Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
\f
-Changes in 1.9.0 (changes since the 1.8.x series):
+(During the 1.9 series, we will keep an incremental NEWS for the latest
+prerelease, and a full NEWS corresponding to 1.8 -> 2.0.)
+
+Changes in 1.9.5 (since the 1.9.4 prerelease):
+
+** Compiled procedures may now have more than one arity.
+
+This can be the case, for example, in case-lambda procedures. The
+arities of compiled procedures may be accessed via procedures from the
+`(system vm program)' module; see "Compiled Procedures", "Optional
+Arguments", and "Case-lambda" in the manual.
+
+** `case-lambda' is now available in the default environment.
+
+The binding in the default environment is equivalent to the one from the
+`(srfi srfi-16)' module. Use the srfi-16 module explicitly if you wish
+to maintain compatibility with Guile 1.8 and earlier.
+
+** VM calling convention change: callee-parsed arguments
+
+As an internal implementation detail, compiled procedures are now
+responsible for parsing their own arguments, which they receive on the
+stack.
+
+** VM support for multiple-arity dispatch
+
+Calls to procedures with multiple arities, for example those made be
+`case-lambda', now dispatch via special opcodes, without the need to
+cons a rest list.
+
+** Intermediate language support for multiple-arity procedures.
+
+In the intermediate language, tree-il, all procedures may have one or
+more arities. This allows all Guile languages to have multiple arities.
+It is, however, an incompatible change, and anyone maintaining a
+compiler out-of-tree would be advised to get it into Guile soon :)
+
+** `lambda*' and `define*' are now available in the default environment
+
+As with `case-lambda', `(ice-9 optargs)' continues to be supported, for
+compatibility purposes. No semantic change has been made (we hope).
+Optional and keyword arguments now dispatch via special VM operations,
+without the need to cons rest arguments, making them very fast.
+
+** Better support for Lisp `nil'.
+
+The bit representation of `nil' has been tweaked so that it is now very
+efficient to check e.g. if a value is equal to Scheme's end-of-list or
+Lisp's nil. Additionally there are a heap of new, specific predicates
+like scm_is_null_or_nil. Probably in the future we will #define
+scm_is_null to scm_is_null_or_nil.
+
+** No future.
+
+Actually the future is still in the state that it was, is, and ever
+shall be, Amen, except that `futures.c' and `futures.h' are no longer a
+part of it. These files were experimental, never compiled, and would be
+better implemented in Scheme anyway. In the future, that is.
+
+** Support for static allocation of strings, symbols, and subrs.
+
+Calls to snarfing CPP macros like SCM_DEFINE macro will now allocate
+much of their associated data as static variables, reducing Guile's
+memory footprint.
+
+** Inline vector allocation
+
+Instead of having vectors point out into the heap for their data, their
+data is now allocated inline to the vector object itself. The same is
+true for bytevectors, by default, though there is an indirection
+available which should allow for making a bytevector from an existing
+memory region.
+
+** New syntax: include-from-path.
+
+`include-from-path' is like `include', except it looks for its file in
+the load path. It can be used to compile other files into a file.
+
+** New syntax: quasisyntax.
+
+`quasisyntax' is to `syntax' as `quasiquote' is to `quote'. See the R6RS
+documentation for more information. Thanks to Andre van Tonder for the
+implementation.
+
+** Cleanups to Guile's primitive object system.
+
+There were a number of pieces in `objects.[ch]' that tried to be a
+minimal object system, but were never documented, and were quickly
+obseleted by GOOPS' merge into Guile proper. So `scm_make_class_object',
+`scm_make_subclass_object', `scm_metaclass_standard', and like symbols
+from objects.h are no more. In the very unlikely case in which these
+were useful to you, we urge you to contact guile-devel.
+
+** GOOPS cleanups.
+
+GOOPS had a number of concepts that were relevant to the days of Tcl,
+but not any more: operators and entities, mainly. These objects were
+never documented, and it is unlikely that they were ever used. Operators
+were a kind of generic specific to the Tcl support. Entities were
+applicable structures, but were unusable; entities will come back in the
+next alpha release, but with a less stupid name.
+
+** Faster bit operations.
+
+The bit-twiddling operations `ash', `logand', `logior', and `logxor' now
+have dedicated bytecodes. Guile is not just for symbolic computation,
+it's for number crunching too.
+
+** `inet-ntop' and `inet-pton' are always available.
