879 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
5880 Added for compatibility with scsh.
5882 ** New built-in random number support
5884 *** New function: random N [STATE]
5885 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
5886 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
5887 returned have a uniform distribution.
5889 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
5890 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
5891 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
5892 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
5893 effect of the `random' operation.
5895 *** New variable: *random-state*
5896 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
5897 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
5898 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
5899 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
5900 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
5903 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
5904 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
5905 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
5906 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
5907 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
5909 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
5910 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
5911 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
5912 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
5913 initialized using SEED.
5915 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
5916 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
5917 range between 0 and 1.
5919 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
5920 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
5921 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
5922 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
5923 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
5924 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
5925 or a uniform vector of doubles.
5927 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
5928 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
5929 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
5930 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
5931 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
5932 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
5934 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
5935 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
5936 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
5937 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
5939 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
5940 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
5941 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
5942 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
5944 *** New function: random:exp STATE
5945 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
5946 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
5948 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
5950 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
5953 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
5954 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
5957 ** New function: make-guardian
5958 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
5959 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
5960 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
5961 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
5962 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
5964 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
5965 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
5966 one object if at all.
5968 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
5969 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
5970 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
5972 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
5973 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
5974 read again in last-in first-out order.
5976 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
5977 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
5979 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
5981 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
5982 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
5983 file position is used.
5985 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
5986 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
5987 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
5989 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
5990 redefined using seek.
5992 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
5993 size is not supplied.
5995 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
5996 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
5998 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
5999 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
6001 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
6003 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
6004 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
6005 and returns the contents as a single string.
6007 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
6008 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
6009 lists in serial order.
6011 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
6012 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
6013 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
6015 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
6016 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
6017 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
6018 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
6020 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
6021 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
6022 and #f if an error occured.
6024 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
6026 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
6027 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
6028 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
6029 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
6031 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
6033 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
6036 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
6038 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
6041 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6045 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
6046 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
6048 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
6049 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
6053 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6055 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
6057 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
6058 binds a variable named NAME to it.
6060 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
6062 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
6063 might change when we get the new module system.
6065 ** The smob interface
6067 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
6068 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
6070 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
6072 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
6076 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
6077 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
6078 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
6079 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
6080 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
6081 will be freed by the default free function.
6083 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
6084 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
6085 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6086 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6088 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
6089 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
6090 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6091 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6093 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
6095 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
6096 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
6100 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
6101 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6102 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6104 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
6105 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
6106 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
6107 `scm_make_smob_type'.
6109 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
6110 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
6111 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
6113 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
6114 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
6115 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
6116 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
6118 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
6119 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
6120 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
6122 *** scm_newptob has been removed
6126 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
6128 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
6129 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
6130 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
6132 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
6133 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
6134 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
6136 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
6137 a string port's buffer.
6139 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
6140 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
6141 function pointers which together define the current random number
6142 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
6143 number library functions.
6145 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
6148 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
6149 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
6152 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
6153 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
6155 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
6156 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
6158 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
6159 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
6162 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
6163 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
6164 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
6165 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
6167 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
6168 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
6169 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
6170 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
6171 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
6172 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
6173 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
6175 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
6176 by libguile and the application.
6178 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
6179 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
6180 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
6181 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
6183 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
6184 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
6186 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
6187 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
6188 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
6190 ** Random number library functions
6191 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
6192 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
6193 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
6195 The default random state is stored in:
6197 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
6198 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
6199 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
6204 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
6206 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
6207 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
6208 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
6209 isn't a random state.
6211 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
6212 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
6214 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
6215 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
6216 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
6217 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
6219 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6220 Return 32 random bits.
6222 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6223 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
6225 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6226 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
6228 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
6229 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
6231 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
6232 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
6234 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
6235 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
6236 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
6240 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
6242 * Changes to the distribution
6244 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
6245 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
6246 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
6249 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
6250 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
6251 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
6253 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
6254 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
6255 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
6256 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
6259 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
6260 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
6261 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
6263 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6265 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
6267 *** Function: batch-mode?
