Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
\f
+Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
+
+configure has new options to remove support for certain features:
+
+--disable-posix omit posix interfaces
+--disable-net omit networking interfaces
+--disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
+
+These are likely to become separate modules some day.
+
+\f
Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
+* Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
+
+** Debugger
+
+An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
+been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
+in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
+
+Type
+
+ (debug)
+
+after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
+for a description of available commands.
+
+If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
+anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
+screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
+
+ (debug-enable 'backwards)
+
+in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
+use indentation to indicate stack level.)
+
+The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
+
+** Further enhancements to backtraces
+
+There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
+on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
+("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
+each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
+within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
+adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
+with a `$'.
+
+** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
+
+The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
+regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
+started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
+reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
+
+Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
+the file and should not be affected by this change.
+
+** Hooks are now represented as smobs
+
+* Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
+
+** Readline support has changed again.
+
+The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
+instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
+to activate readline is now
+
+ (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
+ (activate-readline)
+
+This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
+
+To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
+enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
+default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
+request:
+
+Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
+Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
+placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
+people.
+
+However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
+License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
+dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
+Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
+which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
+non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
+
+So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
+themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
+
+** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
+
+If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
+object it receives is the same string passed to
+regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
+Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
+string, not the suffix.
+
+If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
+from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
+same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
+
+** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
+
+Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
+match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
+list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
+other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
+position.
+
+If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
+
+** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
+
+For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
+and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
+the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
+appear from left to right.
+
+This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
+list-matches.
+
+Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
+
+ (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
+ (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
+
+If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
+
+** Hooks
+
+*** New function: hook? OBJ
+
+Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
+
+*** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
+
+Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
+ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
+hook object is printed to ease debugging.
+
+*** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
+
+Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
+
+*** New function: hook->list HOOK
+
+Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
+applied to HOOK.
+
+** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
+
+This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
+fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
+mentioning it here anyway.
+
+** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
+
+Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
+associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
+(see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
+indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
+user level.
+
+*** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
+
+Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
+
+*** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
+
+Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
+otherwise return #f.
+
+*** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
+
+Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
+returned by `opendir'.
+
+** New function: using-readline?
+
+Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
+
+** structs will be removed in 1.4
+
+Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
+and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
+
+* Changes to the scm_ interface
+
+** structs will be removed in 1.4
+
+The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
+replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
+GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
+
+** The internal representation of subr's has changed
+
+Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
+now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
+
+*** New variable: scm_subr_table
+
+An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
+and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
+documentation slots are not yet used.
+
+** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
+
+It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
+primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
+argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
+normal evaluation.
+
+Example:
+
+ (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
+ (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
+ (string-append x y))
+
++ will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
+can also be used for concatenating strings.
+
+Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
+rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
+be made in a clean way.]
+
+*** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
+
+ New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
+
+ New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
+
+These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
+a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
+
+[This is experimental code which may change soon.]
+
+*** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
+
+ New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
+
+ New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
+
+These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
+behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
+`enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
+generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
+scm_wta.
+
+[This is experimental code which may change soon.]
+
+*** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
+
+ New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
+
+ New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
+
+These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
+GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
+
+[This is experimental code which may change soon.]
+
+** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
+
+Evaluates the body of a special form.
+
+** The internal representation of struct's has changed
+
+Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
+and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
+the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
+generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
+dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
+expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
+
+This should not make any difference for most users.
+
+** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
+
+Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
+these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
+
+*** New functions for applying generic functions
+
+ New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
+ New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
+ New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
+ New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
+ New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
+
+** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
+
+It is now replaced by:
+
+** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
+
+Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
+binds a variable named NAME to it.
+
+This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
+
+Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
+This might change when we get the new module system.
+
+[The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
+
+
\f
Changes since Guile 1.3:
** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
-** now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
+** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
-Currently, the variable is created in the root module. This will
-change when we get the new module system.
+Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
+might change when we get the new module system.
** The smob interface
HCoop / bpt / guile.git / blobdiff