1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
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12 * New modules (see the manual for details)
14 ** `(srfi srfi-18)', multithreading support
15 ** The `(ice-9 i18n)' module provides internationalization support
17 * Changes to the distribution
19 ** Guile now uses Gnulib as a portability aid
21 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
22 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
24 ** A new 'memoize-symbol evaluator trap has been added. This trap can
25 be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code coverage.
27 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
28 This slightly improves program startup times.
30 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
31 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
33 * Changes to the C interface
35 ** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
37 This makes these internal functions technically not callable from
40 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
41 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
45 Changes in 1.8.6 (since 1.8.5)
47 * New features (see the manual for details)
49 ** New convenience function `scm_c_symbol_length ()'
51 ** Single stepping through code from Emacs
53 When you use GDS to evaluate Scheme code from Emacs, you can now use
54 `C-u' to indicate that you want to single step through that code. See
55 `Evaluating Scheme Code' in the manual for more details.
57 * Changes to the distribution
59 ** Automake's `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE' is no longer used
61 Thus, the `--enable-maintainer-mode' configure option is no longer
62 available: Guile is now always configured in "maintainer mode".
66 ** `symbol->string' now returns a read-only string, as per R5RS
67 ** Literal strings as returned by `read' are now read-only, as per R5RS
68 ** `guile-config link' now prints `-L$libdir' before `-lguile'
69 ** Fix memory corruption involving GOOPS' `class-redefinition'
70 ** Fix possible deadlock in `mutex-lock'
71 ** Fix build issue on Tru64 and ia64-hp-hpux11.23 (`SCM_UNPACK' macro)
72 ** Fix build issue on mips, mipsel, powerpc and ia64 (stack direction)
73 ** Fix build issue on hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11 (`dirent64' and `readdir64_r')
74 ** Fix misleading output from `(help rationalize)'
75 ** Fix build failure on Debian hppa architecture (bad stack growth detection)
76 ** Fix `gcd' when called with a single, negative argument.
79 Changes in 1.8.5 (since 1.8.4)
81 * Infrastructure changes
83 ** Guile repository switched from CVS to Git
85 The new repository can be accessed using
86 "git-clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git", or can be browsed on-line at
87 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=guile.git . See `README' for details.
89 ** Add support for `pkg-config'
91 See "Autoconf Support" in the manual for details.
93 * New modules (see the manual for details)
97 * New features (see the manual for details)
99 ** New `postfix' read option, for SRFI-88 keyword syntax
100 ** Some I/O primitives have been inlined, which improves I/O performance
101 ** New object-based traps infrastructure
103 This is a GOOPS-based infrastructure that builds on Guile's low-level
104 evaluator trap calls and facilitates the development of debugging
105 features like single-stepping, breakpoints, tracing and profiling.
106 See the `Traps' node of the manual for details.
108 ** New support for working on Guile code from within Emacs
110 Guile now incorporates the `GDS' library (previously distributed
111 separately) for working on Guile code from within Emacs. See the
112 `Using Guile In Emacs' node of the manual for details.
116 ** `scm_add_slot ()' no longer segfaults (fixes bug #22369)
117 ** Fixed `(ice-9 match)' for patterns like `((_ ...) ...)'
119 Previously, expressions like `(match '((foo) (bar)) (((_ ...) ...) #t))'
120 would trigger an unbound variable error for `match:andmap'.
122 ** `(oop goops describe)' now properly provides the `describe' feature
123 ** Fixed `args-fold' from `(srfi srfi-37)'
125 Previously, parsing short option names of argument-less options would
126 lead to a stack overflow.
128 ** `(srfi srfi-35)' is now visible through `cond-expand'
129 ** Fixed type-checking for the second argument of `eval'
130 ** Fixed type-checking for SRFI-1 `partition'
131 ** Fixed `struct-ref' and `struct-set!' on "light structs"
132 ** Honor struct field access rights in GOOPS
133 ** Changed the storage strategy of source properties, which fixes a deadlock
134 ** Allow compilation of Guile-using programs in C99 mode with GCC 4.3 and later
135 ** Fixed build issue for GNU/Linux on IA64
136 ** Fixed build issues on NetBSD 1.6
137 ** Fixed build issue on Solaris 2.10 x86_64
138 ** Fixed build issue with DEC/Compaq/HP's compiler
139 ** Fixed `scm_from_complex_double' build issue on FreeBSD
140 ** Fixed `alloca' build issue on FreeBSD 6
141 ** Removed use of non-portable makefile constructs
142 ** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
143 ** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
145 * Changes to the distribution
149 We've started collecting Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), and will
150 distribute these (with answers!) in future Guile releases.
153 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
157 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
158 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
159 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
160 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
161 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
162 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
163 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
164 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
165 ** Secondary threads now always return a valid module for (current-module).
166 ** Avoid MacOS build problems caused by incorrect combination of "64"
167 system and library calls.
168 ** `guile-snarf' now honors `$TMPDIR'
169 ** `guile-config compile' now reports CPPFLAGS used at compile-time
170 ** Fixed build with Sun Studio (Solaris 9)
171 ** Fixed wrong-type-arg errors when creating zero length SRFI-4
172 uniform vectors on AIX.
173 ** Fixed a deadlock that occurs upon GC with multiple threads.
174 ** Fixed compile problem with GCC on Solaris and AIX (use of _Complex_I)
175 ** Fixed autotool-derived build problems on AIX 6.1.
176 ** Fixed NetBSD/alpha support
177 ** Fixed MacOS build problem caused by use of rl_get_keymap(_name)
179 * New modules (see the manual for details)
183 * Documentation fixes and improvements
185 ** Removed premature breakpoint documentation
187 The features described are not available in the series of 1.8.x
188 releases, so the documentation was misleading and has been removed.
190 ** More about Guile's default *random-state* variable
192 ** GOOPS: more about how to use `next-method'
194 * Changes to the distribution
196 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
198 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
199 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
200 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
202 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
204 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
207 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
209 * New modules (see the manual for details)
216 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
217 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
218 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
219 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
220 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
221 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
222 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
224 * Implementation improvements
226 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
227 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
231 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
233 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
235 ** set-program-arguments
240 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
241 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
242 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
243 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
244 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
245 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
247 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
248 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
249 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
250 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
251 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
252 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
253 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
254 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
255 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
256 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
257 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
258 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
259 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
260 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
261 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
262 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
265 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
267 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
269 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
271 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
272 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
273 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
274 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
275 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
276 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
282 * New `(ice-9 i18n)' module (see the manual for details)
286 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
288 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
290 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
292 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
294 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
296 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
298 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
299 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
300 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
302 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
304 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
306 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
307 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
309 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
311 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
312 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
314 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
316 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
318 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
320 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
322 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
324 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
326 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
328 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
330 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
332 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
333 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
334 file was on a different device.
337 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
339 * Changes to the distribution
341 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
343 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
345 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
347 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
349 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
351 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
354 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
356 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
357 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
358 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
359 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
360 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
361 items like the versioned share directory name
362 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
364 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
365 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
366 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
367 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
368 with each micro release during a stable series.
370 ** Thread implementation has changed.
372 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
373 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
374 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
375 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
376 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
379 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
380 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
381 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
382 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
385 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
386 in which case "null" threads are used.
388 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
389 "Blocking", and others.
391 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
393 This is a milder form of deprecation.
395 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
396 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
397 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
398 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
399 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
401 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
402 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
404 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
406 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
407 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
409 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
412 This SRFI is always available.
414 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
416 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
417 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
418 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
419 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
422 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
424 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
425 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
426 parameters without currying.
428 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
430 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
431 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
433 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
434 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
437 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
438 with a renaming import, for example.
440 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
442 The official version is good enough now.
444 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
446 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
447 provided. Use 'make html'.
449 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
451 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
452 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
453 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
454 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
456 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
458 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
461 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
463 ** New command line option `-L'.
465 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
467 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
469 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
470 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
472 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
474 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
475 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
477 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
479 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
480 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
483 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
486 (define-module (demo)
490 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
493 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
495 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
497 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
498 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
499 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
501 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
503 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
504 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
506 ** New function hashx-remove!
508 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
510 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
511 barriers and dynamic states.
513 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
514 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
515 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
518 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
519 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
520 Barriers" in the manual.
522 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
523 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
525 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
527 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
528 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
529 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
532 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
534 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
535 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
537 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
538 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
539 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
541 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
542 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
544 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
545 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
546 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
548 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
549 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
550 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
553 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
554 substrings and read-only strings.