6269 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
6272 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
6274 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
6275 case has not been implemented.
6277 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
6278 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
6279 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
6282 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
6283 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
6285 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
6287 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6289 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
6291 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
6292 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
6295 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
6296 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
6297 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
6298 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
6301 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
6303 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
6304 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
6305 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
6306 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
6307 find those libraries.
6309 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
6310 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
6313 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
6315 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
6316 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
6317 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
6318 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
6320 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
6321 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
6322 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
6326 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
6328 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
6329 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
6330 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
6333 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
6334 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
6335 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
6336 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
6338 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
6339 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
6342 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
6343 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
6344 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
6345 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
6346 compiler where to find the libraries.
6348 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
6349 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
6350 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
6352 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
6353 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
6354 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
6355 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
6356 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
6360 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
6362 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
6363 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
6364 internationalization support.
6366 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
6367 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
6368 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
6369 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
6370 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
6372 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
6373 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
6374 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
6375 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
6376 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
6378 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
6379 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
6380 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
6381 any GNU mirror site.
6383 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
6385 ** New function: add-history STRING
6386 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
6387 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
6388 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
6390 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
6392 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
6393 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
6394 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
6397 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
6398 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
6399 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
6401 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
6403 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
6406 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
6407 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
6410 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
6411 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
6412 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
6413 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
6414 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
6415 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
6417 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
6418 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
6419 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
6420 of the form mentioned above.
6422 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
6423 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
6424 returned in the special `rest' list.
6426 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
6427 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
6429 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
6431 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
6433 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
6435 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
6436 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
6437 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
6438 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
6439 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
6440 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
6441 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
6442 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
6445 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
6447 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
6449 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
6450 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
6453 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
6454 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
6455 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
6459 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
6460 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
6461 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
6462 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
6463 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
6464 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
6465 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
6466 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
6469 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
6471 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
6472 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
6473 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
6475 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
6477 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
6478 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
6480 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
6481 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
6482 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
6484 Why do we have this function?
6485 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
6486 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
6487 primitive, and display it differently, and
6488 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
6489 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
6492 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
6493 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
6496 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
6497 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
6498 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
6499 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
6501 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
6502 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
6505 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
6506 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
6508 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
6510 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
6511 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
6512 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
6513 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
6514 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
6515 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
6516 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
6519 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
6521 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
6522 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
6524 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
6525 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
6526 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
6527 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
6528 properly continue the print chain.
6530 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
6531 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
6532 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
6533 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
6534 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
6535 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
6536 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
6537 print-state, it is simply ignored.
6539 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
6540 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
6541 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
6542 safest to not check for these pairs.
6544 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
6545 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
6546 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
6547 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
6549 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
6551 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
6552 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
6554 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
6556 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
6558 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
6559 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
6560 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
6562 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
6563 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
6564 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
6566 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
6567 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
6568 the following functions and macros:
6570 Function: make-fluid
6572 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
6573 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
6574 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
6575 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
6576 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
6578 Function: fluid? OBJ
6580 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
6582 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
6583 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
6585 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
6586 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
6588 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
6590 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
6591 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
6592 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
6593 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
6594 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
6595 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
6596 modified by `with-fluids*'.
6598 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
6600 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
6601 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
6602 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
6603 should evaluate to a fluid.
6605 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
6607 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
6608 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
6609 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
6610 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
6611 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
6613 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
6616 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
6618 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
6620 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
6622 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
6625 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
6626 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
6627 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
6628 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
6629 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
6632 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
6633 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
6634 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
6636 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
6637 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
6638 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
6640 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
6641 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
6642 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
6643 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
6645 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
6646 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
6647 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
6648 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
6650 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
6651 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
6652 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
6653 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
6655 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
6656 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
6657 their revealed counts set to zero.
6659 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6660 Returns an integer file descriptor.
6662 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6663 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
6665 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6666 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
6668 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
6669 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
6670 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
6672 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
6673 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
6674 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
6676 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
6677 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
6678 default environment inherited by child processes.
