1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
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12 * New modules (see the manual for details)
14 ** The `(ice-9 i18n)' module provides internationalization support
16 * Changes to the distribution
18 ** Guile now uses Gnulib as a portability aid
20 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
21 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
23 ** A new 'memoize-symbol evaluator trap has been added. This trap can
24 be used for efficiently implementing a Scheme code coverage.
26 ** Duplicate bindings among used modules are resolved lazily.
27 This slightly improves program startup times.
29 ** New thread cancellation and thread cleanup API
30 See `cancel-thread', `set-thread-cleanup!', and `thread-cleanup'.
32 * Changes to the C interface
34 ** Functions for handling `scm_option' now no longer require an argument
35 indicating length of the `scm_t_option' array.
39 Changes in 1.8.4 (since 1.8.3)
43 ** CR (ASCII 0x0d) is (again) recognized as a token delimiter by the reader
44 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when displaying the
45 backtrace of a stack with a promise object (made by `delay') in it.
46 ** Make `accept' leave guile mode while blocking
47 ** `scm_c_read ()' and `scm_c_write ()' now type-check their port argument
48 ** Fixed a build problem on AIX (use of func_data identifier)
49 ** Fixed a segmentation fault which occurred when hashx-ref or hashx-set! was
50 called with an associator proc that returns neither a pair nor #f.
52 * New modules (see the manual for details)
56 * Changes to the distribution
58 ** Corrected a few files that referred incorrectly to the old GPL + special exception licence
60 In fact Guile since 1.8.0 has been licensed with the GNU Lesser
61 General Public License, and the few incorrect files have now been
62 fixed to agree with the rest of the Guile distribution.
64 ** Removed unnecessary extra copies of COPYING*
66 The distribution now contains a single COPYING.LESSER at its top level.
69 Changes in 1.8.3 (since 1.8.2)
71 * New modules (see the manual for details)
78 ** The `(ice-9 slib)' module now works as expected
79 ** Expressions like "(set! 'x #t)" no longer yield a crash
80 ** Warnings about duplicate bindings now go to stderr
81 ** A memory leak in `make-socket-address' was fixed
82 ** Alignment issues (e.g., on SPARC) in network routines were fixed
83 ** A threading issue that showed up at least on NetBSD was fixed
84 ** Build problems on Solaris and IRIX fixed
86 * Implementation improvements
88 ** The reader is now faster, which reduces startup time
89 ** Procedures returned by `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' are faster
93 Changes in 1.8.2 (since 1.8.1):
95 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
97 ** set-program-arguments
102 ** Fractions were not `equal?' if stored in unreduced form.
103 (A subtle problem, since printing a value reduced it, making it work.)
104 ** srfi-60 `copy-bit' failed on 64-bit systems
105 ** "guile --use-srfi" option at the REPL can replace core functions
106 (Programs run with that option were ok, but in the interactive REPL
107 the core bindings got priority, preventing SRFI replacements or
109 ** `regexp-exec' doesn't abort() on #\nul in the input or bad flags arg
110 ** `kill' on mingw throws an error for a PID other than oneself
111 ** Procedure names are attached to procedure-with-setters
112 ** Array read syntax works with negative lower bound
113 ** `array-in-bounds?' fix if an array has different lower bounds on each index
114 ** `*' returns exact 0 for "(* inexact 0)"
115 This follows what it always did for "(* 0 inexact)".
116 ** SRFI-19: Value returned by `(current-time time-process)' was incorrect
117 ** SRFI-19: `date->julian-day' did not account for timezone offset
118 ** `ttyname' no longer crashes when passed a non-tty argument
119 ** `inet-ntop' no longer crashes on SPARC when passed an `AF_INET' address
120 ** Small memory leaks have been fixed in `make-fluid' and `add-history'
121 ** GOOPS: Fixed a bug in `method-more-specific?'
122 ** Build problems on Solaris fixed
123 ** Build problems on HP-UX IA64 fixed
124 ** Build problems on MinGW fixed
127 Changes in 1.8.1 (since 1.8.0):
129 * LFS functions are now used to access 64-bit files on 32-bit systems.
131 * New procedures (see the manual for details)
133 ** primitive-_exit - [Scheme] the-root-module
134 ** scm_primitive__exit - [C]
135 ** make-completion-function - [Scheme] (ice-9 readline)
136 ** scm_c_locale_stringn_to_number - [C]
137 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse [C]
138 ** scm_srfi1_append_reverse_x [C]
144 * New `(ice-9 i18n)' module (see the manual for details)
148 ** Build problems have been fixed on MacOS, SunOS, and QNX.
150 ** `strftime' fix sign of %z timezone offset.
152 ** A one-dimensional array can now be 'equal?' to a vector.
154 ** Structures, records, and SRFI-9 records can now be compared with `equal?'.
156 ** SRFI-14 standard char sets are recomputed upon a successful `setlocale'.
158 ** `record-accessor' and `record-modifier' now have strict type checks.
160 Record accessor and modifier procedures now throw an error if the
161 record type of the record they're given is not the type expected.
162 (Previously accessors returned #f and modifiers silently did nothing).
164 ** It is now OK to use both autoload and use-modules on a given module.
166 ** `apply' checks the number of arguments more carefully on "0 or 1" funcs.
168 Previously there was no checking on primatives like make-vector that
169 accept "one or two" arguments. Now there is.
171 ** The srfi-1 assoc function now calls its equality predicate properly.
173 Previously srfi-1 assoc would call the equality predicate with the key
174 last. According to the SRFI, the key should be first.
176 ** A bug in n-par-for-each and n-for-each-par-map has been fixed.
178 ** The array-set! procedure no longer segfaults when given a bit vector.
180 ** Bugs in make-shared-array have been fixed.
182 ** string<? and friends now follow char<? etc order on 8-bit chars.
184 ** The format procedure now handles inf and nan values for ~f correctly.
186 ** exact->inexact should no longer overflow when given certain large fractions.
188 ** srfi-9 accessor and modifier procedures now have strict record type checks.
190 This matches the srfi-9 specification.
192 ** (ice-9 ftw) procedures won't ignore different files with same inode number.
194 Previously the (ice-9 ftw) procedures would ignore any file that had
195 the same inode number as a file they had already seen, even if that
196 file was on a different device.
199 Changes in 1.8.0 (changes since the 1.6.x series):
201 * Changes to the distribution
203 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
205 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
207 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
209 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
211 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
213 That is, things like HAVE_STRING_H no longer leak from Guile's
216 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
218 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
219 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
220 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
221 so the current effective-version is "1.8". The effective version
222 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
223 items like the versioned share directory name
224 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.8.
226 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
227 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
228 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
229 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
230 with each micro release during a stable series.
232 ** Thread implementation has changed.
234 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
235 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
236 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
237 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
238 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
241 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
242 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
243 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
244 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
247 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
248 in which case "null" threads are used.
250 See the manual for details, nodes "Initialization", "Multi-Threading",
251 "Blocking", and others.
253 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
255 This is a milder form of deprecation.
257 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
258 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
259 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
260 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
261 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
263 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
264 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
266 ** Deprecation warnings can be controlled at run-time.
268 (debug-enable 'warn-deprecated) switches them on and (debug-disable
269 'warn-deprecated) switches them off.
271 ** Support for SRFI 61, extended cond syntax for multiple values has
274 This SRFI is always available.
276 ** Support for require-extension, SRFI-55, has been added.
278 The SRFI-55 special form `require-extension' has been added. It is
279 available at startup, and provides a portable way to load Scheme
280 extensions. SRFI-55 only requires support for one type of extension,
281 "srfi"; so a set of SRFIs may be loaded via (require-extension (srfi 1
284 ** New module (srfi srfi-26) provides support for `cut' and `cute'.