556 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
557 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
560 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
562 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
571 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
572 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
573 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
575 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
576 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
577 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
580 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
581 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
584 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
586 See the manual for details.
588 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
590 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
593 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
595 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
596 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
597 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
598 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
600 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
601 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
602 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
605 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
607 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
608 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
619 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
623 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
628 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
632 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
636 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
639 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
640 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
641 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
642 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
644 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
645 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
648 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
651 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
655 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
657 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
658 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
659 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
662 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
665 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
667 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
670 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
671 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
679 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
680 has been detected is to
682 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
683 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
684 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
687 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
690 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
692 to your .guile init file.
694 ** New define-module option: :replace
696 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
699 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
700 for the core binding `format'.
702 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
704 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
705 a prefix to all imported bindings.
708 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
710 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
713 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
715 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
716 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
717 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
719 ** New function: effective-version
721 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
722 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
723 to the distribution" above.
725 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
727 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
728 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
730 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
732 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
733 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
735 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
737 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
738 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
741 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
743 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
745 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
747 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
748 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
749 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
752 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
753 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
754 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
757 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
758 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
760 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
761 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
762 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
765 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
767 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
768 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
771 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
772 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
774 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
775 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
776 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
777 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
778 level for the current thread.
780 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
782 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
784 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
785 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
788 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
790 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
792 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
795 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
797 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
800 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
801 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
802 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
804 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
805 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
806 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
807 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
818 ERROR: Numerical overflow
820 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
823 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
825 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
826 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
827 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
838 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
840 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
841 them is also done exactly, of course:
846 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
849 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
850 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
852 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
854 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
855 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
856 equal to a floating point number. For example:
858 (inexact->exact 1.234)
859 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
861 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
863 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
866 ** New function 'rationalize'.
868 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
869 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
871 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
874 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
875 result when both its arguments are exact.
877 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
879 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
880 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
881 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
883 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
885 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
886 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
887 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
889 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
892 ** pretty-print has more options.
894 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
895 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
896 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
898 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
900 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
901 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
902 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
904 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
906 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
907 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
909 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
911 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
912 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
915 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
917 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
918 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
919 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
920 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
921 without the soft port blocking.
923 ** Deprecated: undefine
925 There is no replacement for undefine.
927 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
928 have been discouraged.
930 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
931 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
932 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
935 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
937 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
939 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
940 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
941 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
942 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
945 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
946 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
947 be removed in the next major Guile release.
949 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
951 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
952 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
953 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
954 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
955 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
956 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
958 * Changes to the C interface
960 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
961 take a 'delete' function argument.
963 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
964 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
966 This is an incompatible change.
968 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
970 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
971 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
972 --disable-deprecated.
974 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
976 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
977 Scheme values has been added.
979 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
980 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
985 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
986 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
988 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
990 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
991 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
994 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
996 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
997 scm_from_int for ints.
999 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
1000 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
1001 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
1003 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
1005 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
1006 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
1007 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
1010 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
1012 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
1014 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
1016 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
1017 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
1018 following alternatives.
1020 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
1021 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
1022 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
1023 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
1025 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
1026 do the validating for you.
1028 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
1029 have been discouraged.
1031 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
1032 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
1035 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
1037 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
1038 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
1041 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
1043 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
1046 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
1049 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
1051 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
1052 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
1054 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
1055 scm_truncate_number should have.
1057 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
1058 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
1060 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
1063 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
1064 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
1065 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
1067 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
1068 easier to use from C.
1070 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
1071 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
1073 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
1074 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
1075 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
1078 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
1079 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
1080 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
1081 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
1084 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
1085 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
1086 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
1087 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
1088 and is thus quite efficient.
1090 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
1092 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
1093 about the character encoding.
1095 Replace according to the following table:
1097 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
1098 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
1099 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
1100 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
1101 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
1102 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
1103 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
1104 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
1105 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
1107 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
1108 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
1110 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
1112 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
1113 now also available to C code.
1115 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
1117 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
1118 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
1119 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
1121 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
1124 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
1126 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
1127 unceremoniously removed.
1129 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
1130 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
1131 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
1133 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
1134 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
1135 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
1136 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1137 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
1138 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
1141 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
1143 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
1144 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
1145 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
1146 manual for more details.
1148 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1149 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1151 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
1152 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
1153 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1155 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
1157 Migrate according to the following table:
1159 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
1160 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
1161 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
1162 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
1163 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
1164 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
1165 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
1167 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
1168 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
1169 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
1170 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
1171 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
1172 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
1173 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
1175 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
1177 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
1178 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
1180 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
1181 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
1182 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
1183 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
1185 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
1187 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
1188 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
1189 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
1191 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
1192 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
1194 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
1195 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
1196 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
1197 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
1199 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
1201 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
1202 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
1203 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
1204 prevent a potential memory leak:
1211 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
1213 mem = scm_malloc (100);
1214 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
1216 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
1217 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
1224 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
1225 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
1229 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
1231 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
1233 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
1234 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
1235 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
1237 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1238 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
1240 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
1242 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
1244 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
1245 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
1246 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
1248 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
1249 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
1251 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
1252 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
1253 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
1254 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
1257 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
1259 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
1260 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1261 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
1263 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
1265 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
1266 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
1268 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
1270 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
1271 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
1273 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
1275 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
1276 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
1277 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
1279 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
1281 You should not have used them.
1283 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
1285 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
1286 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
1288 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
1290 This macro is not intended for public use.
1292 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
1294 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
1296 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
1298 Use scm_is_real instead.
1300 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
1302 Use scm_is_complex instead.
1304 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
1306 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
1307 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
1309 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
1310 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
1312 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
1313 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
1315 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
1317 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
1320 ** New function: scm_effective_version
1322 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1323 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1324 to the distribution" above.
1326 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
1328 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
1329 arguments are now passed directly:
1331 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
1333 This is an incompatible change.
1335 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
1337 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
1338 function in the init section.
1340 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
1342 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
1344 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
1345 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
1346 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
1347 stays roughly constant.
1349 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
1350 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
1351 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
1352 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
1353 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
1356 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
1357 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
1358 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
1359 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
1361 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
1362 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
1363 objects for every type.
1366 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
1368 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
1370 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
1372 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
1373 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
1374 initializes a new cell (see below).
1376 ** New functions for memory management
1378 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
1379 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
1380 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
1381 cause aborts in long running programs.
1383 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
1384 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
1386 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
1387 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
1388 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
1389 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
1390 details and for upgrading instructions.
1392 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
1393 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
1394 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
1396 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
1398 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
1399 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
1400 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
1401 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
1402 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
1404 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
1405 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
1406 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
1408 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
1409 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
1411 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
1413 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
1414 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
1415 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
1416 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
1417 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
1419 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
1421 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
1424 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
1426 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
1428 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
1430 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
1431 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
1433 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
1435 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
1436 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
1438 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
1439 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
1441 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
1443 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
1445 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
1446 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
1447 blocking it is not well defined.
1449 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
1451 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
1452 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
1453 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
1454 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
1455 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
1456 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
1457 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
1458 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
1459 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
1460 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
1461 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1462 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
1463 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
1464 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
1465 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
1466 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
1467 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
1468 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1469 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
1470 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
1471 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
1472 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
1473 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
1474 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
1475 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
1476 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
1477 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
1478 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
1479 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
1480 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
1481 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
1483 * Changes to bundled modules
1487 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
1488 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
1489 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
1490 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
1491 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
1494 Changes since Guile 1.4:
1496 * Changes to the distribution
1498 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
1500 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
1502 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
1503 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
1504 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
1505 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
1506 indicate major changes in Guile.
1508 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
1509 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
1510 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
1511 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
1513 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
1514 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
1515 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
1516 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
1517 micro version number.
1519 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
1521 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
1523 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
1524 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
1526 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
1528 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
1529 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
1530 See INSTALL and README for more information.
1532 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
1534 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
1535 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
1536 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
1539 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
1541 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
1544 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
1546 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
1547 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
1549 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
1551 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
1552 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
1555 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
1557 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
1560 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
1563 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
1565 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
1567 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
1568 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
1569 open-output-string, get-output-string.
1571 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
1573 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
1575 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
1578 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
1580 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
1582 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1584 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1585 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1586 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1588 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1590 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1592 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1593 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1602 See README there for more info.
