Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
-Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
See the end for copying conditions.
Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
\f
+Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
+
+* Changes to the distribution
+
+** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
+
+We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
+repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
+from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
+- You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
+ libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
+ obtain these programs.
+- Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
+ `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
+
+The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
+humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
+Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
+derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
+make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
+
+However, this approach means that minor differences between
+developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
+So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
+added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
+appropriately.
+
+
+** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
+features:
+
+--disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
+--disable-posix omit posix interfaces
+--disable-networking omit networking interfaces
+--disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
+
+These are likely to become separate modules some day.
+
+** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
+
+This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
+an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
+
+Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
+the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
+
+(gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
+(gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
+
+Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
+a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
+slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
+turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
+
+** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
+
+Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
+
+Checks that
+
+1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
+2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
+ scm_must_malloc
+3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
+
+But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
+each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
+
+A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
+`malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
+number of objects of that kind.
+
+** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
+
+Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
+system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
+their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
+space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
+-I options for the root build and root source directory.
+
+** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
+
+** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
+
+* Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
+
+** New help facility
+
+Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
+ (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
+ (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
+ (help) gives this text
+
+`help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
+`apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
+
+Examples: (help help)
+ (help cons)
+ (help "output-string")
+
+** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
+
+The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
+replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
+details for us.
+
+The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
+library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
+will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
+libltdl.
+
+The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
+portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
+use absolute filenames when possible.
+
+If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
+try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
+to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
+extensions.
+
+** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
+
+Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
+Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
+thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
+the pthreads to allocate the stack.
+
+** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
+
+** Positions of erring expression in scripts
+
+With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
+scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
+documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
+
+You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
+source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
+the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
+
+ (read-enable 'positions)
+ (debug-enable 'debug)
+
+** Backtraces in scripts
+
+It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
+
+Put
+
+ (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
+
+at the top of the script.
+
+(The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
+ The second enables backtraces.)
+
+** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
+an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
+
+** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
+tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
+
+** gc-thunk is deprecated
+
+gc-thunk will be removed in next release of Guile. It has been
+replaced by after-gc-hook.
+
+** New hook: after-gc-hook
+
+after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
+the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
+point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
+
+Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
+purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
+when this hook is run in the future.
+
+C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
+scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
+
+* Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
+
+** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
+
+These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
+
+** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
+
+(ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
+extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
+
+(simple-format port message . args)
+Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
+MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
+the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
+~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
+If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
+if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
+Does not add a trailing newline."
+
+** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
+
+** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
+only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
+
+** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
+Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
+
+** Deprecated: list*
+
+The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
+
+** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
+
+* Changes to the gh_ interface
+
+** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
+
+Use gh_bool2scm instead.
+
+* Changes to the scm_ interface
+
+** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
+
+Thanks to Greg Badros!
+
+** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
+
+Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
+macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
+guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
+
+However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
+guile.
+
+** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
+
+SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
+the readability of argument checking.
+
+** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
+
+** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
+
+Compose/decompose an SCM value.
+
+The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
+long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
+options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
+SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
+should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
+composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
+individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
+
+E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
+
+ SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
+
+** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
+Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
+
+You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
+
+** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
+SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
+SCM_NVECTORP
+
+These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
+
+** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
+scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
+SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
+
+Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
+current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
+implementation with gmp in the future.
+
+** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
+must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
+releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
+
+** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
+resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
+special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
+the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
+in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
+type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
+beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
+
+ if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
+ scm_end_input (object);
+ else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
+ ptob->flush (object);
+
+although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
+chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
+of the ptob.
+
+** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
+
+These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
+
+** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
+Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
+removed in a future version.
+
+** The format of error message strings has changed
+
+The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
+primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
+This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
+~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
+
+During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
+you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
+
+There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
+autoconf. Put
+
+ AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
+
+in your configure.in.
+
+Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
+ preprocessor.
+
+In C:
+
+#ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
+#define FMT_S "~S"
+#else
+#define FMT_S "%S"
+#endif
+
+Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
+
+#define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
+
+In Scheme:
+
+(define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
+(define make-message string-append)
+
+(define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
+
+Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
+
+In C:
+
+scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
+ ...);
+
+In Scheme:
+
+(scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
+ ...)
+
+
+** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
+
+Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
+coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
+
+Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
+
+** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
+ `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
+ COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
+ of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
+ the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
+ returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
+
+ The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
+ origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
+ to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
+
+** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
+ `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
+ on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
+ waiting on COND.
+
+** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
+ `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
+ the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
+ of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
+ with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
+
+ The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
+ function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
+ DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
+ that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
+ with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
+ `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
+ called at thread termination time is unspecified.
+
+ Destructors are not yet implemented.
+
+** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
+ `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
+ calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
+
+** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
+ `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
+ KEY in the calling thread.
+
+** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
+ `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
+ whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
+ currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
+ associated with the key.
+
+** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
+
+Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
+TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
+
+** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
+
+Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
+is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
+multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
+
+** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
+
+Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
+function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
+
+** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
+
+Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
+
+If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
+returned is undefined.
+
+If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
+returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
+scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
+
+If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
+returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
+a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
+
+** New C level GC hooks
+
+Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
+
+ scm_before_gc_c_hook
+ scm_after_gc_c_hook
+
+are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
+thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
+scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
+
+ scm_before_mark_c_hook
+ scm_before_sweep_c_hook
+ scm_after_sweep_c_hook
+
+are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
+the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
+modules.
+
+** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
+
+Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
+more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
+the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
+and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
+
+** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
+
+** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
+
+** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
+
+** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
+
+(This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
+ until now.)
+
+* Changes to system call interfaces:
+
+** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
+provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
+descriptors were checked.
+
+** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
+atomically written to a pipe.
+
+** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
+compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
+Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
+exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
+need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
+'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
+now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
+available.
+
+** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
+result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
+is changed without calling tzset.
+
+* Changes to the networking interfaces:
+
+** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
+long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
+particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
+
+(define write-network-long
+ (lambda (value port)
+ (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
+ (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
+ (uniform-vector-write v port))))
+
+(define read-network-long
+ (lambda (port)
+ (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
+ (uniform-vector-read! v port)
+ (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
+
+** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
+instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
+
+** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
+specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
+since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
+'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
+
+** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
+optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
+remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
+gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
+#t was always used.
+
+\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
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