286 The (srfi srfi-26) module is an implementation of SRFI-26 which
287 provides the `cut' and `cute' syntax. These may be used to specialize
288 parameters without currying.
290 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
292 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
293 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
295 ** The modules (srfi srfi-13), (srfi srfi-14) and (srfi srfi-4) have
296 been merged with the core, making their functionality always
299 The modules are still available, tho, and you could use them together
300 with a renaming import, for example.
302 ** Guile no longer includes its own version of libltdl.
304 The official version is good enough now.
306 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
308 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
309 provided. Use 'make html'.
311 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
313 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when you
314 don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but where you
315 have some section(s) of code which you consider can run in parallel to
316 other sections. See ice-9/serialize.scm for more information.
318 ** The configure option '--disable-arrays' has been removed.
320 Support for arrays and uniform numeric arrays is now always included
323 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
325 ** New command line option `-L'.
327 This option adds a directory to the front of the load path.
329 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
331 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
332 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
334 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
336 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
337 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
339 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
341 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
342 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
345 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
348 (define-module (demo)
352 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
355 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
357 ** Guardians have changed back to their original semantics
359 Guardians now behave like described in the paper by Dybvig et al. In
360 particular, they no longer make guarantees about the order in which
361 they return objects, and they can no longer be greedy.
363 They no longer drop cyclic data structures.
365 The C function scm_make_guardian has been changed incompatibly and no
366 longer takes the 'greedy_p' argument.
368 ** New function hashx-remove!
370 This function completes the set of 'hashx' functions.
372 ** The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
373 barriers and dynamic states.
375 Each thread has a current dynamic state that carries the values of the
376 fluids. You can create and copy dynamic states and use them as the
377 second argument for 'eval'. See "Fluids and Dynamic States" in the
380 To restrict the influence that captured continuations can have on the
381 control flow, you can errect continuation barriers. See "Continuation
382 Barriers" in the manual.
384 The function call-with-dynamic-root now essentially temporarily
385 installs a new dynamic state and errects a continuation barrier.
387 ** The default load path no longer includes "." at the end.
389 Automatically loading modules from the current directory should not
390 happen by default. If you want to allow it in a more controlled
391 manner, set the environment variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH or the Scheme
394 ** The uniform vector and array support has been overhauled.
396 It now complies with SRFI-4 and the weird prototype based uniform
397 array creation has been deprecated. See the manual for more details.
399 Some non-compatible changes have been made:
400 - characters can no longer be stored into byte arrays.
401 - strings and bit vectors are no longer considered to be uniform numeric
403 - array-rank throws an error for non-arrays instead of returning zero.
404 - array-ref does no longer accept non-arrays when no indices are given.
406 There is the new notion of 'generalized vectors' and corresponding
407 procedures like 'generalized-vector-ref'. Generalized vectors include
408 strings, bitvectors, ordinary vectors, and uniform numeric vectors.
410 Arrays use generalized vectors as their storage, so that you still
411 have arrays of characters, bits, etc. However, uniform-array-read!
412 and uniform-array-write can no longer read/write strings and
415 ** There is now support for copy-on-write substrings, mutation-sharing
416 substrings and read-only strings.
418 Three new procedures are related to this: substring/shared,
419 substring/copy, and substring/read-only. See the manual for more
422 ** Backtraces will now highlight the value that caused the error.
424 By default, these values are enclosed in "{...}", such as in this
433 <unnamed port>:1:1: In procedure car in expression (car (quote a)):
434 <unnamed port>:1:1: Wrong type (expecting pair): a
435 ABORT: (wrong-type-arg)
437 The prefix and suffix used for highlighting can be set via the two new
438 printer options 'highlight-prefix' and 'highlight-suffix'. For
439 example, putting this into ~/.guile will output the bad value in bold
442 (print-set! highlight-prefix "\x1b[1m")
443 (print-set! highlight-suffix "\x1b[22m")
446 ** 'gettext' support for internationalization has been added.
448 See the manual for details.
450 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
452 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
455 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
457 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
458 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
459 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
460 '@' as a target of 'set!', as in (set! (@ mod var) val).
462 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
463 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
464 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
467 ** Keyword syntax has been made more disciplined.
469 Previously, the name of a keyword was read as a 'token' but printed as
470 a symbol. Now, it is read as a general Scheme datum which must be a
481 ERROR: In expression (a b c):
485 ERROR: Unbound variable: foo
490 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): 12
494 ERROR: Wrong type (expecting symbol): (a b c)
498 ** The printing of symbols that might look like keywords can be
501 The new printer option 'quote-keywordish-symbols' controls how symbols
502 are printed that have a colon as their first or last character. The
503 default now is to only quote a symbol with #{...}# when the read
504 option 'keywords' is not '#f'. Thus:
506 guile> (define foo (string->symbol ":foo"))
507 guile> (read-set! keywords #f)
510 guile> (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
513 guile> (print-set! quote-keywordish-symbols #f)
517 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
519 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
520 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
521 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
524 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
527 ** The module system now checks for duplicate bindings.
529 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
532 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more 'duplicates'
533 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
541 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
542 has been detected is to
544 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
545 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
546 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
549 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
552 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
554 to your .guile init file.
556 ** New define-module option: :replace
558 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
561 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
562 for the core binding `format'.
564 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
566 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
567 a prefix to all imported bindings.
570 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
572 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
575 ** Conflicting generic functions can be automatically merged.
577 When two imported bindings conflict and they are both generic
578 functions, the two functions can now be merged automatically. This is
579 activated with the 'duplicates' handler 'merge-generics'.
581 ** New function: effective-version
583 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
584 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
585 to the distribution" above.
587 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
589 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
590 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
592 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
594 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
595 instead of blocking and indicate failure.
597 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
599 The function 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
600 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
603 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
605 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
607 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
609 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
610 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
611 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
614 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
615 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
616 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
619 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
620 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
622 When a thread blocks on a mutex, a condition variable or is waiting
623 for IO to be possible, it will still execute system asyncs. This can
624 be used to interrupt such a thread by making it execute a 'throw', for
627 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
629 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
630 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
633 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
634 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
636 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
637 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
638 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
639 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
640 level for the current thread.
642 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
644 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
646 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
647 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
650 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
652 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
654 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
657 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
659 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
662 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
663 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
664 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
666 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
667 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
668 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
669 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
680 ERROR: Numerical overflow
682 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
685 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
687 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
688 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
689 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
700 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
702 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
703 them is also done exactly, of course:
708 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
711 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
712 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
714 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
716 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
717 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
718 equal to a floating point number. For example:
720 (inexact->exact 1.234)
721 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
723 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitly:
725 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
728 ** New function 'rationalize'.
730 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
731 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
733 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
736 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
737 result when both its arguments are exact.
739 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
741 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
742 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
743 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
745 ** Guile now has uninterned symbols.
747 The new function 'make-symbol' will return an uninterned symbol. This
748 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
749 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
751 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
754 ** pretty-print has more options.
756 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
757 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
758 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
760 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
762 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
763 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
764 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
766 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
768 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
769 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
771 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
773 Change your code to use 'define-macro' or r5rs macros. Also, be aware
774 that macro expansion will not be done during evaluation, but prior to
777 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
779 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
780 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
781 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
782 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
783 without the soft port blocking.
785 ** Deprecated: undefine
787 There is no replacement for undefine.
789 ** The functions make-keyword-from-dash-symbol and keyword-dash-symbol
790 have been discouraged.
792 They are relics from a time where a keyword like #:foo was used
793 directly as a Tcl option "-foo" and thus keywords were internally
794 stored as a symbol with a starting dash. We now store a symbol
797 Use symbol->keyword and keyword->symbol instead.
799 ** The `cheap' debug option is now obsolete
801 Evaluator trap calls are now unconditionally "cheap" - in other words,
802 they pass a debug object to the trap handler rather than a full
803 continuation. The trap handler code can capture a full continuation
804 by using `call-with-current-continuation' in the usual way, if it so
807 The `cheap' option is retained for now so as not to break existing
808 code which gets or sets it, but setting it now has no effect. It will
809 be removed in the next major Guile release.
