Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@prep.ai.mit.edu.
\f
-Changes in Guile 1.1 (Sun 5 Jan 1997):
+Changes since Guile 1.2:
+
+* Changes to the distribution
+
+** libguile/append.h, libguile/append.c, libguile/extchrs.h,
+libguile/extchrs.c, libguile/mbstrings.h libguile/mbstrings.c,
+libguile/sequences.h, libguile/sequences.c removed.
+
+* Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
+
+** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
+
+*** Function: batch-mode?
+
+ Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
+ mode.
+
+*** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
+
+ If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
+ case has not been implemented.
+
+** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
+To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
+The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
+support for it.
+
+The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
+mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
+
+* Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
+
+** You can now use the 'build-guile' utility to link against Guile.
+
+Guile now includes a command-line utility called 'build-guile', which
+writes to its standard output a list of flags which you must pass to
+the linker to link against the Guile library. The flags include
+'-lguile' itself.
+
+This is necessary because the Guile library may depend on other
+libraries for networking functions, thread support, and so on. To
+link your program against libguile, you must link against these
+libraries as well. The exact set of libraries depends on the type of
+system you are running, and what you have installed on it. The
+'build-guile' command uses information recorded in libguile itself to
+determine which libraries you must link against.
+
+For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
+from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
+
+ foo: ${FOO_OBJECTS}
+ ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `build-guile link` -o foo
+
+
+* Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
+
+** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
+ports.
+
+** New function: readline [PROMPT]
+Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
+prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
+editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
+works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
+
+READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
+it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
+READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
+the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
+because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
+
+For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline library
+installed on your system.
+
+See also ADD-HISTORY function.
+
+** New function: add-history STRING
+Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
+command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
+call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
+
+** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
+written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
+
+The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
+the current `prine-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
+detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
+passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
+properly continue the print chain.
+
+We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
+explicitely passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
+we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
+accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
+a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
+port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
+circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
+print-state, it is simply ignored.
+
+User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
+`port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
+argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
+safest to not check for these pairs.
+
+However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
+different port, for example to get a intermediate string
+representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
+then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
+
+ inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
+
+for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
+inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
+
+** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
+
+** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
+
+** There is now a fourth (optional) argument to make-vtable-vtable and
+ make-struct when constructing new types (vtables). This argument
+ initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
+
+** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
+That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
+itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
+
+** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
+"libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
+the following functions and macros:
+
+Function: make-fluid
+
+ Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
+ some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
+ ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
+ are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
+ like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
+
+Function: fluid? OBJ
+
+ Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
+
+Function: fluid-ref FLUID
+Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
+
+ Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
+ within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
+
+Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
+
+ FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
+ values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
+ installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
+ saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
+ or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
+ this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
+ modified by `with-fluids*'.
+
+Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
+
+ The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
+ just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
+ fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
+ should evaluate to a fluid.
+
+** Removed procedures:
+
+list-length, list-append, list-append!, list-reverse, list-reverse!
+
+** array-map renamed to array-map!
+
+** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
+
+* Changes to system call interfaces:
+
+** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
+boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
+was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
+also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
+error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
+
+** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
+file descriptor.
+
+** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
+
+** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
+
+** the argument to stat can now be a port.
+
+** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
+interfaces):
+
+** procedure: close PORT/FD
+ Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
+ works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
+ descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
+ to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
+ to zero.
+
+** procedure: port->fdes PORT
+ Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
+ effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
+
+** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
+ Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
+ file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
+
+** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
+ Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
+ file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
+ Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
+
+** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
+ Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
+ file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
+ Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
+
+ The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
+(an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
+duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
+type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
+
+ All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
+any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
+their revealed counts set to zero.
+
+** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
+ Returns an integer file descriptor.
+
+** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
+ Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
+
+** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
+ Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
+
+** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
+ Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
+ supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
+
+** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
+ Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
+ mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
+
+** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
+ Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
+ default environment inherited by child processes.
+
+ If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
+ Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
+ replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
+
+ The return value is unspecified.
+
+** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
+ Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
+ can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
+ descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
+ system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
+
+ The return value is unspecified.
+
+** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
+ Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
+ `_IONBF'
+ non-buffered
+
+ `_IOLBF'
+ line buffered
+
+ `_IOFBF'
+ block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
+ However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
+ non-buffered.
+
+ This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
+ the port.
+
+ Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
+ size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
+ mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
+
+** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
+ Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
+ to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
+ underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
+ unspecified.
+
+** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
+ Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
+
+** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
+ Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
+ specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
+ the `environ' procedure.
+
+ This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
+ call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
+ interface.