+
+Guile now use a portable implementation of `inet_pton'/`inet_ntop', so
+there is no more need to use `inet-aton'/`inet-ntoa'. The latter
+functions are deprecated.
+
+** R6RS block comment support
+
+Guile now supports R6RS nested block comments. The start of a comment is
+marked with `#|', and the end with `|#'.
+
+** `guile-2' cond-expand feature
+
+To test if your code is running under Guile 2.0 (or its alpha releases),
+test for the `guile-2' cond-expand feature. Like this:
+
+ (cond-expand (guile-2 (eval-when (compile)
+ ;; This must be evaluated at compile time.
+ (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
+ (guile
+ ;; Earlier versions of Guile do not have a
+ ;; separate compilation phase.
+ (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
+
+** ABI harmonization
+
+`scm_search_path' now has the signature it did in 1.8, reverting an
+incompatible change made in 1.9.0.
+
+** Compile-time warnings: -Warity-mismatch
+
+Guile can warn when you pass the wrong number of arguments to a
+procedure. Pass the -Warity-mismatch on the `guile-tools compile'
+command line, or add `#:warnings '(arity-mismatch)' to your `compile'
+or `compile-file' invocation.
+
+** Guile is now built without `-Werror' by default
+
+Use the `--enable-error-on-warning' configure option to enable it.
+
+** And of course, the usual collection of bugfixes
+
+Interested users should see the ChangeLog for more information.
+
+
+\f
+Changes in 1.9.x (since the 1.8.x series):
* New modules (see the manual for details)
** `(srfi srfi-18)', more sophisticated multithreading support
** `(ice-9 i18n)', internationalization support
** `(rnrs bytevector)', the R6RS bytevector API
+** `(rnrs io ports)', a subset of the R6RS I/O port API
** `(system xref)', a cross-referencing facility (FIXME undocumented)
* Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
** New `guile-tools' commands: `compile', `disassemble'
-Pass the --help command-line option to these commands for more
+Pass the `--help' command-line option to these commands for more
information.
+** Guile now adds its install prefix to the LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH
+
+Users may now install Guile to nonstandard prefixes and just run
+`/path/to/bin/guile', instead of also having to set LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH to
+include `/path/to/lib'.
+
+** Guile's Emacs integration is now more keyboard-friendly
+
+Backtraces may now be disclosed with the keyboard in addition to the
+mouse.
+
* Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
** Procedure removed: `the-environment'
This procedure was part of the interpreter's execution model, and does
not apply to the compiler.
-** Files loaded with primitive-load-path will now be compiled
+** Files loaded with `primitive-load-path' will now be compiled
automatically.
If a compiled .go file corresponding to a .scm file is not found or is
installation, care should be taken to preserve their original
timestamps.
-Autocompiled files will be stored in the user's ~/.guile-ccache
-directory, which will be created if needed. This is analogous to
-ccache's behavior for C files.
+Autocompiled files will be stored in the $XDG_CACHE_HOME/guile/ccache
+directory, where $XDG_CACHE_HOME defaults to ~/.cache. This directory
+will be created if needed.
To inhibit autocompilation, set the GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE environment
variable to 0, or pass --no-autocompile on the Guile command line.
not compiled. This bug will be fixed before 2.0. FIXME 2.0: Should say
something here about module-transformer called for compile.
+** Files loaded with `load' will now be compiled automatically.
+
+As with files loaded via `primitive-load-path', `load' will also compile
+its target if autocompilation is enabled, and a fresh compiled file is
+not found.
+
+There are two points of difference to note, however. First, `load' does
+not search `GUILE_LOAD_COMPILED_PATH' for the file; it only looks in the
+autocompilation directory, normally a subdirectory of ~/.cache/guile.
+
+Secondly, autocompilation also applies to files loaded via the -l
+command-line argument -- so the user may experience a slight slowdown
+the first time they run a Guile script, as the script is autocompiled.
+
** New POSIX procedures: `getrlimit' and `setrlimit'
Note however that the interface of these functions is likely to change
but not all of the libraries are there yet. This support is not yet
documented; ask on the mailing list if you are interested.
+** New language: Brainfuck
+
+Brainfuck is a toy language that closely models Turing machines. Guile's
+brainfuck compiler is meant to be an example of implementing other
+languages. See the manual for details, or
+http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck for more information about the
+Brainfuck language itself.