1604 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1605 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1608 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1610 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1612 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1614 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1615 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1616 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1618 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1620 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1621 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1622 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1624 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1625 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1627 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1630 (oop goops describe)
1632 (oop goops active-slot)
1633 (oop goops composite-slot)
1635 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1636 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1637 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1639 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1641 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1642 in the default environment:
1644 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1645 %read-line write-line
1647 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1648 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1650 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1652 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1655 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1656 can be used for similar functionality.
1658 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1660 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1661 it defines two procedures:
1663 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1665 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1666 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1667 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1670 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1672 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1673 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1674 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1675 write large strings.
1677 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1679 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1680 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1682 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1684 for complete documentation.
1686 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1688 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1689 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1690 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1691 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1693 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1694 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1698 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1699 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1700 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1703 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1706 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1707 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1709 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1710 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1713 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1716 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1718 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1720 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1722 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1724 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1725 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1726 Scheme programs easier.
1728 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1729 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1730 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1731 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1732 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1735 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1736 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1738 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1741 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1743 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1744 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1745 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1748 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1750 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1752 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1753 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1754 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1755 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1756 was also ASCII, for example.
1758 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1760 tag - no replacement.
1761 fseek - replaced by seek.
1762 list* - replaced by cons*.
1764 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1768 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1769 (define m (make-safe-module))
1770 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1771 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1772 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1774 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1776 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1777 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1778 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1780 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1782 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1783 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1784 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1785 from the issues related to the module system.
1787 *** New function: load-extension
1789 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1791 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1793 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1794 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1795 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1797 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1799 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1800 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1801 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1802 support dynamic linking).
1804 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1806 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1807 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1808 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1809 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1812 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1813 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1814 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1815 library and initialize it explicitly.
1817 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1818 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1820 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1822 (define-module (foo bar))
1824 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1826 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1828 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1829 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1831 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1832 (null-environment 5)
1833 (interaction-environment)
1839 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1841 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1842 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1843 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1844 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1846 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1847 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1848 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1849 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1850 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1851 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1852 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1853 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1854 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1855 one eval to the next.
1857 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1858 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1859 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1860 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1861 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1863 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1864 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1865 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1866 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1867 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1868 used in a lexical environment.
1870 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1871 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1872 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1873 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1874 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1875 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1877 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1879 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1880 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1881 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1882 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1883 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1885 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1886 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1887 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1889 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1890 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1892 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1893 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1894 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1896 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1897 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1899 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1900 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1901 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1902 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1905 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1906 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1907 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1908 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1910 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1911 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1912 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1914 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1915 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1916 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1917 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1918 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1920 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1922 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1923 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1924 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1926 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1927 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1928 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1930 See manual for more info.
1932 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1934 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1935 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1936 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1938 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1940 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1941 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1942 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1944 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1945 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1946 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1947 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1949 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1951 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1952 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1954 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1955 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1956 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1957 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1958 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1961 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1962 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1963 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1964 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1965 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1966 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1968 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1969 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1970 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1971 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1972 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1974 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1975 objects are usually permanent.
1977 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1978 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1980 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1982 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1983 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1986 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1990 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1995 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1997 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1998 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1999 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
2000 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
2002 ** New function `make-object-property'
2004 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
2005 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
2009 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
2010 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
2014 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
2015 source properties eventually.
2017 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
2019 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
2020 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
2021 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
2023 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
2024 will be removed in the next release.
2026 ** New define-module option: pure
2028 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
2033 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
2036 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
2038 Export names NAME1 ...
2040 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
2041 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
2045 (define-module (foo)
2047 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
2050 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
2055 ** New function: object->string OBJ
2057 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
2059 ** New function: port? X
2061 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
2062 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
2064 ** New function: file-port?
2066 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
2068 ** New function: port-for-each proc
2070 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
2071 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
2072 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
2073 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
2074 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
2076 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
2078 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
2079 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
2080 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
2081 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
2082 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
2085 ** New function: close-fdes fd
2087 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
2088 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
2089 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
2090 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
2093 ** New function: crypt password salt
2095 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
2098 ** New function: chroot path
2100 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
2102 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
2104 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
2107 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
2109 Get or set the priority of the running process.
2111 ** New function: getpass prompt
2113 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
2116 ** New function: flock file operation
2118 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
2120 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
2122 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
2125 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
2127 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
2128 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
2129 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
2130 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
2131 of the temporary file.
2133 ** New function: open-input-string string
2135 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
2136 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
2137 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
2139 ** New function: open-output-string
2141 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
2142 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
2144 ** New function: get-output-string
2146 Return the contents of an output string port.
2148 ** New function: identity
2150 Return the argument.
2152 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
2153 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
2155 ** New function: inet-pton family address
2157 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
2158 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
2159 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2162 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
2163 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
2165 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
2167 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
2168 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
2169 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2172 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
2173 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
2174 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
2178 Use `identity' instead.
2184 ** Deprecated: return-it
2188 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
2190 Use `string-length' instead.
2192 ** Deprecated: flags
2194 Use `logior' instead.
2196 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
2198 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
2199 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
2200 port-for-each is more flexible.
2202 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
2203 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
2204 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
2206 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
2208 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
2210 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
2212 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
2214 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
2216 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
2217 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
2219 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
2220 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
2222 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
2223 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
2225 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
2227 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
2228 Removed function: builtin-bindings
2230 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
2231 Use module system operations for all variables.
2233 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
2235 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
2238 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
2240 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
2241 The following bugs have been fixed:
2243 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
2244 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
2247 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
2248 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
2249 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
2251 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
2252 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
2254 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
2255 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
2258 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
2259 The expansion used to be like so:
2261 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
2263 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
2265 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
2267 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
2268 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
2270 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
2272 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
2273 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
2274 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
2278 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
2279 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
2281 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
2286 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
2287 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
2289 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
2290 and `d', other keywords allowed.
2291 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
2293 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
2296 * Changes to the C interface
2298 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
2300 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
2301 with "_t". What a concept.
2303 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
2305 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
2307 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
2311 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
2312 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
2314 *** C Functions removed
2316 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
2317 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
2318 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
2319 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
2320 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
2321 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
2322 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
2324 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
2326 Use scm_mem2string instead.
2328 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
2330 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
2332 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
2333 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
2335 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
2337 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
2340 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
2342 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
2344 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
2346 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
2347 Evaluation" in the manual.
2349 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
2351 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
2352 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
2354 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
2356 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
2357 Constructors" in the manual.
2359 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
2361 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
2362 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
2364 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
2366 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
2368 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
2369 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
2370 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
2372 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2374 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
2376 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
2377 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
2378 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
2381 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2383 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
2385 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
2386 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
2388 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
2390 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
2391 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
2392 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
2393 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
2395 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
2396 scm_primitive_property_ref
2397 scm_primitive_property_set_x
2398 scm_primitive_property_del_x
2400 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
2401 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
2403 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
2405 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
2406 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
2407 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
2408 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
2410 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
2412 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
2413 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
2414 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
2415 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
2416 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
2417 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
2418 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
2420 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
2421 scm_remember_upto_here
2423 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
2425 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
2427 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
2428 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
2430 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
2432 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
2434 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
2436 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
2438 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
2440 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
2441 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
2442 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
2443 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
2444 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
2445 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
2447 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
2449 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2451 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
2452 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2453 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
2455 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
2457 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
2458 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2459 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
2461 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
2463 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
2464 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
2467 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
2470 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
2471 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2474 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2476 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
2478 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
2480 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2482 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
2484 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
2486 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
2487 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
2488 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
2489 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2490 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
2491 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
2492 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
2493 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2494 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
2495 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
2496 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
2497 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
2498 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
2499 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
2500 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
2502 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
2503 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
2504 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
2505 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
2506 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
2507 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
2508 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
2509 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
2510 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2511 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
2512 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
2513 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
2514 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
2515 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
2516 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
2517 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2518 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2519 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
2520 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
2521 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
2522 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
2523 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
2524 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
2525 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
2526 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
2527 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
2528 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
2529 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
2530 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
2532 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
2534 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
2536 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
2537 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
2539 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
2541 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
2543 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
2545 Use scm_string_hash instead.
2547 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
2549 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
2551 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
2553 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
2555 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
2558 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
2559 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
2561 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
2563 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
2565 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
2567 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
2569 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
2571 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
2573 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
2575 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2578 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2580 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2582 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2584 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2585 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2587 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2588 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2590 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2592 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2593 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2594 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2596 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2598 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2600 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2601 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2603 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2604 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2605 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2606 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2608 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2609 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2610 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2612 Use the new ones from above instead.