811 ** Evaluator trap calls now support `tweaking'
813 `Tweaking' means that the trap handler code can modify the Scheme
814 expression that is about to be evaluated (in the case of an
815 enter-frame trap) or the value that is being returned (in the case of
816 an exit-frame trap). The trap handler code indicates that it wants to
817 do this by returning a pair whose car is the symbol 'instead and whose
818 cdr is the modified expression or return value.
820 * Changes to the C interface
822 ** The functions scm_hash_fn_remove_x and scm_hashx_remove_x no longer
823 take a 'delete' function argument.
825 This argument makes no sense since the delete function is used to
826 remove a pair from an alist, and this must not be configurable.
828 This is an incompatible change.
830 ** The GH interface is now subject to the deprecation mechanism
832 The GH interface has been deprecated for quite some time but now it is
833 actually removed from Guile when it is configured with
834 --disable-deprecated.
836 See the manual "Transitioning away from GH" for more information.
838 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
839 Scheme values has been added.
841 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
842 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
847 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
848 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
850 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
852 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
853 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
856 - SCM scm_from_<type> (<type> val, ...)
858 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
859 scm_from_int for ints.
861 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
862 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
863 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
865 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
867 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
868 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
869 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
872 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
874 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
876 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
878 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
879 although the macros only work correctly with fixnums. Use the
880 following alternatives.
882 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
883 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
884 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
885 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
887 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these; scm_to_int, etc. will
888 do the validating for you.
890 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
891 have been discouraged.
893 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
894 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
897 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
899 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
900 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
903 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
905 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
908 ** The macros SCM_CONSP, SCM_NCONSP, SCM_NULLP, and SCM_NNULLP have
911 Use the function scm_is_pair or scm_is_null instead.
913 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
914 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
916 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
917 scm_truncate_number should have.
919 ** The functions scm_c_string2str, scm_c_substring2str, and
920 scm_c_symbol2str have been deprecated.
922 Use scm_to_locale_stringbuf or similar instead, maybe together with
925 ** New functions scm_c_make_string, scm_c_string_length,
926 scm_c_string_ref, scm_c_string_set_x, scm_c_substring,
927 scm_c_substring_shared, scm_c_substring_copy.
929 These are like scm_make_string, scm_length, etc. but are slightly
930 easier to use from C.
932 ** The macros SCM_STRINGP, SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_STRING_LENGTH,
933 SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, and SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH have been deprecated.
935 They export too many assumptions about the implementation of strings
936 and symbols that are no longer true in the presence of
937 mutation-sharing substrings and when Guile switches to some form of
940 When working with strings, it is often best to use the normal string
941 functions provided by Guile, such as scm_c_string_ref,
942 scm_c_string_set_x, scm_string_append, etc. Be sure to look in the
943 manual since many more such functions are now provided than
946 When you want to convert a SCM string to a C string, use the
947 scm_to_locale_string function or similar instead. For symbols, use
948 scm_symbol_to_string and then work with that string. Because of the
949 new string representation, scm_symbol_to_string does not need to copy
950 and is thus quite efficient.
952 ** Some string, symbol and keyword functions have been discouraged.
954 They don't fit into the uniform naming scheme and are not explicit
955 about the character encoding.
957 Replace according to the following table:
959 scm_allocate_string -> scm_c_make_string
960 scm_take_str -> scm_take_locale_stringn
961 scm_take0str -> scm_take_locale_string
962 scm_mem2string -> scm_from_locale_stringn
963 scm_str2string -> scm_from_locale_string
964 scm_makfrom0str -> scm_from_locale_string
965 scm_mem2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symboln
966 scm_mem2uninterned_symbol -> scm_from_locale_stringn + scm_make_symbol
967 scm_str2symbol -> scm_from_locale_symbol
969 SCM_SYMBOL_HASH -> scm_hashq
970 SCM_SYMBOL_INTERNED_P -> scm_symbol_interned_p
972 scm_c_make_keyword -> scm_from_locale_keyword
974 ** The functions scm_keyword_to_symbol and sym_symbol_to_keyword are
975 now also available to C code.
977 ** SCM_KEYWORDP and SCM_KEYWORDSYM have been deprecated.
979 Use scm_is_keyword and scm_keyword_to_symbol instead, but note that
980 the latter returns the true name of the keyword, not the 'dash name',
981 as SCM_KEYWORDSYM used to do.
983 ** A new way to access arrays in a thread-safe and efficient way has
986 See the manual, node "Accessing Arrays From C".
988 ** The old uniform vector and bitvector implementations have been
989 unceremoniously removed.
991 This implementation exposed the details of the tagging system of
992 Guile. Use the new C API explained in the manual in node "Uniform
993 Numeric Vectors" and "Bit Vectors", respectively.
995 The following macros are gone: SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE,
996 SCM_UVECTOR_MAXLENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_UVECTOR_TAG,
997 SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVECTOR_P, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE,
998 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
999 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_MAKE_BITVECTOR_TAG,
1000 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_BITVEC_REF, SCM_BITVEC_SET,
1003 ** The macros dealing with vectors have been deprecated.
1005 Use the new functions scm_is_vector, scm_vector_elements,
1006 scm_vector_writable_elements, etc, or scm_is_simple_vector,
1007 SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_REF, SCM_SIMPLE_VECTOR_SET, etc instead. See the
1008 manual for more details.
1010 Deprecated are SCM_VECTORP, SCM_VELTS, SCM_VECTOR_MAX_LENGTH,
1011 SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_REF, SCM_VECTOR_SET, SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1013 The following macros have been removed: SCM_VECTOR_BASE,
1014 SCM_SET_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_MAKE_VECTOR_TAG, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH,
1015 SCM_VELTS_AS_STACKITEMS, SCM_SETVELTS, SCM_GC_WRITABLE_VELTS.
1017 ** Some C functions and macros related to arrays have been deprecated.
1019 Migrate according to the following table:
1021 scm_make_uve -> scm_make_typed_array, scm_make_u8vector etc.
1022 scm_make_ra -> scm_make_array
1023 scm_shap2ra -> scm_make_array
1024 scm_cvref -> scm_c_generalized_vector_ref
1025 scm_ra_set_contp -> do not use
1026 scm_aind -> scm_array_handle_pos
1027 scm_raprin1 -> scm_display or scm_write
1029 SCM_ARRAYP -> scm_is_array
1030 SCM_ARRAY_NDIM -> scm_c_array_rank
1031 SCM_ARRAY_DIMS -> scm_array_handle_dims
1032 SCM_ARRAY_CONTP -> do not use
1033 SCM_ARRAY_MEM -> do not use
1034 SCM_ARRAY_V -> scm_array_handle_elements or similar
1035 SCM_ARRAY_BASE -> do not use
1037 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
1039 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which returns a pointer
1040 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
1042 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
1043 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
1044 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
1045 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
1047 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SCM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
1049 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
1050 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
1051 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
1053 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
1054 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
1056 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
1057 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
1058 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
1059 smob word. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
1061 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and re-entries.
1063 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
1064 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
1065 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
1066 prevent a potential memory leak:
1073 scm_dynwind_begin (0);
1075 mem = scm_malloc (100);
1076 scm_dynwind_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY);
1078 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
1079 SCM_DYNWIND_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless.
1086 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITLY, MEM will be freed by
1087 SCM_DYNWIND_END as well.
1091 For full documentation, see the node "Dynamic Wind" in the manual.
1093 ** New function scm_dynwind_free
1095 This function calls 'free' on a given pointer when a dynwind context
1096 is left. Thus the call to scm_dynwind_unwind_handler above could be
1097 replaced with simply scm_dynwind_free (mem).