6680 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
6681 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
6682 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
6684 The return value is unspecified.
6686 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
6687 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
6688 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
6689 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
6690 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
6692 The return value is unspecified.
6694 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
6695 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
6703 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
6704 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
6707 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
6710 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
6711 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
6712 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
6714 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
6715 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
6716 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
6717 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
6720 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
6721 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
6723 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
6724 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
6725 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
6726 the `environ' procedure.
6728 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
6729 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
6732 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
6733 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
6735 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
6736 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
6737 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
6738 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
6740 *** procedure: times
6741 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
6742 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
6743 return a selected component:
6746 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
6750 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
6753 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
6757 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
6758 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
6762 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
6763 terminated child processes.
6765 ** Removed: list-length
6766 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
6767 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
6769 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
6771 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
6773 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
6775 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
6776 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
6777 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
6778 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
6780 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
6781 extra complexity it introduces.
6783 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
6784 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
6786 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
6787 variable to any non-empty value.
6789 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
6790 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
6792 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6794 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
6795 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
6797 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
6799 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
6800 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
6802 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
6804 ** vector handling routines
6806 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
6807 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
6808 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
6809 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
6810 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
6812 ** pair and list routines
6814 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
6817 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
6819 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
6822 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6824 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
6826 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
6827 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
6828 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
6829 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
6830 site-specific initialization code.
6832 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
6833 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
6834 initialization processes.
6836 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
6837 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
6838 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
6839 initialized properly.
6841 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
6842 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
6843 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
6845 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
6846 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
6847 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
6848 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
6849 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
6851 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
6853 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
6854 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
6855 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
6856 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
6857 objects the smob refers to get marked.
6859 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
6860 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
6861 which look like this:
6864 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
6866 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
6867 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
6870 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
6871 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
6874 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
6876 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
6877 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
6878 you will need to change your functions slightly.
6880 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
6881 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
6882 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
6883 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
6884 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
6886 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
6887 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
6889 int (*free) (SCM port);
6890 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
6891 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
6892 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
6896 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
6897 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
6898 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
6900 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
6903 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
6904 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
6905 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
6907 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
6908 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
6909 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
6912 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
6916 struct timeval *timeout);
6918 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
6919 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
6920 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
6921 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
6922 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
6923 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
6925 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
6926 scm_catch_body_t body,
6928 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
6931 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
6932 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
6933 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
6934 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
6935 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
6936 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
6938 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
6940 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
6943 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
6944 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
6945 spawning threads from application C code.
6947 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
6948 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
6949 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
6950 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
6951 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
6952 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
6954 ** Removed functions:
6956 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
6957 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
6959 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
6961 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
6962 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
6964 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
6966 ** mbstrings are now removed
6968 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
6969 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
6971 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
6973 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
6974 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
6975 their new names and arguments:
6977 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
6978 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
6979 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
6980 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
6983 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
6985 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
6987 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
6990 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
6992 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
6993 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
6994 pass a #f arg to catch.
6996 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
6998 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
6999 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
7002 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
7003 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
7004 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
7005 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
7006 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
7007 reclaim its storage.
7009 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
7010 worrying that some other function you call will call
7011 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
7012 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
7013 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
7014 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
7017 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
7019 * Changes to the distribution
7021 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
7022 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
7025 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
7026 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
7028 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
7029 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
7031 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
7033 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
7034 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
7035 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
7037 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7039 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
7040 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
7041 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
7042 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
7043 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
7044 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
7046 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
7047 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
7048 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
7051 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
7052 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
7053 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
7054 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
7056 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
7057 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
7058 libraries to your link command:
7060 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
7061 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
7062 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
7063 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
7065 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
7066 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
7067 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
7069 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
7071 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
7072 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
7075 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
7077 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
7078 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
7079 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
7080 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
7081 searched is system dependent.
7083 (dynamic-object? VAL)
7085 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
7087 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
7089 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
7090 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
7092 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
7094 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
7095 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
7096 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
7097 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
7098 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
7101 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
7103 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
7104 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
7105 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
7106 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
7107 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
7109 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
7111 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
7112 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
7114 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
7116 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
7117 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
7118 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
7121 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
7123 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
7124 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
7125 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
7126 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
7128 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
7129 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
7131 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
7133 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
7134 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
7136 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
7138 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
7139 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
7147 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
7149 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
7150 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
7151 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
7152 a more informative way.