2614 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2616 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2617 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2618 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2620 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2621 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2623 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2624 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2627 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2628 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2630 Use the new functions instead.
2632 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2635 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2637 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2639 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2642 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2644 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2647 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2649 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2652 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2653 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2654 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2656 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2658 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2659 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2661 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2662 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2663 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2664 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2667 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2669 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2670 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2671 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2672 inexact for an exact.
2674 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2675 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2676 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2679 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2680 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2681 accept an inexact argument.
2683 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2684 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2686 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2689 ** New number validation macros:
2690 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2694 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2696 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2697 scm_unprotect_object.
2699 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2701 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2703 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2706 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2708 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2712 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2714 * Changes to the distribution
2716 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2718 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2719 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2720 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2721 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2722 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2723 obtain these programs.
2724 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2725 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2727 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2728 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2729 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2730 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2731 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2733 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2734 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2735 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2736 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2740 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2743 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2744 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2745 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2746 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2748 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2750 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2752 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2753 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2755 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2756 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2758 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2759 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2761 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2762 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2763 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2764 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2766 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2768 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2772 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2773 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2775 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2777 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2778 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2780 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2781 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2782 number of objects of that kind.
2784 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2786 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2787 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2788 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2789 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2790 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2792 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2794 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2796 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2798 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2801 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2803 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2805 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2807 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2809 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2811 ** New command line option --debug
2813 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2815 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2817 ** New help facility
2819 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2820 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2821 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2822 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2823 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2824 (help) gives this text
2826 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2827 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2829 Examples: (help help)
2831 (help "output-string")
2833 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2835 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2837 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2838 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2841 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2842 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2843 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2846 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2847 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2848 use absolute filenames when possible.
2850 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2851 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2852 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2855 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2857 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2858 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2859 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2860 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2862 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2864 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2866 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2867 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2868 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2870 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2871 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2872 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2874 (read-enable 'positions)
2875 (debug-enable 'debug)
2877 ** Backtraces in scripts
2879 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2883 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2885 at the top of the script.
2887 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2888 The second enables backtraces.)
2890 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2892 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2893 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2894 substantially faster than before.
2896 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2897 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2899 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2900 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2902 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2904 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2905 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2906 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2908 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2909 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2910 when this hook is run in the future.
2912 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2913 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2915 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2917 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2918 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2921 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2922 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2923 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2925 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2926 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2928 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2929 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2931 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2932 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2933 in order not to need further allocation.)
2935 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2938 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2939 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2940 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2941 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2943 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2945 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2948 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2950 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2953 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2954 GC in percent of total heap size
2957 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2958 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2960 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2962 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2963 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2965 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2967 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2968 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2970 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2972 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2973 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2977 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2978 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2980 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2982 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2984 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2986 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2988 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2990 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2991 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2993 (simple-format port message . args)
2994 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2995 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2996 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2997 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2998 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2999 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
3000 Does not add a trailing newline."
3002 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
3004 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
3005 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
3007 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
3008 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
3010 ** Deprecated: list*
3012 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
3014 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
3016 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
3017 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
3019 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
3020 is returned as result.
3022 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
3024 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
3026 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
3028 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
3029 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
3032 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
3034 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
3036 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
3037 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
3039 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3041 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
3043 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
3045 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3047 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
3049 Thanks to Greg Badros!
3051 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3053 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
3054 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
3055 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
3057 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
3060 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
3062 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
3063 the readability of argument checking.
3065 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
3067 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
3069 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
3071 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
3072 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
3073 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
3074 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
3075 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
3076 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
3077 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
3079 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
3081 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
3083 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
3084 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
3086 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
3088 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
3089 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
3092 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
3094 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
3095 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
3096 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
3098 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
3099 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
3100 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
3102 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
3103 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
3104 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
3105 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
3106 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
3107 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
3108 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
3110 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
3111 scm_end_input (object);
3112 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
3113 ptob->flush (object);
3115 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
3116 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
3119 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
3121 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
3123 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
3124 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
3125 removed in a future version.
3127 ** The format of error message strings has changed
3129 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
3130 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
3131 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
3132 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
3134 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
3135 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
3137 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
3140 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
3142 in your configure.in.
3144 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
3149 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
3155 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
3157 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
3161 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
3162 (define make-message string-append)
3164 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
3166 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
3170 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
3175 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
3179 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
3181 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
3182 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
3184 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
3186 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
3187 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
3188 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
3189 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
3190 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
3191 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
3193 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
3194 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
3195 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
3197 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
3198 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
3199 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
3202 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
3203 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
3204 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
3205 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
3206 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
3208 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
3209 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
3210 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
3211 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
3212 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
3213 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
3214 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
3216 Destructors are not yet implemented.
3218 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
3219 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
3220 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
3222 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
3223 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
3224 KEY in the calling thread.
3226 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
3227 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
3228 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
3229 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
3230 associated with the key.
3232 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
3234 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
3235 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
3237 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
3239 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
3240 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
3241 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
3243 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
3245 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
3246 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
3248 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
3250 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
3252 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
3253 returned is undefined.
3255 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
3256 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
3257 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
3259 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
3260 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
3261 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
3263 ** New C level GC hooks
3265 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
3267 scm_before_gc_c_hook
3270 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
3271 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
3272 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
3274 scm_before_mark_c_hook
3275 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
3276 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
3278 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
3279 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
3282 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
3284 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
3285 allocation parameters
3287 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
3288 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
3289 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
3293 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
3294 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
3295 scm_default_max_segment_size
3297 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
3299 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
3300 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
3302 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
3304 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
3305 object and count on the object being protected until
3306 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
3308 The functions also have better time complexity.
3310 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
3311 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
3312 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
3313 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
3314 are no longer needed.
3316 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
3318 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
3319 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
3320 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
3321 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
3323 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
3325 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
3327 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
3329 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
3330 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
3331 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
3332 until this issue has been settled.
3334 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
3336 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
3338 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
3341 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
3343 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3345 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
3346 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
3347 descriptors were checked.
3349 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
3350 atomically written to a pipe.
3352 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
3353 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
3354 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
3355 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
3356 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
3357 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
3358 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
3361 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
3362 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
3363 is changed without calling tzset.
3365 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
3367 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
3368 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
3369 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
3371 (define write-network-long
3372 (lambda (value port)
3373 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3374 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
3375 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
3377 (define read-network-long
3379 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3380 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
3381 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
3383 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
3384 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
3386 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
3387 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
3388 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
3389 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
3391 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
3392 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
3393 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
3394 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
3398 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
3400 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3404 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
3405 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
3406 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
3412 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
3413 for a description of available commands.
3415 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
3416 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
3417 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
3419 (debug-enable 'backwards)
3421 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
3422 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
3424 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
3426 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
3428 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
3429 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
3430 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
3431 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
3432 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
3433 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
3436 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
3438 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
3439 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
3440 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
3441 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
3443 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
3444 the file and should not be affected by this change.
3446 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
3448 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3450 ** Readline support has changed again.
3452 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
3453 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
3454 to activate readline is now
3456 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
3459 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
3461 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
3462 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
3463 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
3466 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
3467 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
3468 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
3471 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
3472 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
3473 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
3474 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
3475 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
3476 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
3478 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
3479 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
3481 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
3483 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
3484 object it receives is the same string passed to
3485 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
3486 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
3487 string, not the suffix.
3489 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
3490 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
3491 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
3493 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
3495 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
3496 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
3497 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
3498 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
3501 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3503 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
3505 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
3506 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
3507 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
3508 appear from left to right.
3510 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
3513 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
3515 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
3516 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
3518 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3522 *** New function: hook? OBJ
3524 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
3526 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
3528 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
3529 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
3530 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
3532 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
3534 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
3536 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
3538 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
3541 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
3543 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
3544 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
3545 mentioning it here anyway.
3547 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
3549 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
3550 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
3551 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
3552 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
3555 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
3557 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
3559 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
3561 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
3562 otherwise return #f.
3564 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
3566 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
3567 returned by `opendir'.
3569 ** New function: using-readline?
3571 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
3573 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3575 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
3576 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3578 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3580 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3582 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3583 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3584 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3586 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3588 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3589 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3591 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3593 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3594 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3595 documentation slots are not yet used.
3597 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3599 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3600 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3601 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3606 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3607 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3608 (string-append x y))
3610 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3611 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3613 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3614 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3615 be made in a clean way.]