1099 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1100 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
1102 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
1104 ** New functions scm_dynwind_block_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs
1106 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
1107 scm_dynwind_block_asyncs in a 'dynwind context' (see above). Likewise for
1108 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_dynwind_unblock_asyncs.
1110 ** The macros SCM_DEFER_INTS, SCM_ALLOW_INTS, SCM_REDEFER_INTS,
1111 SCM_REALLOW_INTS have been deprecated.
1113 They do no longer fulfill their original role of blocking signal
1114 delivery. Depending on what you want to achieve, replace a pair of
1115 SCM_DEFER_INTS and SCM_ALLOW_INTS with a dynwind context that locks a
1116 mutex, blocks asyncs, or both. See node "Critical Sections" in the
1119 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
1121 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
1122 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1123 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
1125 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
1127 C code can now use scm_dynwind_current_<foo>_port in a 'dynwind
1128 context' (see above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
1130 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
1132 C code can now use scm_dynwind_fluid in a 'dynwind context' (see
1133 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
1135 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
1137 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
1138 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
1139 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
1141 ** The functions scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed.
1143 You should not have used them.
1145 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
1147 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
1148 private or renamed with a more suitable public name.
1150 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
1152 This macro is not intended for public use.
1154 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
1156 Use scm_is_true (scm_inexact_p (...)) instead.
1158 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
1160 Use scm_is_real instead.
1162 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
1164 Use scm_is_complex instead.
1166 ** Some preprocessor defines have been deprecated.
1168 These defines indicated whether a certain feature was present in Guile
1169 or not. Going forward, assume that the features are always present.
1171 The macros are: USE_THREADS, GUILE_ISELECT, READER_EXTENSIONS,
1172 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS, DYNAMIC_LINKING.
1174 The following macros have been removed completely: MEMOIZE_LOCALS,
1175 SCM_RECKLESS, SCM_CAUTIOUS.
1177 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
1179 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
1182 ** New function: scm_effective_version
1184 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
1185 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
1186 to the distribution" above.
1188 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
1190 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
1191 arguments are now passed directly:
1193 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
1195 This is an incompatible change.
1197 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
1199 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
1200 function in the init section.
1202 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
1204 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
1206 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
1207 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
1208 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
1209 stays roughly constant.
1211 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
1212 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
1213 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
1214 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
1215 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
1218 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
1219 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
1220 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
1221 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
1223 For understanding the memory usage of a GUILE program, the routine
1224 gc-live-object-stats returns an alist containing the number of live
1225 objects for every type.
1228 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
1230 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
1232 ** The struct scm_cell type has been renamed to scm_t_cell
1234 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
1235 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
1236 initializes a new cell (see below).
1238 ** New functions for memory management
1240 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
1241 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
1242 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
1243 cause aborts in long running programs.
1245 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
1246 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
1248 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
1249 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
1250 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
1251 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
1252 details and for upgrading instructions.
1254 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
1255 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
1256 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
1258 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
1260 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
1261 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
1262 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
1263 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
1264 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
1266 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
1267 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
1268 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
1270 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
1271 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
1273 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
1275 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old
1276 macros had problems because with them allocation and initialization
1277 was separated and the GC could sometimes observe half initialized
1278 cells. Only careful coding by the user of SCM_NEWCELL and
1279 SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
1281 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
1283 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
1286 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
1288 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
1290 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
1292 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or to define macros in
1293 Scheme, using 'define-macro'.
1295 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
1297 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
1298 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
1300 ** The names scm_internal_select, scm_thread_sleep, and
1301 scm_thread_usleep have been discouraged.
1303 Use scm_std_select, scm_std_sleep, scm_std_usleep instead.
1305 ** The GC can no longer be blocked.
1307 The global flags scm_gc_heap_lock and scm_block_gc have been removed.
1308 The GC can now run (partially) concurrently with other code and thus
1309 blocking it is not well defined.
1311 ** Many definitions have been removed that were previously deprecated.
1313 scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify, scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify,
1314 scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify, scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify,
1315 scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2,
1316 scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH, SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY,
1317 SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY, SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED,
1318 scm_debug_newcell, scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL,
1319 SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL,
1320 SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG,
1321 SCM_NUM_SIGS, scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var,
1322 *top-level-lookup-closure*, scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3,
1323 scm_eval2, root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
1324 SCM_RWSTRINGP, scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring,
1325 scm_tc7_substring, sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP,
1326 SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig, scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig,
1327 scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT,
1328 SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET,
1329 SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH,
1330 SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
1331 scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern, scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
1332 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
1333 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
1334 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
1335 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
1336 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
1337 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
1338 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
1339 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
1340 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
1341 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
1342 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable,
1343 SCM_CHARS, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH.
1345 * Changes to bundled modules
1349 Using the (ice-9 debug) module no longer automatically switches Guile
1350 to use the debugging evaluator. If you want to switch to the
1351 debugging evaluator (which is needed for backtrace information if you
1352 hit an error), please add an explicit "(debug-enable 'debug)" to your
1353 code just after the code to use (ice-9 debug).
1356 Changes since Guile 1.4:
1358 * Changes to the distribution
1360 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
1362 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
1364 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
1365 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
1366 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
1367 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
1368 indicate major changes in Guile.
1370 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
1371 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
1372 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
1373 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
1375 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
1376 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
1377 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
1378 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
1379 micro version number.
1381 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
1383 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
1385 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
1386 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
1388 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
1390 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
1391 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
1392 See INSTALL and README for more information.
1394 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
1396 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
1397 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
1398 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
1401 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
1403 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
1406 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
1408 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
1409 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
1411 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
1413 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
1414 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
1417 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
1419 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
1422 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
1425 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
1427 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
1429 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
1430 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
1431 open-output-string, get-output-string.
1433 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
1435 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
1437 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
1440 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
1442 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
1444 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1446 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1447 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1448 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1450 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1452 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1454 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1455 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1464 See README there for more info.
1466 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1467 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1470 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1472 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1474 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1476 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1477 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1478 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1480 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1482 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1483 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1484 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1486 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1487 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1489 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1492 (oop goops describe)
1494 (oop goops active-slot)
1495 (oop goops composite-slot)
1497 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1498 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1499 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1501 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1503 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1504 in the default environment:
1506 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1507 %read-line write-line
1509 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1510 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1512 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1514 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1517 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1518 can be used for similar functionality.
1520 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1522 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1523 it defines two procedures:
1525 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1527 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1528 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1529 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1532 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1534 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1535 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1536 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1537 write large strings.
1539 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1541 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1542 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1544 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1546 for complete documentation.
1548 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1550 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1551 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1552 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1553 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1555 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1556 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1560 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1561 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1562 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1565 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1568 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1569 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1571 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1572 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1575 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1578 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1580 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1582 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1584 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1586 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1587 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1588 Scheme programs easier.
1590 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1591 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1592 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1593 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1594 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1597 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1598 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1600 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1603 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1605 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1606 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1607 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1610 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1612 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1614 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1615 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1616 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1617 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1618 was also ASCII, for example.
1620 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1622 tag - no replacement.
1623 fseek - replaced by seek.
1624 list* - replaced by cons*.
1626 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1630 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1631 (define m (make-safe-module))
1632 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1633 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1634 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1636 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1638 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1639 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1640 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1642 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1644 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1645 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1646 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1647 from the issues related to the module system.
1649 *** New function: load-extension
1651 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1653 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1655 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1656 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1657 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1659 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1661 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1662 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1663 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1664 support dynamic linking).
1666 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1668 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1669 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1670 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1671 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1674 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1675 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1676 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1677 library and initialize it explicitly.