7154 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
7155 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
7156 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
7157 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
7158 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
7159 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
7161 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
7162 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
7165 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
7166 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
7167 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
7170 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
7171 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
7172 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
7173 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
7174 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
7175 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
7177 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
7178 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
7179 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
7180 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
7183 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
7184 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
7185 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
7186 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
7187 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
7188 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
7190 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
7191 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
7192 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
7193 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
7194 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
7196 *** regexp functions
7198 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
7199 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
7200 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
7202 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
7203 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
7204 with SCSH regular expressions.
7206 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
7207 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
7208 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
7209 position of STR at which to begin matching.
7211 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
7212 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
7213 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
7214 `string-match' returns `#f'.
7216 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
7217 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
7218 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
7219 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
7220 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
7221 match strings against the compiled regexp.
7223 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
7224 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
7225 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
7226 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
7227 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
7229 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
7231 **** Constant: regexp/extended
7232 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
7233 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
7234 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
7236 **** Constant: regexp/icase
7237 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
7238 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
7240 **** Constant: regexp/newline
7241 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
7243 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
7246 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
7247 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
7248 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
7250 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
7251 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
7252 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
7254 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
7255 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
7256 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
7257 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
7258 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
7261 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
7263 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
7264 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
7265 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
7266 used when different portions of a string are passed to
7267 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
7268 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
7270 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
7271 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
7272 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
7274 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
7275 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
7278 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
7279 and replace them with the contents of another string.
7281 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
7282 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
7283 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
7284 may be one of the following arguments:
7286 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
7288 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
7290 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
7291 the regexp match is written.
7293 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
7294 following the regexp match is written.
7296 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
7297 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
7300 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
7301 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
7302 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
7303 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
7304 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
7305 which should be matched against this regular expression.
7307 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
7310 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
7311 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
7312 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
7313 written out to PORT.
7315 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
7316 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
7317 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
7318 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
7319 will return after processing a single match.
7321 *** Match Structures
7323 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
7324 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
7325 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
7326 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
7327 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
7328 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
7331 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
7332 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
7333 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
7334 information about the original target string that was matched against a
7335 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
7337 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
7338 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
7339 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
7341 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
7342 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
7343 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
7344 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
7345 number N did not match, return `#f'.
7347 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
7348 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
7350 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
7351 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
7353 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
7354 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
7356 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
7357 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
7359 **** Function: match:count MATCH
7360 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
7361 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
7362 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
7364 **** Function: match:string MATCH
7365 Return the original TARGET string.
7367 *** Backslash Escapes
7369 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
7370 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
7371 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
7372 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
7373 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
7374 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
7376 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
7377 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
7378 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
7379 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
7380 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
7381 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
7382 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
7383 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
7385 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
7386 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
7387 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
7388 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
7389 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
7390 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
7391 each match a single backslash in the target string.
7393 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
7394 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
7395 return the resulting string.
7397 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
7398 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
7399 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
7400 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
7401 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
7402 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
7403 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
7404 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
7405 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
7406 translated to the single character `*'.
7408 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
7409 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
7410 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
7411 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
7412 consecutive backslashes:
7414 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
7416 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
7417 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
7418 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
7420 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
7421 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
7422 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
7423 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
7424 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
7425 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
7427 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
7429 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
7430 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
7431 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
7432 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
7433 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
7434 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
7435 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
7436 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
7437 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
7438 cumbersome escape syntax.
7440 * Changes to the gh_ interface
7442 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7444 * Changes to system call interfaces:
7446 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
7449 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
7451 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
7453 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
7456 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
7457 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
7458 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
7459 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
7460 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
7462 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
7463 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
7464 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
7465 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
7466 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
7467 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
7468 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
7471 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
7472 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
7473 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
7476 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
7477 `force-output' on every port open for output.