3617 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3619 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3621 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3623 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3624 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3626 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3628 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3630 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3632 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3634 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3635 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3636 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3637 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3640 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3642 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3644 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3646 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3648 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3649 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3651 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3653 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3655 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3657 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3659 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3660 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3661 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3662 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3663 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3664 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3666 This should not make any difference for most users.
3668 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3670 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3671 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3673 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3675 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3676 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3677 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3678 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3679 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3681 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3683 It is now replaced by:
3685 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3687 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3688 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3690 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3692 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3693 This might change when we get the new module system.
3695 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3699 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3701 * Changes to mailing lists
3703 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3705 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3708 * Changes to the distribution
3710 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3712 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3713 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3714 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3715 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3716 you explicitly specify it.
3718 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3719 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3720 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3721 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3722 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3725 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3726 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3727 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3728 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3730 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3731 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3732 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3735 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3737 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3740 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3742 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3744 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3745 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3746 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3747 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3749 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3750 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3753 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3755 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3756 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3757 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3758 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3759 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3760 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3761 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3762 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3774 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3775 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3776 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3777 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3778 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3783 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3784 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3792 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3797 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3798 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3801 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3802 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3803 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3804 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3806 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3808 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3810 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3811 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3813 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3815 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3817 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3818 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3820 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3823 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3825 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3827 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3829 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3831 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3833 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3835 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3836 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3837 when the hook was created.
3839 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3840 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3841 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3842 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3843 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3844 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3845 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3846 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3847 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3849 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3850 the dlopen family of functions.
3852 ** New function `provided?'
3854 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3855 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3856 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3857 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3859 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3861 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3862 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3863 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3864 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3867 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3868 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3869 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3870 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3872 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3873 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3874 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3877 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3878 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3879 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3880 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3881 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3882 but with the flag set.
3884 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3886 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3887 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3889 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3890 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3891 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3892 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3893 available Scheme format implementations.
3895 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3896 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3897 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3898 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3899 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3900 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3901 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3902 output is to the current error port if available by the
3903 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3906 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3907 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3908 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3909 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3910 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3911 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3912 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3913 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3915 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3916 be executed at a time.
3919 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3921 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3922 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3923 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3925 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3926 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3927 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3928 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3929 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3930 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3931 general form of a directive is:
3933 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3935 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3937 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3939 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3940 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3941 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3944 Any (print as `display' does).
3948 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3952 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3956 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3962 print number sign always.
3965 print comma separated.
3967 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3973 print number sign always.
3976 print comma separated.
3978 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3984 print number sign always.
3987 print comma separated.
3989 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3995 print number sign always.
3998 print comma separated.
4000 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
4005 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
4009 print a number as a Roman numeral.
4012 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
4015 print a number as an ordinal English number.
4018 print a number as a cardinal English number.
4023 prints `y' and `ies'.
4026 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4029 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
4034 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
4038 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
4041 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
4042 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
4044 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4047 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
4048 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
4050 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4053 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
4055 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
4057 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4060 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
4062 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
4064 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
4067 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
4070 The sign appears before the padding.
4078 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
4080 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
4085 print N page separators.
4095 newline is ignored, white space left.
4098 newline is left, white space ignored.
4103 relative tabulation.
4109 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
4111 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
4114 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
4116 converts by `string-capitalize'.
4119 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
4122 converts by `string-upcase'.
4125 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
4127 jumps N arguments forward.
4130 jumps 1 argument backward.
4133 jumps N arguments backward.
4136 jumps to the 0th argument.
4139 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
4141 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
4142 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
4144 take argument from N.
4147 true test conditional.
4150 if-else-then conditional.
4156 default clause follows.
4159 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
4161 at most N iterations.
4164 args from next arg (a list of lists).
4167 args from the rest of arguments.
4170 args from the rest args (lists).
4181 aborts if N <= M <= K
4183 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
4186 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4189 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4195 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
4197 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
4199 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
4200 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
4201 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
4202 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
4203 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
4204 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
4208 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
4212 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
4218 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
4221 Print a `#\space' character
4223 print N `#\space' characters.
4226 Print a `#\tab' character
4228 print N `#\tab' characters.
4231 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
4232 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
4233 must be a positive decimal number.
4236 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4237 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4238 be processed by `read'.
4241 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4242 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4243 be processed by `read'.
4246 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
4249 prints format version.
4252 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
4253 and format it accordingly.
4255 *** Configuration Variables
4257 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
4258 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
4259 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
4260 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
4263 format:symbol-case-conv
4264 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
4265 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
4266 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
4267 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
4268 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
4270 format:iobj-case-conv
4271 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
4272 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
4275 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
4278 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
4284 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
4285 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
4286 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
4287 `format' padding style.
4290 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
4291 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
4292 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
4293 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
4297 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
4298 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
4299 directive parameters or modifiers)).
4302 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
4303 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
4304 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
4305 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
4306 parameters or modifiers)).
4309 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
4311 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
4313 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
4314 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
4316 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
4317 string-downcase! functions.
4319 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
4320 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
4322 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
4325 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
4328 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
4329 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
4331 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
4333 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
4334 the symbol had be read by `read'.
4336 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
4337 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
4338 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
4339 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
4340 would if STRING were input.
4342 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
4344 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
4345 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
4346 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
4347 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
4350 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
4352 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
4353 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
4356 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
4358 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
4359 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
4361 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
4362 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
4364 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
4365 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
4366 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
4367 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
4369 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
4370 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
4372 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
4373 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
4374 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
4376 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
4377 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
4379 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
4380 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
4381 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
4382 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
4383 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
4385 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
4386 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
4387 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
4388 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
4389 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
4390 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
4392 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
4393 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
4394 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
4397 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
4398 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
4399 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
4400 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
4401 the following grammar:
4402 ((apples (single-char #\a))
4403 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
4404 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
4405 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
4406 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
4407 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
4408 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
4409 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
4410 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
4411 last option in its combination)
4413 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
4414 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
4415 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
4416 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
4418 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
4419 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
4420 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
4422 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4423 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4424 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
4426 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
4427 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
4428 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
4429 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
4430 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
4431 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
4432 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
4433 ordinary argument strings.
4435 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
4436 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
4437 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
4438 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
4440 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
4441 as a list, associated with the empty list.
4443 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
4444 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
4445 - a required option is omitted
4446 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
4447 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
4448 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
4449 - an option predicate fails
4454 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
4457 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
4458 (verbose (required? #f)
4461 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
4462 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
4463 (predicate ,string?))))
4465 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
4466 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4468 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4469 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
4470 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
4471 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
4474 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
4476 It will be removed in a few releases.
4478 ** New syntax: lambda*
4479 ** New syntax: define*
4480 ** New syntax: define*-public
4481 ** New syntax: defmacro*
4482 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
4483 Guile now supports optional arguments.
4485 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
4486 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
4487 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
4488 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
4489 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
4491 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
4492 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
4493 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
4495 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
4497 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
4498 and examples for `lambda*':
4501 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
4503 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
4504 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
4505 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
4506 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
4507 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
4508 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
4509 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
4510 can be checked with the bound? macro.
4512 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
4514 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
4515 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
4516 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
4517 are given as keywords are bound to values.
4519 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
4520 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
4521 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
4522 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
4523 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
4524 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
4525 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
4526 and until the procedure is called.
4528 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
4530 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
4531 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
4532 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
4533 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
4534 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
4535 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
4536 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
4537 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
4538 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
4539 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
4541 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
4542 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
4543 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
4544 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
4547 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
4549 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
4550 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
4551 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
4552 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
4554 ** New syntax: and-let*
4555 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
4557 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
4558 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
4559 (<variable> <expression>)
4562 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
4563 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
4564 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
4567 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
4568 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
4569 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
4570 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
4571 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
4572 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
4573 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
4575 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
4576 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
4577 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4578 shadow earlier bindings.
4580 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4582 ** New sorting functions
4584 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4585 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4586 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4587 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4589 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4590 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4593 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4594 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4595 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4597 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4598 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4599 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4600 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4602 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4603 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4604 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4605 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4606 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4609 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4610 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4611 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4612 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4613 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4614 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4616 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4617 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4618 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4620 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4621 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4622 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4625 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4626 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4627 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4629 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4630 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4632 ** New built-in random number support
4634 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4635 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4636 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4637 returned have a uniform distribution.
4639 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4640 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4641 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4642 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4643 effect of the `random' operation.