1679 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1680 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1682 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1684 (define-module (foo bar))
1686 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1688 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1690 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1691 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1693 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1694 (null-environment 5)
1695 (interaction-environment)
1701 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1703 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1704 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1705 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1706 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1708 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1709 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1710 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1711 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1712 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1713 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1714 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1715 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1716 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1717 one eval to the next.
1719 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1720 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1721 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1722 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1723 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1725 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1726 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1727 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1728 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1729 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1730 used in a lexical environment.
1732 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1733 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1734 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1735 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1736 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1737 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1739 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1741 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1742 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1743 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1744 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1745 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1747 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1748 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1749 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1751 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1752 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1754 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1755 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1756 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1758 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1759 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1761 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1762 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1763 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1764 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1767 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1768 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1769 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1770 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1772 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1773 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1774 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1776 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1777 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1778 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1779 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1780 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1782 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1784 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1785 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1786 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1788 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1789 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1790 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1792 See manual for more info.
1794 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1796 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1797 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1798 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1800 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1802 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1803 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1804 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1806 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1807 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1808 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1809 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1811 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1813 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1814 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1816 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1817 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1818 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1819 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1820 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1823 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1824 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1825 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1826 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1827 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1828 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1830 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1831 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1832 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1833 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1834 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1836 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1837 objects are usually permanent.
1839 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1840 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1842 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1844 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1845 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1848 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1852 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1857 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1859 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1860 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1861 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1862 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1864 ** New function `make-object-property'
1866 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1867 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1871 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1872 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1876 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1877 source properties eventually.
1879 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1881 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1882 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1883 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1885 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1886 will be removed in the next release.
1888 ** New define-module option: pure
1890 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1895 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1898 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1900 Export names NAME1 ...
1902 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1903 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1907 (define-module (foo)
1909 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1912 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1917 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1919 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1921 ** New function: port? X
1923 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1924 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1926 ** New function: file-port?
1928 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1930 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1932 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1933 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1934 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1935 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1936 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1938 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1940 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1941 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1942 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1943 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1944 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1947 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1949 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1950 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1951 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1952 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1955 ** New function: crypt password salt
1957 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1960 ** New function: chroot path
1962 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1964 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1966 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1969 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1971 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1973 ** New function: getpass prompt
1975 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1978 ** New function: flock file operation
1980 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1982 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1984 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1987 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1989 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1990 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1991 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1992 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1993 of the temporary file.
1995 ** New function: open-input-string string
1997 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1998 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1999 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
2001 ** New function: open-output-string
2003 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
2004 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
2006 ** New function: get-output-string
2008 Return the contents of an output string port.
2010 ** New function: identity
2012 Return the argument.
2014 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
2015 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
2017 ** New function: inet-pton family address
2019 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
2020 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
2021 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2024 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
2025 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
2027 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
2029 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
2030 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
2031 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
2034 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
2035 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
2036 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
2040 Use `identity' instead.
2046 ** Deprecated: return-it
2050 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
2052 Use `string-length' instead.
2054 ** Deprecated: flags
2056 Use `logior' instead.
2058 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
2060 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
2061 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
2062 port-for-each is more flexible.
2064 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
2065 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
2066 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
2068 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
2070 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
2072 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
2074 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
2076 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
2078 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
2079 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
2081 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
2082 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
2084 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
2085 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
2087 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
2089 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
2090 Removed function: builtin-bindings
2092 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
2093 Use module system operations for all variables.
2095 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
2097 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
2100 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
2102 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
2103 The following bugs have been fixed:
2105 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
2106 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
2109 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
2110 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
2111 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
2113 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
2114 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
2116 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
2117 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
2120 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
2121 The expansion used to be like so:
2123 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
2125 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
2127 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
2129 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
2130 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
2132 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
2134 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
2135 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
2136 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
2140 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
2141 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
2143 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
2148 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
2149 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
2151 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
2152 and `d', other keywords allowed.
2153 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
2155 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
2158 * Changes to the C interface
2160 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
2162 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
2163 with "_t". What a concept.
2165 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
2167 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
2169 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
2173 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
2174 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
2176 *** C Functions removed
2178 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
2179 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
2180 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
2181 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
2182 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
2183 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
2184 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
2186 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
2188 Use scm_mem2string instead.
2190 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
2192 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
2194 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
2195 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
2197 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
2199 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
2202 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
2204 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
2206 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
2208 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
2209 Evaluation" in the manual.
2211 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
2213 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
2214 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
2216 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
2218 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
2219 Constructors" in the manual.
2221 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
2223 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
2224 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
2226 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
2228 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
2230 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
2231 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
2232 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
2234 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2236 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
2238 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
2239 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
2240 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
2243 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2245 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
2247 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
2248 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
2250 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
2252 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
2253 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
2254 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
2255 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
2257 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
2258 scm_primitive_property_ref
2259 scm_primitive_property_set_x
2260 scm_primitive_property_del_x
2262 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
2263 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
2265 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
2267 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
2268 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
2269 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
2270 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
2272 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
2274 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
2275 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
2276 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
2277 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
2278 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
2279 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
2280 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
2282 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
2283 scm_remember_upto_here
2285 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
2287 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
2289 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
2290 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
2292 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
2294 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
2296 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
2298 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
2300 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
2302 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
2303 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
2304 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
2305 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
2306 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
2307 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
2309 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
2311 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2313 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
2314 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2315 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
2317 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
2319 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
2320 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2321 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
2323 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
2325 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
2326 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
2329 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
2332 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
2333 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2336 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2338 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
2340 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
2342 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2344 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
2346 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
2348 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
2349 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
2350 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
2351 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2352 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
2353 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
2354 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
2355 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2356 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
2357 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
2358 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
2359 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
2360 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
2361 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
2362 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
2364 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
2365 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
2366 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
2367 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
2368 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
2369 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
2370 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
2371 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
2372 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2373 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
2374 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
2375 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
2376 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
2377 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
2378 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
2379 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2380 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2381 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
2382 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
2383 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
2384 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
2385 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
2386 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
2387 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
2388 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
2389 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
2390 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
2391 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
2392 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
2394 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
2396 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
2398 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
2399 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
2401 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
2403 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
2405 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
2407 Use scm_string_hash instead.
2409 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
2411 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
2413 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
2415 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
2417 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
2420 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
2421 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
2423 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
2425 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
2427 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
2429 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
2431 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
2433 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
2435 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
2437 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2440 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2442 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2444 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2446 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2447 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2449 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2450 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2452 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2454 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2455 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2456 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2458 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2460 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2462 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2463 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2465 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2466 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2467 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2468 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2470 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2471 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2472 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2474 Use the new ones from above instead.
2476 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2478 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2479 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2480 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2482 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2483 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2485 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2486 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2489 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2490 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2492 Use the new functions instead.
2494 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2497 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2499 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2501 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2504 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2506 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2509 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2511 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2514 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2515 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2516 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2518 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2520 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2521 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2523 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2524 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2525 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2526 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2529 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2531 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2532 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2533 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2534 inexact for an exact.
2536 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2537 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2538 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2541 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2542 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2543 accept an inexact argument.
2545 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2546 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2548 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2551 ** New number validation macros:
2552 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2556 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2558 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2559 scm_unprotect_object.
2561 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2563 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2565 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2568 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2570 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2574 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2576 * Changes to the distribution
2578 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2580 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2581 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2582 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2583 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2584 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2585 obtain these programs.
2586 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2587 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2589 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2590 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2591 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2592 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2593 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2595 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2596 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2597 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2598 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2602 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2605 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2606 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2607 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2608 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2610 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2612 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2614 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2615 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2617 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2618 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2620 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2621 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2623 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2624 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2625 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2626 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2628 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2630 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2634 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2635 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2637 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2639 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2640 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2642 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2643 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2644 number of objects of that kind.