+
** Defmacros may now have docstrings.
Indeed, any macro may have a docstring. `object-documentation' from
** Scheme expresssions may be commented out with #;
-#; comments out an entire expression. See the R6RS for more information.
+#; comments out an entire expression. See SRFI-62 or the R6RS for more
+information.
-** make-stack with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
+** `make-stack' with a tail-called procedural narrowing argument no longer
works (with compiled procedures)
It used to be the case that a captured stack could be narrowed to select
(define f (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (* a b))))
-Now a syntax error is signalled, as this syntax is not supported by
+Now a syntax error is signaled, as this syntax is not supported by
default. If there is sufficient demand, this syntax can be supported
again by default.
Syntax errors still throw to the `syntax-error' key, but the arguments
are often different now. Perhaps in the future, Guile will switch to
-using standard srfi-35 conditions.
+using standard SRFI-35 conditions.
** Returning multiple values to compiled code will silently truncate the
values to the expected number
to guile-devel@gnu.org (subscription required) or bug-guile@gnu.org (no
subscription required).
+** `case-lambda' is now available in the default environment.
+
+The binding in the default environment is equivalent to the one from the
+`(srfi srfi-16)' module. Use the srfi-16 module explicitly if you wish
+to maintain compatibility with Guile 1.8 and earlier.
+
+** `lambda*' and `define*' are now available in the default environment
+
+As with `case-lambda', `(ice-9 optargs)' continues to be supported, for
+compatibility purposes. No semantic change has been made (we hope).
+Optional and keyword arguments now dispatch via special VM operations,
+without the need to cons rest arguments, making them very fast.
+
+** New syntax: include-from-path.
+
+`include-from-path' is like `include', except it looks for its file in
+the load path. It can be used to compile other files into a file.
+
+** New syntax: quasisyntax.
+
+`quasisyntax' is to `syntax' as `quasiquote' is to `quote'. See the R6RS
+documentation for more information. Thanks to Andre van Tonder for the
+implementation.
+
+** Unicode characters
+
+Unicode characters may be entered in octal format via e.g. `#\454', or
+created via (integer->char 300). A hex external representation will
+probably be introduced at some point.
+
+** Unicode strings
+
+Internally, strings are now represented either in the `latin-1'
+encoding, one byte per character, or in UTF-32, with four bytes per
+character. Strings manage their own allocation, switching if needed.
+
+Extended characters may be written in a literal string using the
+hexadecimal escapes `\xXX', `\uXXXX', or `\UXXXXXX', for 8-bit, 16-bit,
+or 24-bit codepoints, respectively, or entered directly in the native
+encoding of the port on which the string is read.
+
+** Unicode symbols
+
+One may now use U+03BB (GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMBDA) as an identifier.
+
+** Support for non-ASCII source code files
+
+The default reader now handles source code files for some of the
+non-ASCII character encodings, such as UTF-8. A non-ASCII source file
+should have an encoding declaration near the top of the file. Also,
+there is a new function, `file-encoding', that scans a port for a coding
+declaration. See the section of the manual entitled, "Character Encoding
+of Source Files".
+
+The pre-1.9.3 reader handled 8-bit clean but otherwise unspecified source
+code. This use is now discouraged.
+
+** Support for locale transcoding when reading from and writing to ports
+
+Ports now have an associated character encoding, and port read and write
+operations do conversion to and from locales automatically. Ports also
+have an associated strategy for how to deal with locale conversion
+failures.
+
+See the documentation in the manual for the four new support functions,
+`set-port-encoding!', `port-encoding', `set-port-conversion-strategy!',
+and `port-conversion-strategy'.
+
+** String and SRFI-13 functions can operate on Unicode strings
+
+** Unicode support for SRFI-14 character sets
+
+The default character sets are no longer locale dependent and contain
+characters from the whole Unicode range. There is a new predefined
+character set, `char-set:designated', which contains all assigned
+Unicode characters. There is a new debugging function, `%char-set-dump'.
+
+** Character functions operate on Unicode characters
+
+`char-upcase' and `char-downcase' use default Unicode casing rules.
+Character comparisons such as `char<?' and `char-ci<?' now sort based on
+Unicode code points.
+
+** Global variables `scm_charnames' and `scm_charnums' are removed
+
+These variables contained the names of control characters and were
+used when writing characters. While these were global, they were
+never intended to be public API. They have been replaced with private
+functions.