4645 *** New variable: *random-state*
4646 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4647 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4648 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4649 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4650 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4653 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4654 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4655 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4656 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4657 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4659 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4660 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4661 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4662 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4663 initialized using SEED.
4665 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4666 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4667 range between 0 and 1.
4669 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4670 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4671 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4672 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4673 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4674 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4675 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4677 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4678 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4679 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4680 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4681 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4682 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4684 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4685 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4686 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4687 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4689 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4690 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4691 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4692 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4694 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4695 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4696 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4698 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4700 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4703 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4704 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4707 ** New function: make-guardian
4708 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4709 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4710 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4711 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4712 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4714 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4715 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4716 one object if at all.
4718 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4719 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4720 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4722 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4723 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4724 read again in last-in first-out order.
4726 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4727 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4729 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4731 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4732 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4733 file position is used.
4735 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4736 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4737 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4739 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4740 redefined using seek.
4742 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4743 size is not supplied.
4745 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4746 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4748 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4749 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4751 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4753 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4754 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4755 and returns the contents as a single string.
4757 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4758 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4759 lists in serial order.
4761 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4762 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4763 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4765 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4766 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4767 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4768 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4770 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4771 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4772 and #f if an error occured.
4774 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4776 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4777 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4778 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4779 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4781 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4783 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4786 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4788 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4791 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4795 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4796 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4798 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4799 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4803 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4805 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4807 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4808 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4810 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4812 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4813 might change when we get the new module system.
4815 ** The smob interface
4817 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4818 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4820 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4822 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4826 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4827 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4828 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4829 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4830 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4831 will be freed by the default free function.
4833 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4834 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4835 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4836 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4838 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4839 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4840 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4841 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4843 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4845 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4846 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4850 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4851 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4852 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4854 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4855 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4856 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4857 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4859 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4860 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4861 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4863 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4864 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4865 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4866 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4868 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4869 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4870 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4872 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4876 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4878 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4879 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4880 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4882 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4883 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4884 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4886 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4887 a string port's buffer.
4889 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4890 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4891 function pointers which together define the current random number
4892 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4893 number library functions.
4895 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4898 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4899 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4902 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4903 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4905 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4906 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4908 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4909 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4912 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4913 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4914 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4915 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4917 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4918 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4919 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4920 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4921 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4922 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4923 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4925 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4926 by libguile and the application.
4928 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4929 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4930 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4931 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4933 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4934 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4936 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4937 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4938 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4940 ** Random number library functions
4941 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4942 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4943 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4945 The default random state is stored in:
4947 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4948 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4949 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4954 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4956 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4957 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4958 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4959 isn't a random state.
4961 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4962 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4964 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4965 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4966 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4967 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4969 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4970 Return 32 random bits.
4972 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4973 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4975 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4976 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4978 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4979 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4981 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4982 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4984 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4985 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4986 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4990 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4992 * Changes to the distribution
4994 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4995 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4996 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4999 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
5000 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
5001 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
5003 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
5004 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
5005 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
5006 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
5009 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
5010 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
5011 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
5013 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
5015 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
5017 *** Function: batch-mode?
5019 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
5022 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
5024 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
5025 case has not been implemented.
5027 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
5028 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
5029 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
5032 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
5033 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
5035 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
5037 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5039 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
5041 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
5042 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
5045 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
5046 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
5047 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
5048 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
5051 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
5053 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
5054 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
5055 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
5056 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
5057 find those libraries.
5059 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
5060 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
5063 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
5065 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
5066 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
5067 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
5068 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
5070 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
5071 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
5072 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
5076 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
5078 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
5079 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
5080 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
5083 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
5084 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
5085 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
5086 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
5088 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
5089 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
5092 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
5093 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
5094 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
5095 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
5096 compiler where to find the libraries.
5098 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
5099 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
5100 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
5102 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
5103 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
5104 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
5105 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
5106 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
5110 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5112 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
5113 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
5114 internationalization support.
5116 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
5117 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
5118 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
5119 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
5120 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
5122 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
5123 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
5124 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
5125 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
5126 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
5128 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
5129 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
5130 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
5131 any GNU mirror site.
5133 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
5135 ** New function: add-history STRING
5136 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
5137 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
5138 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
5140 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
5142 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
5143 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
5144 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
5147 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
5148 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
5149 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
5151 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
5153 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
5156 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
5157 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
5160 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
5161 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
5162 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
5163 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
5164 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
5165 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
5167 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
5168 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
5169 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
5170 of the form mentioned above.
5172 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
5173 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
5174 returned in the special `rest' list.
5176 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
5177 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
5179 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
5181 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
5183 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
5185 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
5186 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
5187 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
5188 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
5189 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
5190 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
5191 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
5192 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
5195 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
5197 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
5199 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
5200 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
5203 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
5204 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
5205 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
5209 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
5210 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
5211 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
5212 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
5213 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
5214 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
5215 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
5216 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
5219 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
5221 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
5222 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
5223 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
5225 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
5227 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
5228 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
5230 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
5231 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
5232 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
5234 Why do we have this function?
5235 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
5236 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
5237 primitive, and display it differently, and
5238 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
5239 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
5242 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
5243 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
5246 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
5247 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
5248 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
5249 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
5251 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
5252 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
5255 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
5256 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
5258 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
5260 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
5261 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
5262 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
5263 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
5264 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
5265 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
5266 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
5269 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
5271 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
5272 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
5274 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
5275 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
5276 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
5277 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
5278 properly continue the print chain.
5280 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
5281 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
5282 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
5283 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
5284 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
5285 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
5286 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
5287 print-state, it is simply ignored.
5289 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
5290 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
5291 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
5292 safest to not check for these pairs.
5294 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
5295 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
5296 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
5297 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
5299 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
5301 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
5302 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
5304 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
5306 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
5308 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
5309 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
5310 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
5312 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
5313 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
5314 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
5316 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
5317 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
5318 the following functions and macros:
5320 Function: make-fluid
5322 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
5323 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
5324 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
5325 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
5326 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
5328 Function: fluid? OBJ
5330 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
5332 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
5333 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
5335 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
5336 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
5338 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
5340 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
5341 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
5342 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
5343 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
5344 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
5345 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
5346 modified by `with-fluids*'.
5348 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
5350 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
5351 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
5352 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
5353 should evaluate to a fluid.
5355 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
5357 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
5358 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
5359 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
5360 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
5361 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
5363 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
5366 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
5368 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
5370 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
5372 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
5375 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
5376 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
5377 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
5378 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
5379 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
5382 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
5383 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
5384 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
5386 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
5387 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
5388 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
5390 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
5391 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
5392 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5393 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
5395 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
5396 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
5397 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5398 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
5400 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
5401 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
5402 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
5403 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
5405 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
5406 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
5407 their revealed counts set to zero.
5409 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5410 Returns an integer file descriptor.
5412 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5413 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
5415 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5416 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
5418 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5419 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
5420 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
5422 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
5423 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
5424 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
5426 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
5427 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
5428 default environment inherited by child processes.
5430 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
5431 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
5432 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
5434 The return value is unspecified.
5436 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
5437 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
5438 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
5439 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
5440 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
5442 The return value is unspecified.
5444 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
5445 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
5453 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
5454 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
5457 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
5460 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
5461 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
5462 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
5464 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
5465 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
5466 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
5467 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
5470 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
5471 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
5473 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
5474 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
5475 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
5476 the `environ' procedure.
5478 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
5479 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
5482 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
5483 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
5485 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
5486 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
5487 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
5488 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
5490 *** procedure: times
5491 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
5492 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
5493 return a selected component:
5496 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
5500 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
5503 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
5507 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
5508 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
5512 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
5513 terminated child processes.
5515 ** Removed: list-length
5516 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
5517 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
5519 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
5521 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
5523 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
5525 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
5526 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
5527 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
5528 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
5530 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
5531 extra complexity it introduces.
5533 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
5534 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
5536 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
5537 variable to any non-empty value.
5539 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
5540 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
5542 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5544 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
5545 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
5547 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
5549 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
5550 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
5552 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
5554 ** vector handling routines
5556 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
5557 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
5558 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
5559 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
5560 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
5562 ** pair and list routines
5564 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
5567 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
5569 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
5572 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5574 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
5576 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
5577 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5578 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5579 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5580 site-specific initialization code.
5582 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5583 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5584 initialization processes.
5586 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5587 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5588 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5589 initialized properly.