2646 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2648 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2649 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2650 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2651 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2652 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2654 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2656 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2658 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2660 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2663 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2665 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2667 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2669 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2671 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2673 ** New command line option --debug
2675 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2677 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2679 ** New help facility
2681 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2682 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2683 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2684 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2685 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2686 (help) gives this text
2688 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2689 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2691 Examples: (help help)
2693 (help "output-string")
2695 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2697 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2699 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2700 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2703 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2704 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2705 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2708 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2709 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2710 use absolute filenames when possible.
2712 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2713 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2714 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2717 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2719 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2720 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2721 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2722 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2724 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2726 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2728 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2729 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2730 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2732 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2733 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2734 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2736 (read-enable 'positions)
2737 (debug-enable 'debug)
2739 ** Backtraces in scripts
2741 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2745 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2747 at the top of the script.
2749 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2750 The second enables backtraces.)
2752 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2754 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2755 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2756 substantially faster than before.
2758 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2759 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2761 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2762 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2764 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2766 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2767 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2768 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2770 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2771 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2772 when this hook is run in the future.
2774 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2775 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2777 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2779 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2780 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2783 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2784 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2785 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2787 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2788 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2790 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2791 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2793 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2794 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2795 in order not to need further allocation.)
2797 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2800 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2801 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2802 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2803 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2805 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2807 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2810 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2812 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2815 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2816 GC in percent of total heap size
2819 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2820 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2822 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2824 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2825 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2827 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2829 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2830 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2832 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2834 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2835 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2839 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2840 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2842 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2844 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2846 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2848 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2850 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2852 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2853 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2855 (simple-format port message . args)
2856 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2857 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2858 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2859 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2860 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2861 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2862 Does not add a trailing newline."
2864 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2866 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2867 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2869 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2870 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2872 ** Deprecated: list*
2874 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2876 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2878 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2879 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2881 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2882 is returned as result.
2884 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2886 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2888 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2890 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2891 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2894 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2896 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2898 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2899 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2901 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2903 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2905 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2907 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2909 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2911 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2913 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2915 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2916 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2917 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2919 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2922 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2924 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2925 the readability of argument checking.
2927 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2929 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2931 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2933 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2934 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2935 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2936 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2937 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2938 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2939 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2941 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2943 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2945 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2946 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2948 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2950 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2951 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2954 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2956 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2957 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2958 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2960 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2961 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2962 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2964 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2965 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2966 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2967 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2968 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2969 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2970 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2972 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2973 scm_end_input (object);
2974 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2975 ptob->flush (object);
2977 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2978 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2981 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2983 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2985 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2986 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2987 removed in a future version.
2989 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2991 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2992 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2993 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2994 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2996 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2997 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2999 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
3002 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
3004 in your configure.in.
3006 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
3011 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
3017 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
3019 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
3023 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
3024 (define make-message string-append)
3026 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
3028 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
3032 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
3037 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
3041 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
3043 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
3044 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
3046 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
3048 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
3049 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
3050 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
3051 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
3052 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
3053 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
3055 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
3056 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
3057 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
3059 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
3060 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
3061 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
3064 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
3065 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
3066 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
3067 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
3068 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
3070 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
3071 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
3072 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
3073 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
3074 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
3075 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
3076 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
3078 Destructors are not yet implemented.
3080 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
3081 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
3082 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
3084 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
3085 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
3086 KEY in the calling thread.
3088 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
3089 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
3090 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
3091 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
3092 associated with the key.
3094 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
3096 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
3097 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
3099 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
3101 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
3102 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
3103 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
3105 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
3107 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
3108 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
3110 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
3112 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
3114 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
3115 returned is undefined.
3117 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
3118 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
3119 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
3121 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
3122 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
3123 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
3125 ** New C level GC hooks
3127 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
3129 scm_before_gc_c_hook
3132 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
3133 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
3134 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
3136 scm_before_mark_c_hook
3137 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
3138 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
3140 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
3141 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
3144 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
3146 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
3147 allocation parameters
3149 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
3150 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
3151 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
3155 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
3156 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
3157 scm_default_max_segment_size
3159 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
3161 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
3162 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
3164 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
3166 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
3167 object and count on the object being protected until
3168 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
3170 The functions also have better time complexity.
3172 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
3173 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
3174 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
3175 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
3176 are no longer needed.
3178 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
3180 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
3181 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
3182 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
3183 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
3185 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
3187 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
3189 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
3191 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
3192 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
3193 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
3194 until this issue has been settled.
3196 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
3198 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
3200 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
3203 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
3205 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3207 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
3208 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
3209 descriptors were checked.
3211 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
3212 atomically written to a pipe.
3214 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
3215 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
3216 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
3217 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
3218 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
3219 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
3220 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
3223 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
3224 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
3225 is changed without calling tzset.
3227 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
3229 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
3230 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
3231 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
3233 (define write-network-long
3234 (lambda (value port)
3235 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3236 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
3237 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
3239 (define read-network-long
3241 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3242 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
3243 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
3245 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
3246 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
3248 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
3249 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
3250 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
3251 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
3253 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
3254 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
3255 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
3256 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
3260 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
3262 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3266 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
3267 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
3268 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
3274 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
3275 for a description of available commands.
3277 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
3278 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
3279 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
3281 (debug-enable 'backwards)
3283 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
3284 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
3286 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
3288 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
3290 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
3291 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
3292 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
3293 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
3294 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
3295 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
3298 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
3300 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
3301 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
3302 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
3303 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
3305 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
3306 the file and should not be affected by this change.
3308 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
3310 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3312 ** Readline support has changed again.
3314 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
3315 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
3316 to activate readline is now
3318 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
3321 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
3323 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
3324 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
3325 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
3328 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
3329 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
3330 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
3333 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
3334 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
3335 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
3336 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
3337 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
3338 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
3340 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
3341 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
3343 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
3345 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
3346 object it receives is the same string passed to
3347 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
3348 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
3349 string, not the suffix.
3351 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
3352 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
3353 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
3355 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
3357 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
3358 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
3359 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
3360 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
3363 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3365 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
3367 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
3368 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
3369 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
3370 appear from left to right.
3372 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
3375 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
3377 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
3378 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
3380 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3384 *** New function: hook? OBJ
3386 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
3388 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
3390 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
3391 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
3392 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
3394 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
3396 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
3398 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
3400 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
3403 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
3405 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
3406 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
3407 mentioning it here anyway.
3409 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
3411 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
3412 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
3413 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
3414 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
3417 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
3419 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
3421 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
3423 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
3424 otherwise return #f.
3426 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
3428 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
3429 returned by `opendir'.
3431 ** New function: using-readline?
3433 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
3435 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3437 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
3438 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3440 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3442 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3444 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3445 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3446 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3448 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3450 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3451 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3453 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3455 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3456 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3457 documentation slots are not yet used.
3459 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3461 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3462 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3463 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3468 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3469 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3470 (string-append x y))
3472 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3473 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3475 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3476 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3477 be made in a clean way.]
3479 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3481 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3483 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3485 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3486 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3488 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3490 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3492 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3494 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3496 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3497 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3498 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3499 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3502 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3504 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3506 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3508 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3510 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3511 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3513 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3515 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3517 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3519 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3521 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3522 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3523 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3524 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3525 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3526 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3528 This should not make any difference for most users.
3530 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3532 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3533 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3535 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3537 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3538 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3539 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3540 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3541 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3543 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3545 It is now replaced by:
3547 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3549 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3550 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3552 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3554 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3555 This might change when we get the new module system.
3557 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3561 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3563 * Changes to mailing lists
3565 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3567 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3570 * Changes to the distribution
3572 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3574 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3575 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3576 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3577 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3578 you explicitly specify it.