+
+** procedure: strerror ERRNO
+ Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
+
+** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
+ Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
+ This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
+ is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
+
+** procedure: times
+ Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
+ The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
+ return a selected component:
+
+ `tms:clock'
+ The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
+ arbitrary base.
+
+ `tms:utime'
+ The CPU time units used by the calling process.
+
+ `tms:stime'
+ The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
+ calling process.
+
+ `tms:cutime'
+ The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
+ calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
+ `waitpid').
+
+ `tms:cstime'
+ Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
+ terminated child processes.
+
+* Changes to the gh_ interface
+
+** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
+
+Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
+output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
+
+** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
+
+** vector handling routines
+
+Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
+(vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
+exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
+have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
+vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
+
+** pair and list routines
+
+Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
+missing.
+
+* Changes to the scm_ interface
+
+** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
+ scm_catch_body_t body,
+ void *body_data,
+ scm_catch_handler_t handler,
+ void *handler_data)
+
+A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
+scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
+the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
+(scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
+use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
+scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
+
+** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
+intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
+that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
+thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
+The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
+in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
+
+** Removed functions:
+
+scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
+scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
+
+** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
+
+These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
+from Erick Gallesio's STk.
+
+** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
+
+** mbstrings are now removed
+
+This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
+scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
+
+** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
+
+** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
+
+SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
+strings.
+
+** All genio functions changed names and interfaces; new functions are
+scm_putc, scm_puts, scm_lfwrite, scm_getc, scm_ungetc, and
+scm_do_read_line.
+
+\f
+Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
+
+* Changes to the distribution
+
+** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
+The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
+owner.
+
+Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
+anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
+
+Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
+For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
+
+** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
+
+If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
+to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
+source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
+
+* Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
+
+** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
+$(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
+you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
+(Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
+contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
+your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
+
+The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
+putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
+package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
+$(datadir)/guile.
+
+** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
+installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
+programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
+you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
+
+If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
+application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
+libraries to your link command:
+
+### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
+AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
+AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
+AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
+
+The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
+library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
+retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
+
+* Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
+
+** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
+You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
+to configure.
+
+ (dynamic-link FILENAME)
+
+ Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
+ into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
+ return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
+ file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
+ searched is system dependent.
+
+ (dynamic-object? VAL)
+
+ Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
+
+ (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
+
+ Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
+ should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
+
+ (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
+
+ Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
+ in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
+ with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
+ these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
+ function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
+ representation.
+
+ (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
+
+ Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
+ function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
+ When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
+ function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
+ etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
+
+ (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
+
+ Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
+ SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
+
+ (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
+
+ Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
+ some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
+ expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
+ `main':
+
+ int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
+
+ ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
+ `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
+ return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
+ call to `dynamic-args-call'.
+
+When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
+the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
+
+Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
+
+ (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
+ (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
+
+See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
+
+** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
+in a future version of Guile. Instead of
+
+ #/foo/bar/baz
+
+instead write
+
+ (foo bar baz)
+
+The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
+
+** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
+underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
+implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
+a more informative way.
+
+The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
+whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
+not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
+structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
+or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
+the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
+
+This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
+type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
+"printing structs".
+
+One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
+procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
+called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
+above).
+
+** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
+token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
+symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
+Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
+keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
+expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
+
+Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
+of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
+read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
+which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
+symbols.)
+
+** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
+functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
+In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
+distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
+1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
+of SCSH's regular expression functions.
+
+If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
+and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
+Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
+Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
+whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
+
+*** regexp functions
+
+By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
+means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
+be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
+
+This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
+by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
+with SCSH regular expressions.
+
+**** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
+ Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
+ it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
+ position of STR at which to begin matching.
+
+ `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
+ if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
+ Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
+ `string-match' returns `#f'.
+
+ Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
+argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
+expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
+expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
+performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
+match strings against the compiled regexp.
+
+**** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
+ Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
+ compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
+ regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
+ `regular-expression-syntax' error.
+
+ FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
+
+**** Constant: regexp/extended
+ Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
+ STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
+ If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
+
+**** Constant: regexp/icase
+ Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
+ returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
+
+**** Constant: regexp/newline
+ Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
+
+ A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
+ newline.
+
+ Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
+ immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
+ passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
+
+ Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
+ immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
+ passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
+
+**** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
+ Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
+ the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
+ from that position in the string. Return a match structure
+ describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
+ found.
+
+ FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
+
+**** Constant: regexp/notbol
+ The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
+ see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
+ used when different portions of a string are passed to
+ regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
+ interpreted as the beginning of the line.
+
+**** Constant: regexp/noteol
+ The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
+ compilation flag regexp/newline above)
+
+**** Function: regexp? OBJ
+ Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
+ otherwise.