5591 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5592 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5593 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5595 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5596 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5597 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5598 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5599 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5601 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5603 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5604 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5605 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5606 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5607 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5609 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5610 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5611 which look like this:
5614 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5616 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5617 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5620 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5621 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5624 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5626 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5627 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5628 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5630 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5631 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5632 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5633 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5634 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5636 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5637 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5639 int (*free) (SCM port);
5640 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5641 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5642 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5646 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5647 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5648 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5650 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5653 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5654 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5655 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5657 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5658 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5659 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5662 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5666 struct timeval *timeout);
5668 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5669 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5670 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5671 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5672 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5673 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5675 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5676 scm_catch_body_t body,
5678 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5681 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5682 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5683 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5684 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5685 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5686 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5688 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5690 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5693 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5694 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5695 spawning threads from application C code.
5697 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5698 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5699 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5700 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5701 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5702 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5704 ** Removed functions:
5706 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5707 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5709 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5711 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5712 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5714 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5716 ** mbstrings are now removed
5718 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5719 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5721 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5723 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5724 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5725 their new names and arguments:
5727 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5728 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5729 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5730 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5733 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5735 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5737 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5740 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5742 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5743 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5744 pass a #f arg to catch.
5746 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5748 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5749 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5752 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5753 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5754 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5755 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5756 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5757 reclaim its storage.
5759 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5760 worrying that some other function you call will call
5761 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5762 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5763 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5764 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5767 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5769 * Changes to the distribution
5771 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5772 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5775 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5776 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5778 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5779 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5781 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5783 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5784 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5785 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5787 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5789 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5790 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5791 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5792 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5793 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5794 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5796 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5797 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5798 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5801 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5802 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5803 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5804 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5806 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5807 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5808 libraries to your link command:
5810 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5811 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5812 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5813 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5815 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5816 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5817 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5819 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5821 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5822 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5825 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5827 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5828 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5829 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5830 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5831 searched is system dependent.
5833 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5835 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5837 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5839 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5840 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5842 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5844 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5845 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5846 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5847 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5848 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5851 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5853 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5854 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5855 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5856 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5857 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5859 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5861 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5862 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5864 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5866 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5867 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5868 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5871 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5873 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5874 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5875 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5876 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5878 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5879 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5881 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5883 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5884 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5886 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5888 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5889 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5897 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5899 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5900 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5901 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5902 a more informative way.
5904 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5905 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5906 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5907 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5908 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5909 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5911 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5912 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5915 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5916 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5917 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5920 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5921 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5922 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5923 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5924 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5925 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5927 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5928 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5929 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5930 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5933 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5934 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5935 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5936 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5937 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5938 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5940 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5941 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5942 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5943 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5944 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5946 *** regexp functions
5948 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5949 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5950 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5952 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5953 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5954 with SCSH regular expressions.
5956 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5957 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5958 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5959 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5961 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5962 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5963 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5964 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5966 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5967 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5968 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5969 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5970 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5971 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5973 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5974 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5975 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5976 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5977 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5979 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5981 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5982 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5983 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5984 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5986 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5987 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5988 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5990 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5991 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5993 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5996 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5997 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5998 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
6000 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
6001 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
6002 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
6004 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
6005 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
6006 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
6007 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
6008 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
6011 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
6013 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
6014 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
6015 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
6016 used when different portions of a string are passed to
6017 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
6018 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
6020 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
6021 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
6022 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
6024 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
6025 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
6028 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
6029 and replace them with the contents of another string.
6031 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
6032 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
6033 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
6034 may be one of the following arguments:
6036 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
6038 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
6040 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
6041 the regexp match is written.
6043 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
6044 following the regexp match is written.
6046 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
6047 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
6050 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
6051 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
6052 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
6053 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
6054 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
6055 which should be matched against this regular expression.
6057 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
6060 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
6061 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
6062 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
6063 written out to PORT.
6065 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
6066 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
6067 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
6068 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
6069 will return after processing a single match.
6071 *** Match Structures
6073 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
6074 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
6075 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
6076 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
6077 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
6078 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
6081 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
6082 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
6083 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
6084 information about the original target string that was matched against a
6085 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
6087 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
6088 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
6089 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
6091 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
6092 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
6093 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
6094 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
6095 number N did not match, return `#f'.
6097 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
6098 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
6100 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
6101 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
6103 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
6104 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
6106 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
6107 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
6109 **** Function: match:count MATCH
6110 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
6111 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
6112 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
6114 **** Function: match:string MATCH
6115 Return the original TARGET string.
6117 *** Backslash Escapes
6119 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
6120 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
6121 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
6122 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
6123 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
6124 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
6126 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
6127 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
6128 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
6129 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
6130 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
6131 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
6132 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
6133 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
6135 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
6136 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
6137 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
6138 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
6139 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
6140 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
6141 each match a single backslash in the target string.
6143 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
6144 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
6145 return the resulting string.
6147 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
6148 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
6149 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
6150 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
6151 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
6152 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
6153 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
6154 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
6155 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
6156 translated to the single character `*'.
6158 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
6159 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
6160 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
6161 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
6162 consecutive backslashes:
6164 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
6166 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
6167 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
6168 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
6170 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
6171 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
6172 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
6173 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
6174 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
6175 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
6177 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
6179 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
6180 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
6181 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
6182 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
6183 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
6184 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
6185 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
6186 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
6187 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
6188 cumbersome escape syntax.
6190 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6192 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6194 * Changes to system call interfaces:
6196 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
6199 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
6201 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
6203 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
6206 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
6207 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
6208 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
6209 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
6210 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
6212 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
6213 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
6214 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
6215 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
6216 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
6217 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
6218 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
6221 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
6222 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
6223 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
6226 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
6227 `force-output' on every port open for output.
6229 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
6230 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
6231 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
6232 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
6233 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
6234 installed, you can say:
6236 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
6239 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6241 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
6242 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
6243 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
6244 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
6245 new dynamic roots and threads.
6248 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
6250 * Changes to the distribution.
6252 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
6254 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
6255 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
6256 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
6257 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
6258 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
6259 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
6260 programming language. These are packaged together because the
6261 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
6263 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
6266 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
6267 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
6272 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6274 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
6275 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
6277 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
6278 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
6279 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
6280 the (command-line) function.
6281 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
6282 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
6283 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
6285 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
6286 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
6287 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
6288 command line arguments
6289 -ds do -s script at this point
6290 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
6291 -h, --help display this help and exit
6292 -v, --version display version information and exit
6293 \ read arguments from following script lines
6295 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
6296 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
6298 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6301 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6305 (main (command-line))
6307 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
6309 ekko a speckled gecko
6311 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
6312 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
6313 following list of command-line arguments:
6315 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
6317 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
6318 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
6319 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
6320 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
6321 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6323 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
6325 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
6327 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
6328 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
6331 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
6332 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
6333 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
6334 SCSH) for circumventing them.
6336 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
6337 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
6338 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
6339 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
6341 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
6345 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6349 If the user invokes this script as follows:
6351 ekko a speckled gecko
6353 Unix expands this into
6355 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
6357 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
6358 read from the second line of the script, producing:
6360 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6362 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
6363 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6365 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
6366 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
6367 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
6368 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
6369 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
6370 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
6371 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
6372 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
6373 it only terminates the argument list.)
6374 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
6375 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
6376 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
6377 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
6378 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
6379 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
6380 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
6381 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
6383 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6385 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
6386 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
6387 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
6388 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
6389 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
6391 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
6392 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
6393 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
6395 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
6397 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
6398 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
6399 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
6400 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
6403 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
6404 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6405 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6407 * Changes to Scheme functions
6409 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
6410 and disabled by default.
6412 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
6413 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
6414 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
6415 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
6417 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
6419 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
6421 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
6422 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
6424 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
6425 (read-set! keywords #f)
6427 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
6428 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
6429 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
6432 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
6433 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
6434 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
6437 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
6438 support for Scheme functions.
6440 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6441 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
6442 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
6443 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
6446 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6447 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
6448 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
6451 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
6452 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
6453 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
6456 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
6457 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
6458 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
6459 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
6460 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
6461 display the result as a prompt.
6462 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
6464 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
6465 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
6466 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
6469 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
6470 procedure of zero arguments.
6472 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
6473 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
6474 argument is bound in the current module.
6476 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
6477 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
6478 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
6479 public bindings into the current module.