3580 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3581 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3582 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3583 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3584 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3587 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3588 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3589 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3590 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3592 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3593 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3594 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3597 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3599 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3602 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3604 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3606 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3607 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3608 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3609 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3611 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3612 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3615 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3617 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3618 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3619 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3620 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3621 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3622 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3623 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3624 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3636 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3637 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3638 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3639 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3640 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3645 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3646 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3654 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3659 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3660 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3663 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3664 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3665 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3666 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3668 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3670 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3672 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3673 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3675 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3677 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3679 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3680 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3682 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3685 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3687 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3689 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3691 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3693 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3695 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3697 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3698 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3699 when the hook was created.
3701 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3702 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3703 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3704 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3705 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3706 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3707 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3708 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3709 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3711 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3712 the dlopen family of functions.
3714 ** New function `provided?'
3716 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3717 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3718 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3719 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3721 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3723 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3724 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3725 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3726 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3729 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3730 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3731 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3732 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3734 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3735 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3736 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3739 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3740 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3741 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3742 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3743 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3744 but with the flag set.
3746 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3748 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3749 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3751 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3752 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3753 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3754 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3755 available Scheme format implementations.
3757 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3758 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3759 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3760 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3761 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3762 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3763 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3764 output is to the current error port if available by the
3765 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3768 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3769 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3770 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3771 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3772 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3773 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3774 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3775 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3777 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3778 be executed at a time.
3781 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3783 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3784 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3785 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3787 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3788 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3789 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3790 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3791 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3792 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3793 general form of a directive is:
3795 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3797 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3799 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3801 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3802 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3803 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3806 Any (print as `display' does).
3810 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3814 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3818 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3824 print number sign always.
3827 print comma separated.
3829 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3835 print number sign always.
3838 print comma separated.
3840 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3846 print number sign always.
3849 print comma separated.
3851 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3857 print number sign always.
3860 print comma separated.
3862 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3867 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3871 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3874 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3877 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3880 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3885 prints `y' and `ies'.
3888 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3891 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3896 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3900 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3903 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3904 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3906 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3909 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3910 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3912 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3915 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3917 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3919 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3922 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3924 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3926 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3929 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3932 The sign appears before the padding.
3940 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3942 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3947 print N page separators.
3957 newline is ignored, white space left.
3960 newline is left, white space ignored.
3965 relative tabulation.
3971 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3973 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3976 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3978 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3981 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3984 converts by `string-upcase'.
3987 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3989 jumps N arguments forward.
3992 jumps 1 argument backward.
3995 jumps N arguments backward.
3998 jumps to the 0th argument.
4001 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
4003 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
4004 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
4006 take argument from N.
4009 true test conditional.
4012 if-else-then conditional.
4018 default clause follows.
4021 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
4023 at most N iterations.
4026 args from next arg (a list of lists).
4029 args from the rest of arguments.
4032 args from the rest args (lists).
4043 aborts if N <= M <= K
4045 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
4048 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4051 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
4057 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
4059 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
4061 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
4062 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
4063 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
4064 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
4065 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
4066 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
4070 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
4074 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
4080 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
4083 Print a `#\space' character
4085 print N `#\space' characters.
4088 Print a `#\tab' character
4090 print N `#\tab' characters.
4093 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
4094 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
4095 must be a positive decimal number.
4098 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4099 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4100 be processed by `read'.
4103 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
4104 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
4105 be processed by `read'.
4108 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
4111 prints format version.
4114 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
4115 and format it accordingly.
4117 *** Configuration Variables
4119 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
4120 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
4121 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
4122 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
4125 format:symbol-case-conv
4126 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
4127 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
4128 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
4129 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
4130 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
4132 format:iobj-case-conv
4133 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
4134 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
4137 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
4140 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
4146 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
4147 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
4148 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
4149 `format' padding style.
4152 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
4153 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
4154 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
4155 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
4159 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
4160 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
4161 directive parameters or modifiers)).
4164 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
4165 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
4166 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
4167 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
4168 parameters or modifiers)).
4171 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
4173 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
4175 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
4176 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
4178 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
4179 string-downcase! functions.
4181 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
4182 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
4184 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
4187 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
4190 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
4191 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
4193 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
4195 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
4196 the symbol had be read by `read'.
4198 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
4199 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
4200 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
4201 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
4202 would if STRING were input.
4204 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
4206 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
4207 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
4208 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
4209 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
4212 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
4214 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
4215 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
4218 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
4220 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
4221 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
4223 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
4224 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
4226 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
4227 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
4228 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
4229 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
4231 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
4232 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
4234 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
4235 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
4236 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
4238 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
4239 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
4241 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
4242 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
4243 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
4244 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
4245 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
4247 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
4248 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
4249 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
4250 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
4251 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
4252 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
4254 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
4255 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
4256 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
4259 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
4260 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
4261 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
4262 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
4263 the following grammar:
4264 ((apples (single-char #\a))
4265 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
4266 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
4267 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
4268 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
4269 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
4270 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
4271 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
4272 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
4273 last option in its combination)
4275 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
4276 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
4277 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
4278 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
4280 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
4281 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
4282 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
4284 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4285 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4286 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
4288 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
4289 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
4290 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
4291 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
4292 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
4293 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
4294 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
4295 ordinary argument strings.
4297 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
4298 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
4299 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
4300 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
4302 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
4303 as a list, associated with the empty list.
4305 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
4306 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
4307 - a required option is omitted
4308 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
4309 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
4310 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
4311 - an option predicate fails
4316 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
4319 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
4320 (verbose (required? #f)
4323 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
4324 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
4325 (predicate ,string?))))
4327 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
4328 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4330 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4331 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
4332 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
4333 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
4336 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
4338 It will be removed in a few releases.
4340 ** New syntax: lambda*
4341 ** New syntax: define*
4342 ** New syntax: define*-public
4343 ** New syntax: defmacro*
4344 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
4345 Guile now supports optional arguments.
4347 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
4348 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
4349 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
4350 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
4351 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
4353 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
4354 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
4355 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
4357 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
4359 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
4360 and examples for `lambda*':
4363 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
4365 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
4366 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
4367 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
4368 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
4369 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
4370 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
4371 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
4372 can be checked with the bound? macro.
4374 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
4376 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
4377 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
4378 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
4379 are given as keywords are bound to values.
4381 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
4382 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
4383 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
4384 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
4385 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
4386 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
4387 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
4388 and until the procedure is called.
4390 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
4392 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
4393 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
4394 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
4395 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
4396 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
4397 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
4398 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
4399 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
4400 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
4401 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
4403 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
4404 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
4405 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
4406 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
4409 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
4411 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
4412 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
4413 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
4414 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
4416 ** New syntax: and-let*
4417 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
4419 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
4420 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
4421 (<variable> <expression>)
4424 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
4425 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
4426 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
4429 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
4430 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
4431 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
4432 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
4433 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
4434 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
4435 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
4437 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
4438 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
4439 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4440 shadow earlier bindings.
4442 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4444 ** New sorting functions
4446 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4447 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4448 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4449 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4451 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4452 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4455 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4456 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4457 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4459 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4460 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4461 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4462 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4464 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4465 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4466 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4467 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4468 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4471 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4472 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4473 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4474 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4475 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4476 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4478 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4479 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4480 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4482 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4483 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4484 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4487 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4488 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4489 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4491 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4492 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4494 ** New built-in random number support
4496 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4497 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4498 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4499 returned have a uniform distribution.
4501 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4502 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4503 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4504 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4505 effect of the `random' operation.
4507 *** New variable: *random-state*
4508 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4509 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4510 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4511 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4512 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4515 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4516 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4517 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4518 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4519 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4521 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4522 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4523 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4524 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4525 initialized using SEED.
4527 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4528 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4529 range between 0 and 1.