+
+ Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
+and replace them with the contents of another string.
+
+**** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
+ Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
+ structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
+ may be one of the following arguments:
+
+ * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
+
+ * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
+
+ * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
+ the regexp match is written.
+
+ * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
+ following the regexp match is written.
+
+ PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
+ `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
+ and returns that.
+
+**** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
+ Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
+ substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
+ argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
+ REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
+ which should be matched against this regular expression.
+
+ Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
+ exceptions:
+
+ * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
+ will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
+ regular expression match. It should return a string to be
+ written out to PORT.
+
+ * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
+ on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
+ order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
+ not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
+ will return after processing a single match.
+
+*** Match Structures
+
+ A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
+`regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
+the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
+the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
+positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
+parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
+submatch.
+
+ In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
+argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
+`string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
+information about the original target string that was matched against a
+regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
+
+**** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
+ Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
+ call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
+
+**** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
+ Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
+ Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
+ the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
+ number N did not match, return `#f'.
+
+**** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
+ Return the starting position of submatch number N.
+
+**** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
+ Return the ending position of submatch number N.
+
+**** Function: match:prefix MATCH
+ Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
+
+**** Function: match:suffix MATCH
+ Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
+
+**** Function: match:count MATCH
+ Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
+ Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
+ subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
+
+**** Function: match:string MATCH
+ Return the original TARGET string.
+
+*** Backslash Escapes
+
+ Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
+exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
+a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
+a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
+asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
+the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
+
+ You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
+character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
+is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
+regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
+character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
+Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
+`^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
+to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
+
+ Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
+regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
+backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
+TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
+followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
+`\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
+each match a single backslash in the target string.
+
+**** Function: regexp-quote STR
+ Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
+ return the resulting string.
+
+ *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
+in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
+special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
+the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
+Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
+Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
+Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
+before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
+ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
+translated to the single character `*'.
+
+ This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
+since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
+escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
+is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
+consecutive backslashes:
+
+ (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
+
+ The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
+any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
+string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
+
+ This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
+matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
+the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
+of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
+backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
+regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
+
+ (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
+
+ The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
+regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
+have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
+above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
+both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
+would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
+ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
+strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
+extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
+cumbersome escape syntax.
+
+* Changes to the gh_ interface
+
+* Changes to the scm_ interface
+
+* Changes to system call interfaces:
+
+** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
+if an error occurs.
+
+*** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
+
+(sigaction signum [action] [flags])
+
+signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
+of SIGINT etc.
+
+If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
+signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
+(default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
+handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
+signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
+
+If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
+action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
+SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
+whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
+Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
+always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
+return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
+described above.
+
+This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
+facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
+provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
+structures.
+
+*** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
+`force-output' on every port open for output.
+
+** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
+global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
+of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
+list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
+For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
+installed, you can say:
+
+guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
+
+
+* Changes to the scm_ interface
+
+** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
+existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
+exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
+returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
+new dynamic roots and threads.
+
+\f
+Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
* Changes to the distribution.
programming language. These are packaged together because the
Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
+This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
+release.
+
+We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
+date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
+will distribute it.
+
+
+
* Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
-**
+** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
+Shivers' Scheme Shell.
+
+In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
+exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
+stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
+the (command-line) function.
+ -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
+ -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
+ -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
+
+The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
+ -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
+ -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
+ command line arguments
+ -ds do -s script at this point
+ --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
+ -h, --help display this help and exit
+ -v, --version display version information and exit
+ \ read arguments from following script lines
+
+So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
+which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
+
+#!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
+!#
+(define (main args)
+ (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
+ (cdr args))
+ (newline))
+
+(main (command-line))
+
+Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
+
+ ekko a speckled gecko
+
+Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
+token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
+following list of command-line arguments:
+
+ ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
+
+Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
+the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
+with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
+defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
+remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
+
+In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
+
+#!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
+
+where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
+executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
+the interpreter.
+
+You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
+limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
+provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
+SCSH) for circumventing them.
+
+If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
+`\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
+and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
+here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
+
+#!/usr/local/bin/guile \
+-e main -s
+!#
+(define (main args)
+ (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
+ (cdr args))
+ (newline))
+
+If the user invokes this script as follows:
+
+ ekko a speckled gecko
+
+Unix expands this into
+
+ /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
+
+When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
+read from the second line of the script, producing:
+
+ /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
+
+This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
+`main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
+
+Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
+- Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
+ spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
+- The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
+ backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
+- The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
+ also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
+ following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
+ it only terminates the argument list.)