7479 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
7480 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
7481 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
7482 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
7483 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
7484 installed, you can say:
7486 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
7489 * Changes to the scm_ interface
7491 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
7492 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
7493 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
7494 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
7495 new dynamic roots and threads.
7498 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
7500 * Changes to the distribution.
7502 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
7504 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
7505 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
7506 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
7507 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
7508 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
7509 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
7510 programming language. These are packaged together because the
7511 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
7513 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
7516 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
7517 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
7522 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
7524 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
7525 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
7527 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
7528 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
7529 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
7530 the (command-line) function.
7531 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
7532 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
7533 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
7535 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
7536 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
7537 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
7538 command line arguments
7539 -ds do -s script at this point
7540 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
7541 -h, --help display this help and exit
7542 -v, --version display version information and exit
7543 \ read arguments from following script lines
7545 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
7546 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
7548 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7551 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
7555 (main (command-line))
7557 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
7559 ekko a speckled gecko
7561 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
7562 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
7563 following list of command-line arguments:
7565 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
7567 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
7568 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
7569 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
7570 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
7571 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
7573 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
7575 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
7577 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
7578 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
7581 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
7582 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
7583 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
7584 SCSH) for circumventing them.
7586 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
7587 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
7588 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
7589 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
7591 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
7595 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
7599 If the user invokes this script as follows:
7601 ekko a speckled gecko
7603 Unix expands this into
7605 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
7607 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
7608 read from the second line of the script, producing:
7610 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
7612 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
7613 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
7615 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
7616 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
7617 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
7618 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
7619 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
7620 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
7621 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
7622 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
7623 it only terminates the argument list.)
7624 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
7625 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
7626 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
7627 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
7628 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
7629 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
7630 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
7631 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
7633 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
7635 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
7636 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
7637 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
7638 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
7639 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
7641 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
7642 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
7643 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
7645 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
7647 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
7648 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
7649 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
7650 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
7653 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
7654 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
7655 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
7657 * Changes to Scheme functions
7659 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
7660 and disabled by default.
7662 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
7663 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
7664 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
7665 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
7667 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
7669 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
7671 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
7672 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
7674 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
7675 (read-set! keywords #f)
7677 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
7678 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
7679 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
7682 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
7683 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
7684 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
7687 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
7688 support for Scheme functions.
7690 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
7691 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
7692 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
7693 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
7696 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
7697 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
7698 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
7701 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
7702 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
7703 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
7706 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
7707 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
7708 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
7709 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
7710 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
7711 display the result as a prompt.
7712 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
7714 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
7715 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
7716 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
7719 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
7720 procedure of zero arguments.
7722 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
7723 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
7724 argument is bound in the current module.
7726 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
7727 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
7728 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
7729 public bindings into the current module.
7731 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
7732 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
7734 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
7735 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
7737 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
7738 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
7740 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
7741 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
7743 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
7744 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
7746 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
7747 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
7748 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
7749 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
7750 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
7752 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
7753 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
7754 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
7755 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
7757 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
7760 ** Changes to I/O functions
7762 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
7763 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
7764 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
7766 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
7767 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
7768 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
7770 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
7771 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
7773 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
7774 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
7775 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
7776 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
7778 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
7780 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
7781 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
7783 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
7784 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
7785 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
7786 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
7787 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
7790 'trim omit delimiter from result
7791 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
7792 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
7793 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
7795 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
7797 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
7798 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
7800 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
7801 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
7802 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
7803 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
7804 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
7806 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
7807 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
7808 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
7810 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
7811 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
7812 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
7813 above, and defaults to 'peek.
7815 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
7816 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
7818 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
7819 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
7821 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
7823 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
7824 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
7825 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
7826 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
7827 a delimiting character.
7828 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
7830 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
7831 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
7832 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
7833 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
7834 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
7835 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
7837 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
7838 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
7840 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
7841 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
7842 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
7844 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
7845 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
7846 the array to read and write.
7848 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
7849 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
7852 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
7854 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
7857 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
7858 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
7859 Values for COMMAND are:
7861 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
7862 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
7863 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
7864 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
7865 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
7866 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
7867 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
7868 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
7870 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
7872 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
7873 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
7874 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
7875 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
7876 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
7877 corresponding return set will be the same.