6481 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
6482 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
6484 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
6485 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
6487 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
6488 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
6490 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
6491 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
6493 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
6494 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
6496 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
6497 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
6498 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
6499 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
6500 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
6502 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
6503 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
6504 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
6505 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
6507 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
6510 ** Changes to I/O functions
6512 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
6513 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
6514 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
6516 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
6517 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
6518 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
6520 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
6521 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
6523 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
6524 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
6525 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
6526 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
6528 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
6530 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
6531 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
6533 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
6534 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
6535 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
6536 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
6537 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
6540 'trim omit delimiter from result
6541 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
6542 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
6543 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
6545 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
6547 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
6548 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
6550 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
6551 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
6552 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
6553 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
6554 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
6556 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
6557 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
6558 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
6560 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
6561 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
6562 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
6563 above, and defaults to 'peek.
6565 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
6566 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6568 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
6569 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
6571 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
6573 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
6574 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
6575 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
6576 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
6577 a delimiting character.
6578 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6580 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6581 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6582 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6583 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6584 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6585 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6587 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6588 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6590 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6591 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6592 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6594 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6595 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6596 the array to read and write.
6598 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6599 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6602 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6604 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6607 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6608 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6609 Values for COMMAND are:
6611 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6612 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6613 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6614 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6615 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6616 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6617 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6618 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6620 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6622 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6623 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6624 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6625 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6626 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6627 corresponding return set will be the same.
6629 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6632 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6633 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6634 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6635 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6636 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6637 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6638 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6639 special file being created.
6641 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6642 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6644 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6645 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6646 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6647 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6648 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6649 and originating address.
6651 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6652 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6653 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6655 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6658 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6659 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6662 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6663 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6664 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6665 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6666 this function returns #f.
6668 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6669 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6670 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6673 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6674 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6675 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6678 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6679 a valid STATUS value.
6681 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6683 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6684 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6686 Component Accessor Setter
6687 ========================= ============ ============
6688 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6689 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6690 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6691 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6692 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6693 year tm:year set-tm:year
6694 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6695 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6696 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6697 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6698 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6700 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6701 describing the host system:
6704 ============================================== ================
6705 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6706 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6707 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6708 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6709 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6711 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6712 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6713 system's user database:
6716 ====================== =================
6717 user name passwd:name
6718 user password passwd:passwd
6721 real name passwd:gecos
6722 home directory passwd:dir
6723 shell program passwd:shell
6725 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6726 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6727 system's group database:
6730 ======================= ============
6731 group name group:name
6732 group password group:passwd
6734 group members group:mem
6736 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6737 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6741 ========================= ===============
6742 official name of host hostent:name
6743 alias list hostent:aliases
6744 host address type hostent:addrtype
6745 length of address hostent:length
6746 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6748 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6749 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6753 ========================= ===============
6754 official name of net netent:name
6755 alias list netent:aliases
6756 net number type netent:addrtype
6757 net number netent:net
6759 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6760 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6764 ========================= ===============
6765 official protocol name protoent:name
6766 alias list protoent:aliases
6767 protocol number protoent:proto
6769 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6770 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6774 ========================= ===============
6775 official service name servent:name
6776 alias list servent:aliases
6777 port number servent:port
6778 protocol to use servent:proto
6780 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6781 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6784 ======================================== ===============
6785 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6786 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6787 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6788 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6790 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6791 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6792 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6794 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6795 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6797 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6798 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6800 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6801 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6803 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6805 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6807 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6808 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6809 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6811 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6812 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6813 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6814 return the remaining characters as a string.
6816 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6817 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6818 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6820 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6822 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6824 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6827 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6830 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6831 and returns the array
6833 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6834 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6835 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6837 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6839 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6840 symbol's value from C code:
6842 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6843 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6844 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6845 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6847 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6848 without assigning them a value.
6850 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6851 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6852 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6854 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6855 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6856 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6858 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6859 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6861 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6862 doesn't actually care about that.
6864 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6865 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6866 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6868 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6869 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6870 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6871 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6872 which we have just created and initialized.
6874 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6875 should one occur. We call it like this:
6876 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6878 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6879 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6880 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6881 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6882 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6883 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6886 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6887 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6888 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6889 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6890 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6891 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6892 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6895 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6896 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6897 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6898 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6899 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6902 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6903 scm_internal_catch, except:
6905 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6906 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6907 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6908 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6911 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6912 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6913 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6915 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6916 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6917 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6918 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6921 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6922 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6923 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6925 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6926 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6927 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6928 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6929 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6931 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6932 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6933 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6935 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6936 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6937 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6939 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6940 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6942 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6943 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6944 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6947 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6948 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6949 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6950 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6951 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6952 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6953 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6956 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6957 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6959 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6960 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6961 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6962 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6963 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6966 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6967 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6969 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6970 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6973 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6974 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6976 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6979 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6980 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6981 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6982 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6983 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6984 given the following arguments:
6986 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6988 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6990 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6992 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6995 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6996 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6997 command-line arguments.
6999 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
7000 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
7001 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
7002 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
7003 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
7004 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
7007 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
7010 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
7011 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
7013 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
7014 rearranged slightly. They are now:
7016 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7017 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
7018 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
7019 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
7021 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7022 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
7024 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7025 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
7026 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
7027 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
7029 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
7030 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
7032 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
7033 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
7035 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
7037 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
7038 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
7039 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
7042 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
7043 returns a port instead of an FD object.
7045 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
7046 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
7051 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
7054 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
7056 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
7057 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
7058 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
7059 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
7061 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
7063 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
7065 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
7066 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
7067 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
7068 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
7069 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
7070 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
7071 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
7072 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
7073 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
7074 for more information.
7076 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
7077 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
7079 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
7080 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
7081 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
7082 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
7083 following two lines at the top of the file:
7085 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7088 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
7089 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
7090 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
7092 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
7094 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
7096 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
7099 (display (car args))
7100 (if (pair? (cdr args))
7102 (loop (cdr args)))))
7105 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
7106 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
7107 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
7108 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
7109 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
7110 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
7114 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
7117 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
7120 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
7122 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
7123 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
7124 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
7125 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
7126 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
7129 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
7130 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
7131 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
7132 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
7133 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
7136 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
7139 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
7140 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
7141 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
7144 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
7145 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
7146 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
7148 to see a backtrace, and
7149 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
7150 to see them by default.
7154 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
7156 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
7158 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
7159 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
7162 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
7163 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
7164 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
7165 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
7168 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
7169 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
7170 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
7171 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
7172 functions which inspired them.
7174 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
7175 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
7179 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
7181 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
7183 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
7184 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
7187 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
7188 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
7189 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
7191 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
7192 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
7193 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
7194 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
7195 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
7197 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
7199 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
7200 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
7201 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
7204 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
7207 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
7209 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
7210 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
7211 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
7212 above should serve their purposes.
7214 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
7215 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
7216 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
7217 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
7219 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
7222 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
7223 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
7224 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
7225 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
7227 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
7228 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
7229 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
7230 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
7232 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
7233 for the `read' function.
7236 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
7237 to that of `integer?'.
7239 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
7240 use the R4RS names for these functions.
7242 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
7243 it simply returns the object's property list.
7245 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
7246 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
7247 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
7248 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
7250 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
7252 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
7255 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
7257 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
7258 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
7260 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
7262 void (*main_func) (),
7265 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
7266 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
7267 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
7268 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
7269 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
7271 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
7272 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
7273 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
7274 know which arguments have been processed.
7276 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
7277 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
7278 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
7279 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
7280 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
7282 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
7283 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
7284 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
7285 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
7286 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
7287 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
7288 people from making that mistake.
7290 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
7291 convenient ways to override these when desired.
7293 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
7295 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
7299 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
7302 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
7303 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
7304 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
7305 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
7308 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
7309 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
7310 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
7311 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
7314 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
7315 have been added to the Guile library.
7317 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
7318 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
7319 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
7322 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
7323 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
7324 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
7326 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
7327 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
7328 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
7329 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
7330 argument from the list.
7333 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
7336 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
7337 null-terminated string, and returns it.
7339 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
7340 to a Scheme port object.
7342 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
7343 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
7348 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
7350 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
7351 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
7352 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
7353 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
7354 code as a special datatype.
7356 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
7357 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
7358 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
7359 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
7360 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
7363 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
7364 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
7365 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
7366 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
7367 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
7369 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
7372 Copyright information:
7374 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7376 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7377 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7378 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7379 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7381 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7382 of this document, or of portions of it,
7383 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7384 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7389 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"