+- The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
+ backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
+ like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
+ constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
+ terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
+ octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
+ above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
+ Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
+
+* Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
+
+** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
+system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
+all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
+supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
+libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
+
+Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
+it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
+independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
+
+** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
+
+To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
+-lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
+autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
+following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
+your link command:
+
+### Find quickthreads and libguile.
+AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
+AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
* Changes to Scheme functions
-** gethost, getproto, and getnet, and getserv now return more helpful
-error codes.
+** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
+and disabled by default.
+
+The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
+interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
+arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
+accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
+
+To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
+module:
+ (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
+
+Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
+ (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
+
+To disable keyword syntax, do this:
+ (read-set! keywords #f)
+
+** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
+arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
+strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
+restriction.
+
+** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
+functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
+`serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
+`array-index-map!'.
+
+** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
+support for Scheme functions.
+
+The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
+and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
+arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
+arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
+traced.
+
+The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
+and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
+invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
+procedures.
+
+The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
+don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
+themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
+traced.
+
+** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
+`set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
+- If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
+- If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
+- If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
+ display the result as a prompt.
+- Otherwise, we display "> ".
+
+** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
+string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
+in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
+unspecified value.
+
+** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
+procedure of zero arguments.
+
+** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
+means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
+argument is bound in the current module.
+
+** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
+environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
+accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
+public bindings into the current module.
+
+** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
+NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
+
+** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
+table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
+
+** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
+`builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
+
+** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
+equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
+
+** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
+given to Guile, as a list of strings.
+
+When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
+script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
+`-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
+behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
+command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
+
+** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
+in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
+mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
+but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
+
+** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
+argument.
+
+** Changes to I/O functions
+
+*** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
+`primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
+case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
+
+Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
+`case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
+`read-hash-extend' function (see below).
+
+*** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
+syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
+
+(read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
+ When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
+ the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
+ If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
+
+ The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
+
+*** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
+general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
+
+(read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
+ Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
+ or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
+ the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
+ the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
+ following symbols:
+
+ 'trim omit delimiter from result
+ 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
+ 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
+ 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
+
+ HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
+
+(read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
+ A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
+
+ The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
+ half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
+ string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
+ START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
+ 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
+
+ It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
+ up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
+ port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
+
+ If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
+ by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
+ determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
+ above, and defaults to 'peek.
+
+(The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
+manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
+
+*** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
+`read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
+
+(%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
+
+This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
+- TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
+ character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
+ the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
+ a delimiting character.
+- NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
+
+If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
+character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
+terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
+input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
+where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
+the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
+
+(The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
+by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
+
+*** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
+trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
+returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
+
+*** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
+take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
+the array to read and write.
+
+*** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
+inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
+way.
+
+** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
+
+*** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
+call.
+
+(fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
+ Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
+ Values for COMMAND are:
+
+ F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
+ F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
+ F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
+ F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
+ F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
+ F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
+ F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
+ FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
+
+For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
+
+*** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
+SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
+expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
+MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
+The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
+corresponding return set will be the same.
+
+*** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
+now:
+
+(mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
+ Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
+ the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
+ be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
+ permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
+ 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
+ special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
+ special file being created.
+
+*** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
+clashing with various SCSH forks.
+
+*** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
+and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
+you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
+return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
+received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
+and originating address.
+
+*** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
+`read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
+We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
+
+*** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
+of `open'.
+
+*** There are new functions to break down process termination status
+values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
+`waitpid'.
+
+(status:exit-val STATUS)
+ If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
+ code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
+ returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
+ this function returns #f.
+
+(status:stop-sig STATUS)
+ If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
+ returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
+ #f.
+
+(status:term-sig STATUS)
+ If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
+ the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
+ returns false.
+
+POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
+a valid STATUS value.
+
+These functions are compatible with SCSH.