7879 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
7882 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
7883 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
7884 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
7885 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
7886 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
7887 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
7888 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
7889 special file being created.
7891 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
7892 clashing with various SCSH forks.
7894 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
7895 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
7896 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
7897 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
7898 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
7899 and originating address.
7901 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
7902 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
7903 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
7905 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
7908 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
7909 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
7912 (status:exit-val STATUS)
7913 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
7914 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
7915 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
7916 this function returns #f.
7918 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
7919 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
7920 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
7923 (status:term-sig STATUS)
7924 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
7925 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
7928 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
7929 a valid STATUS value.
7931 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
7933 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
7934 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
7936 Component Accessor Setter
7937 ========================= ============ ============
7938 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
7939 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
7940 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
7941 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
7942 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
7943 year tm:year set-tm:year
7944 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
7945 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
7946 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
7947 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
7948 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
7950 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
7951 describing the host system:
7954 ============================================== ================
7955 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
7956 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
7957 release level of the operating system utsname:release
7958 version level of the operating system utsname:version
7959 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
7961 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
7962 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
7963 system's user database:
7966 ====================== =================
7967 user name passwd:name
7968 user password passwd:passwd
7971 real name passwd:gecos
7972 home directory passwd:dir
7973 shell program passwd:shell
7975 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
7976 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
7977 system's group database:
7980 ======================= ============
7981 group name group:name
7982 group password group:passwd
7984 group members group:mem
7986 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
7987 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
7991 ========================= ===============
7992 official name of host hostent:name
7993 alias list hostent:aliases
7994 host address type hostent:addrtype
7995 length of address hostent:length
7996 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
7998 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
7999 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
8003 ========================= ===============
8004 official name of net netent:name
8005 alias list netent:aliases
8006 net number type netent:addrtype
8007 net number netent:net
8009 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
8010 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
8014 ========================= ===============
8015 official protocol name protoent:name
8016 alias list protoent:aliases
8017 protocol number protoent:proto
8019 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
8020 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
8024 ========================= ===============
8025 official service name servent:name
8026 alias list servent:aliases
8027 port number servent:port
8028 protocol to use servent:proto
8030 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
8031 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
8034 ======================================== ===============
8035 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
8036 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
8037 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
8038 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
8040 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
8041 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
8042 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
8044 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
8045 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
8047 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
8048 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
8050 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
8051 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
8053 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
8055 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
8057 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
8058 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
8059 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
8061 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
8062 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
8063 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
8064 return the remaining characters as a string.
8066 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
8067 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
8068 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
8070 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
8072 * Changes to the gh_ interface
8074 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
8077 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
8080 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
8081 and returns the array
8083 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
8084 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
8085 the user to interpret the data both ways.
8087 * Changes to the scm_ interface
8089 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
8090 symbol's value from C code:
8092 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
8093 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
8094 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
8095 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
8097 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
8098 without assigning them a value.
8100 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
8101 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
8102 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
8104 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
8105 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
8106 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
8108 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
8109 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
8111 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
8112 doesn't actually care about that.
8114 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
8115 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
8116 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
8118 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
8119 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
8120 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
8121 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
8122 which we have just created and initialized.
8124 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
8125 should one occur. We call it like this:
8126 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
8128 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
8129 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
8130 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
8131 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
8132 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
8133 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
8136 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
8137 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
8138 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
8139 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
8140 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
8141 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
8142 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
8145 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
8146 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
8147 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
8148 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
8149 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
8152 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
8153 scm_internal_catch, except:
8155 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
8156 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
8157 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
8158 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
8161 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
8162 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
8163 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
8165 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
8166 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
8167 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
8168 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
8171 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
8172 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
8173 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
8175 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
8176 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
8177 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
8178 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
8179 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
8181 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
8182 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
8183 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
8185 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
8186 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
8187 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
8189 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
8190 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
8192 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
8193 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
8194 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
8197 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
8198 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
8199 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
8200 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
8201 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
8202 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
8203 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
8206 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
8207 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
8209 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
8210 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
8211 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
8212 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
8213 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
8216 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
8217 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
8219 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
8220 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
8223 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
8224 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
8226 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8229 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
8230 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
8231 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
8232 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
8233 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
8234 given the following arguments:
8236 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
8238 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
8240 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
8242 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8245 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
8246 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
8247 command-line arguments.