+
+** EBCDIC support is removed
+
+There was an EBCDIC compile flag that altered some of the character
+processing. It appeared that full EBCDIC support was never completed
+and was unmaintained.
+
+** Compile-time warnings: -Wunbound-variable, -Warity-mismatch.
+
+Guile can warn about potentially unbound free variables. Pass the
+-Wunbound-variable on the `guile-tools compile' command line, or add
+`#:warnings '(unbound-variable)' to your `compile' or `compile-file'
+invocation.
+
+Guile can also warn when you pass the wrong number of arguments to a
+procedure, with -Warity-mismatch, or `arity-mismatch' in the
+`#:warnings' as above.
+
** New macro type: syncase-macro
XXX Need to decide whether to document this for 2.0, probably should:
make-syncase-macro, make-extended-syncase-macro, macro-type,
syncase-macro-type, syncase-macro-binding
-** A new 'memoize-symbol evaluator trap has been added. This trap can
-be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code coverage.
+** A new `memoize-symbol' evaluator trap has been added.
+
+This trap can be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code
+coverage.
** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
+
This slightly improves program startup times.
** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
+
See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
+** GOOPS cleanups.
+
+GOOPS had a number of concepts that were relevant to the days of Tcl,
+but not any more: operators and entities, mainly. These objects were
+never documented, and it is unlikely that they were ever used. Operators
+were a kind of generic specific to the Tcl support. Entities were
+applicable structures, but were unusable; entities will come back in the
+next alpha release, but with a less stupid name.
+
+** `inet-ntop' and `inet-pton' are always available.
+
+Guile now use a portable implementation of `inet_pton'/`inet_ntop', so
+there is no more need to use `inet-aton'/`inet-ntoa'. The latter
+functions are deprecated.
+
+** R6RS block comment support
+
+Guile now supports R6RS nested block comments. The start of a comment is
+marked with `#|', and the end with `|#'.
+
+** `guile-2' cond-expand feature
+
+To test if your code is running under Guile 2.0 (or its alpha releases),
+test for the `guile-2' cond-expand feature. Like this:
+
+ (cond-expand (guile-2 (eval-when (compile)
+ ;; This must be evaluated at compile time.
+ (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
+ (guile
+ ;; Earlier versions of Guile do not have a
+ ;; separate compilation phase.
+ (fluid-set! current-reader my-reader)))
+
** Fix bad interaction between `false-if-exception' and stack-call.
Exceptions thrown by `false-if-exception' were erronously causing the
`(make-promise (lambda () foo))' is equivalent to `(delay foo)'.
+** `defined?' may accept a module as its second argument
+
+Previously it only accepted internal structures from the evaluator.
+
** New entry into %guile-build-info: `ccachedir'
** Fix bug in `module-bound?'.
As syntax-case is available by default, importing `(ice-9 syncase)' has
no effect, and will trigger a deprecation warning.
+** New readline history functions
+
+The (ice-9 readline) module now provides add-history, read-history,
+write-history and clear-history, which wrap the corresponding GNU
+History library functions.
+
+** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures:
+ dimensions->uniform-array, list->uniform-array, array-prototype
+
+Instead, use make-typed-array, list->typed-array, or array-type,
+respectively.
+
+** Last but not least, the `λ' macro can be used in lieu of `lambda'
+
* Changes to the C interface
+** Guile now uses libgc, the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
+
+The semantics of `scm_gc_malloc ()' have been changed, in a
+backward-compatible way. A new allocation routine,
+`scm_gc_malloc_pointerless ()', was added.
+
+Libgc is a conservative GC, which we hope will make interaction with C
+code easier and less error-prone.
+
** The GH interface (deprecated in version 1.6, 2001) was removed.
** Internal `scm_i_' functions now have "hidden" linkage with GCC/ELF
This procedure corresponds to Scheme's `module-public-interface'.
-** scm_stat has additional argument, exception_on_error
+** Inline vector allocation
+
+Instead of having vectors point out into the heap for their data, their
+data is now allocated inline to the vector object itself. The same is
+true for bytevectors, by default, though there is an indirection
+available which should allow for making a bytevector from an existing
+memory region.
+
+** Removal of Guile's primitive object system.
+
+There were a number of pieces in `objects.[ch]' that tried to be a
+minimal object system, but were never documented, and were quickly
+obseleted by GOOPS' merge into Guile proper. So `scm_make_class_object',
+`scm_make_subclass_object', `scm_metaclass_standard', and like symbols
+from objects.h are no more. In the very unlikely case in which these
+were useful to you, we urge you to contact guile-devel.