+
+*** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
+returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
+
+ Component Accessor Setter
+ ========================= ============ ============
+ seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
+ minutes tm:min set-tm:min
+ hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
+ day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
+ month tm:mon set-tm:mon
+ year tm:year set-tm:year
+ day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
+ day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
+ daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
+ GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
+ name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
+
+*** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
+describing the host system:
+
+ Component Accessor
+ ============================================== ================
+ name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
+ network name of this machine utsname:nodename
+ release level of the operating system utsname:release
+ version level of the operating system utsname:version
+ machine hardware platform utsname:machine
+
+*** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
+`getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
+system's user database:
+
+ Component Accessor
+ ====================== =================
+ user name passwd:name
+ user password passwd:passwd
+ user id passwd:uid
+ group id passwd:gid
+ real name passwd:gecos
+ home directory passwd:dir
+ shell program passwd:shell
+
+*** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
+`getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
+system's group database:
+
+ Component Accessor
+ ======================= ============
+ group name group:name
+ group password group:passwd
+ group id group:gid
+ group members group:mem
+
+*** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
+`gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
+internet hosts:
+
+ Component Accessor
+ ========================= ===============
+ official name of host hostent:name
+ alias list hostent:aliases
+ host address type hostent:addrtype
+ length of address hostent:length
+ list of addresses hostent:addr-list
+
+*** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
+`getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
+networks:
+
+ Component Accessor
+ ========================= ===============
+ official name of net netent:name
+ alias list netent:aliases
+ net number type netent:addrtype
+ net number netent:net
+
+*** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
+`getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
+internet protocols:
+
+ Component Accessor
+ ========================= ===============
+ official protocol name protoent:name
+ alias list protoent:aliases
+ protocol number protoent:proto
+
+*** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
+`getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
+internet protocols:
+
+ Component Accessor
+ ========================= ===============
+ official service name servent:name
+ alias list servent:aliases
+ port number servent:port
+ protocol to use servent:proto
+
+*** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
+`accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
+
+ Component Accessor
+ ======================================== ===============
+ address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
+ path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
+ address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
+ TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
+
+*** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
+`getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
+the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
+
+Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
+corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
+
+*** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
+`setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
+
+*** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
+provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
+
+*** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
+
+*** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
+
+*** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
+giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
+string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
+
+*** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
+TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
+characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
+return the remaining characters as a string.
+
+*** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
+The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
+component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
+
+*** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
* Changes to the gh_ interface
* Changes to the scm_ interface
+** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
+symbol's value from C code:
+
+SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
+ Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
+ NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
+ the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
+
+** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
+without assigning them a value.
+
+SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
+ Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
+ null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
+
+** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
+all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
+body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
+
+The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
+enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
+
+TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
+doesn't actually care about that.
+
+BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
+this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
+ BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
+where:
+ BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
+ through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
+ BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
+ JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
+ which we have just created and initialized.
+
+HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
+should one occur. We call it like this:
+ HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
+where
+ HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
+ same idea as BODY_DATA above.
+ THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
+ TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
+ catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
+ THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
+ function.
+
+BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
+is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
+use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
+that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
+HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
+HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
+HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
+enclosed variables.
+
+Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
+MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
+to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
+structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
+references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
+will be found.
+
+** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
+scm_internal_catch, except:
+
+- It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
+- If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
+- BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
+ jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
+ stack.)
+
+** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
+scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
+--- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
+
+BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
+contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
+we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
+scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
+no arguments.
+
+** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
+scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
+--- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
+
+If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
+procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
+variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
+be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
+or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
+
+** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
+`scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
+It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
+
+HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
+message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
+text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
+
+** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
+not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
+
** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
-of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will adding
+of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
interpreter" above.
-* Changes to documentation
+** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
+implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
+
+char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
+ If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
+ backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
+ named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
+ the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
+ null pointer.
+
+ For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
+ command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
+
+int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
+ Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
+ pointer.
+
+For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
+code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
+
+You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
+function yourself.
+
+** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
+command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
+describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
+evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
+command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
+given the following arguments:
+
+ -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
+
+scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
-** the $(srcdir)/newdoc hierarchy now contains a new approach to the
-manuals. The approach, recommended by Jim Blandy, is to have: (*) a
-tutorial with the pedagogical style of guile-user, and a non-dry
-reference manual in the style of the most excellent GNU libc reference
-manual: the reference manual should be complete, but at the same time
-it should have an introductory screen for each major topic, which can
-be referenced if the user goes "up" a level in the info documentation.
+ (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
+
+You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
+function yourself.
+
+** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
+an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
+command-line arguments.
+
+void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
+ Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
+ non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
+ If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
+ termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
+ always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
+ usage problems.)
+
+You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
+function yourself.
+
+** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
+expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
+
+** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
+rearranged slightly. They are now:
+
+SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
+ Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
+ point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
+ be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
+
+SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
+ Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
+
+SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
+ Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
+ Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
+ point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
+
+SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
+ Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
+
+The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
+to its standard output, given C source code as input.
+
+The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
+
+** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
+by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
+code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
+information.
+
+** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
+returns a port instead of an FD object.
+
+* The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
+libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
\f
Guile 1.0b3
** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
-file.
+file.
** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
under the above conditions, provided also that they
carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
+\f
+Local variables:
+mode: outline
+paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
+end:
+