8249 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
8250 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
8251 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
8252 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
8253 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
8254 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
8257 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
8260 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
8261 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
8263 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
8264 rearranged slightly. They are now:
8266 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8267 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
8268 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
8269 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
8271 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8272 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
8274 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8275 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
8276 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
8277 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
8279 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
8280 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
8282 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
8283 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
8285 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
8287 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
8288 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
8289 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
8292 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
8293 returns a port instead of an FD object.
8295 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
8296 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
8301 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
8304 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
8306 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
8307 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
8308 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
8309 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
8311 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
8313 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
8315 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
8316 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
8317 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
8318 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
8319 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
8320 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
8321 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
8322 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
8323 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
8324 for more information.
8326 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
8327 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
8329 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
8330 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
8331 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
8332 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
8333 following two lines at the top of the file:
8335 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
8338 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
8339 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
8340 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
8342 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
8344 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
8346 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
8349 (display (car args))
8350 (if (pair? (cdr args))
8352 (loop (cdr args)))))
8355 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
8356 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
8357 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
8358 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
8359 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
8360 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
8364 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
8367 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
8370 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
8372 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
8373 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
8374 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
8375 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
8376 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
8379 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
8380 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
8381 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
8382 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
8383 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
8386 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
8389 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
8390 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
8391 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
8394 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
8395 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
8396 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
8398 to see a backtrace, and
8399 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
8400 to see them by default.
8404 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
8406 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
8408 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
8409 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
8412 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
8413 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
8414 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
8415 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
8418 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
8419 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
8420 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
8421 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
8422 functions which inspired them.
8424 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
8425 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
8429 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
8431 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
8433 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
8434 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
8437 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
8438 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
8439 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
8441 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
8442 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
8443 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
8444 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
8445 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
8447 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
8449 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
8450 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
8451 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
8454 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
8457 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
8459 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
8460 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
8461 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
8462 above should serve their purposes.
8464 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
8465 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
8466 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
8467 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
8469 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
8472 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
8473 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
8474 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
8475 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
8477 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
8478 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
8479 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
8480 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
8482 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
8483 for the `read' function.
8486 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
8487 to that of `integer?'.
8489 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
8490 use the R4RS names for these functions.
8492 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
8493 it simply returns the object's property list.
8495 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
8496 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
8497 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
8498 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
8500 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
8502 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
8505 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
8507 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
8508 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
8510 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
8512 void (*main_func) (),
8515 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
8516 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
8517 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
8518 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
8519 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
8521 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
8522 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
8523 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
8524 know which arguments have been processed.
8526 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
8527 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
8528 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
8529 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
8530 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
8532 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
8533 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
8534 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
8535 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
8536 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
8537 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
8538 people from making that mistake.
8540 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
8541 convenient ways to override these when desired.
8543 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
8545 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
8549 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
8552 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
8553 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
8554 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
8555 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
8558 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
8559 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
8560 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
8561 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
8564 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
8565 have been added to the Guile library.
8567 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
8568 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
8569 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
8572 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
8573 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
8574 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
8576 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
8577 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
8578 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
8579 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
8580 argument from the list.
8583 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
8586 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
8587 null-terminated string, and returns it.
8589 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
8590 to a Scheme port object.
8592 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
8593 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
8598 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
8600 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
8601 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
8602 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
8603 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
8604 code as a special datatype.
8606 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
8607 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
8608 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
8609 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
8610 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
8613 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
8614 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
8615 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
8616 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
8617 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
8619 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
8622 Copyright information:
8624 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8626 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8627 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8628 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8629 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8631 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8632 of this document, or of portions of it,
8633 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8634 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8639 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"