+
+** No future.
+
+Actually the future is still in the state that it was, is, and ever
+shall be, Amen, except that `futures.c' and `futures.h' are no longer a
+part of it. These files were experimental, never compiled, and would be
+better implemented in Scheme anyway. In the future, that is.
+
+** Support for static allocation of strings, symbols, and subrs.
+
+Calls to snarfing CPP macros like SCM_DEFINE macro will now allocate
+much of their associated data as static variables, reducing Guile's
+memory footprint.
+
+** `scm_stat' has an additional argument, `exception_on_error'
+** `scm_primitive_load_path' has an additional argument `exception_on_not_found'
+
+** `scm_set_port_seek' and `scm_set_port_truncate' use the `scm_t_off' type
+
+Previously they would use the `off_t' type, which is fragile since its
+definition depends on the application's value for `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS'.
+
+** The `long_long' C type, deprecated in 1.8, has been removed
+
+** Removed deprecated uniform array procedures: scm_make_uve,
+ scm_array_prototype, scm_list_to_uniform_array,
+ scm_dimensions_to_uniform_array, scm_make_ra, scm_shap2ra, scm_cvref,
+ scm_ra_set_contp, scm_aind, scm_raprin1
+
+These functions have been deprecated since early 2005.
* Changes to the distribution
later (at the discretion of each person that chooses to redistribute
part of Guile).
+** GOOPS documentation folded into Guile reference manual
+
+GOOPS, Guile's object system, used to be documented in separate manuals.
+This content is now included in Guile's manual directly.
+
** `guile-config' will be deprecated in favor of `pkg-config'
`guile-config' has been rewritten to get its information from
-pkg-config, so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
+`pkg-config', so this should be a transparent change. Note however that
guile.m4 has yet to be modified to call pkg-config instead of
guile-config.
+** Guile now provides `guile-2.0.pc' instead of `guile-1.8.pc'
+
+Programs that use `pkg-config' to find Guile or one of its Autoconf
+macros should now require `guile-2.0' instead of `guile-1.8'.
+
** New installation directory: $(pkglibdir)/1.9/ccache
If $(libdir) is /usr/lib, for example, Guile will install its .go files
to /usr/lib/guile/1.9/ccache. These files are architecture-specific.
-** New dependency: GNU libunistring.
+** Dynamically loadable extensions may be placed in a Guile-specific path
+
+Before, Guile only searched the system library paths for extensions
+(e.g. /usr/lib), which meant that the names of Guile extensions had to
+be globally unique. Installing them to a Guile-specific extensions
+directory is cleaner. Use `pkg-config --variable=extensionsdir
+guile-2.0' to get the location of the extensions directory.
+
+** New dependency: libgc
+
+See http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/, for more information.
+
+** New dependency: GNU libunistring
-See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/. We hope to merge in
-Unicode support in the next prerelease.
+See http://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/, for more information. Our
+Unicode support uses routines from libunistring.
\f
+Changes in 1.8.8 (since 1.8.7)
+
+* Bugs fixed
+
+** Fix possible buffer overruns when parsing numbers
+** Avoid clash with system setjmp/longjmp on IA64
+** Fix `wrong type arg' exceptions with IPv6 addresses
+
+\f
Changes in 1.8.7 (since 1.8.6)
* New modules (see the manual for details)
** Fix build problem when scm_t_timespec is different from struct timespec
** Fix build when compiled with -Wundef -Werror
** More build fixes for `alphaev56-dec-osf5.1b' (Tru64)
+** Build fixes for `powerpc-ibm-aix5.3.0.0' (AIX 5.3)
** With GCC, always compile with `-mieee' on `alpha*' and `sh*'
** Better diagnose broken `(strftime "%z" ...)' in `time.test' (bug #24130)
** Fix parsing of SRFI-88/postfix keywords longer than 128 characters
+** Fix reading of complex numbers where both parts are inexact decimals
** Allow @ macro to work with (ice-9 syncase)
** Fixed shadowing of libc's <random.h> on Tru64, which broke compilation
** Make sure all tests honor `$TMPDIR'
-* Changes to the distribution
-
-** New FAQ
-
-We've started collecting Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), and will
-distribute these (with answers!) in future Guile releases.
-
\f
Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
HCoop / bpt / guile.git / blobdiff