4531 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4532 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4533 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4534 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4535 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4536 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4537 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4539 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4540 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4541 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4542 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4543 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4544 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4546 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4547 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4548 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4549 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4551 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4552 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4553 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4554 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4556 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4557 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4558 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4560 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4562 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4565 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4566 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4569 ** New function: make-guardian
4570 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4571 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4572 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4573 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4574 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4576 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4577 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4578 one object if at all.
4580 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4581 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4582 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4584 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4585 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4586 read again in last-in first-out order.
4588 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4589 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4591 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4593 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4594 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4595 file position is used.
4597 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4598 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4599 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4601 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4602 redefined using seek.
4604 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4605 size is not supplied.
4607 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4608 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4610 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4611 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4613 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4615 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4616 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4617 and returns the contents as a single string.
4619 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4620 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4621 lists in serial order.
4623 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4624 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4625 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4627 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4628 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4629 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4630 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4632 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4633 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4634 and #f if an error occured.
4636 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4638 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4639 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4640 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4641 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4643 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4645 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4648 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4650 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4653 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4657 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4658 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4660 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4661 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4665 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4667 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4669 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4670 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4672 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4674 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4675 might change when we get the new module system.
4677 ** The smob interface
4679 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4680 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4682 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4684 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4688 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4689 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4690 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4691 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4692 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4693 will be freed by the default free function.
4695 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4696 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4697 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4698 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4700 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4701 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4702 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4703 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4705 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4707 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4708 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4712 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4713 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4714 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4716 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4717 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4718 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4719 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4721 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4722 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4723 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4725 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4726 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4727 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4728 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4730 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4731 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4732 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4734 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4738 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4740 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4741 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4742 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4744 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4745 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4746 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4748 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4749 a string port's buffer.
4751 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4752 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4753 function pointers which together define the current random number
4754 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4755 number library functions.
4757 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4760 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4761 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4764 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4765 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4767 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4768 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4770 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4771 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4774 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4775 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4776 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4777 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4779 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4780 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4781 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4782 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4783 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4784 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4785 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4787 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4788 by libguile and the application.
4790 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4791 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4792 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4793 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4795 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4796 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4798 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4799 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4800 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4802 ** Random number library functions
4803 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4804 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4805 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4807 The default random state is stored in:
4809 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4810 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4811 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4816 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4818 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4819 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4820 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4821 isn't a random state.
4823 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4824 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4826 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4827 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4828 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4829 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4831 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4832 Return 32 random bits.
4834 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4835 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4837 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4838 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4840 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4841 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4843 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4844 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4846 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4847 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4848 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4852 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4854 * Changes to the distribution
4856 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4857 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4858 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4861 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4862 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4863 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4865 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4866 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4867 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4868 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4871 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4872 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4873 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4875 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4877 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4879 *** Function: batch-mode?
4881 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4884 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4886 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4887 case has not been implemented.
4889 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4890 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4891 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4894 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4895 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4897 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4899 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4901 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4903 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4904 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4907 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4908 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4909 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4910 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4913 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4915 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4916 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4917 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4918 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4919 find those libraries.
4921 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4922 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4925 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4927 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4928 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4929 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4930 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4932 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4933 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4934 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4938 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4940 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4941 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4942 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4945 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4946 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4947 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4948 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4950 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4951 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4954 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4955 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4956 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4957 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4958 compiler where to find the libraries.
4960 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4961 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4962 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4964 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4965 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4966 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4967 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4968 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4972 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4974 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4975 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4976 internationalization support.
4978 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4979 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4980 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4981 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4982 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4984 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4985 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4986 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4987 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4988 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4990 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4991 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4992 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4993 any GNU mirror site.
4995 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4997 ** New function: add-history STRING
4998 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4999 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
5000 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
5002 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
5004 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
5005 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
5006 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
5009 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
5010 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
5011 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
5013 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
5015 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
5018 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
5019 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
5022 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
5023 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
5024 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
5025 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
5026 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
5027 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
5029 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
5030 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
5031 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
5032 of the form mentioned above.
5034 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
5035 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
5036 returned in the special `rest' list.
5038 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
5039 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
5041 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
5043 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
5045 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
5047 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
5048 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
5049 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
5050 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
5051 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
5052 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
5053 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
5054 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
5057 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
5059 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
5061 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
5062 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
5065 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
5066 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
5067 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
5071 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
5072 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
5073 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
5074 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
5075 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
5076 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
5077 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
5078 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
5081 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
5083 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
5084 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
5085 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
5087 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
5089 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
5090 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
5092 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
5093 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
5094 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
5096 Why do we have this function?
5097 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
5098 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
5099 primitive, and display it differently, and
5100 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
5101 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
5104 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
5105 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
5108 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
5109 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
5110 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
5111 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
5113 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
5114 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
5117 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
5118 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
5120 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
5122 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
5123 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
5124 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
5125 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
5126 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
5127 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
5128 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
5131 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
5133 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
5134 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
5136 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
5137 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
5138 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
5139 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
5140 properly continue the print chain.
5142 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
5143 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
5144 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
5145 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
5146 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
5147 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
5148 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
5149 print-state, it is simply ignored.
5151 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
5152 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
5153 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
5154 safest to not check for these pairs.
5156 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
5157 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
5158 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
5159 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
5161 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
5163 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
5164 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
5166 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
5168 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
5170 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
5171 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
5172 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
5174 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
5175 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
5176 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
5178 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
5179 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
5180 the following functions and macros:
5182 Function: make-fluid
5184 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
5185 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
5186 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
5187 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
5188 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
5190 Function: fluid? OBJ
5192 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
5194 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
5195 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
5197 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
5198 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
5200 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
5202 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
5203 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
5204 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
5205 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
5206 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
5207 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
5208 modified by `with-fluids*'.
5210 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
5212 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
5213 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
5214 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
5215 should evaluate to a fluid.
5217 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
5219 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
5220 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
5221 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
5222 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
5223 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
5225 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
5228 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
5230 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
5232 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
5234 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
5237 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
5238 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
5239 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
5240 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
5241 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
5244 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
5245 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
5246 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
5248 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
5249 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
5250 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
5252 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
5253 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
5254 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5255 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
5257 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
5258 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
5259 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5260 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
5262 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
5263 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
5264 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
5265 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
5267 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
5268 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
5269 their revealed counts set to zero.
5271 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5272 Returns an integer file descriptor.
5274 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5275 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
5277 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5278 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
5280 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5281 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
5282 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
5284 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
5285 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
5286 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
5288 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
5289 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
5290 default environment inherited by child processes.
5292 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
5293 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
5294 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
5296 The return value is unspecified.
5298 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
5299 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
5300 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
5301 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
5302 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
5304 The return value is unspecified.
5306 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
5307 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
5315 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
5316 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
5319 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
5322 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
5323 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
5324 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
5326 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
5327 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
5328 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
5329 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
5332 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
5333 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
5335 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
5336 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
5337 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
5338 the `environ' procedure.
5340 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
5341 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
5344 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
5345 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
5347 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
5348 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
5349 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
5350 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
5352 *** procedure: times
5353 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
5354 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
5355 return a selected component:
5358 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
5362 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
5365 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
5369 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
5370 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
5374 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
5375 terminated child processes.
5377 ** Removed: list-length
5378 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
5379 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
5381 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
5383 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
5385 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
5387 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
5388 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
5389 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
5390 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
5392 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
5393 extra complexity it introduces.
5395 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
5396 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
5398 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
5399 variable to any non-empty value.
5401 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
5402 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
5404 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5406 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
5407 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
5409 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
5411 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
5412 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
5414 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
5416 ** vector handling routines
5418 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
5419 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
5420 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
5421 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
5422 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
5424 ** pair and list routines
5426 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
5429 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
5431 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
5434 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5436 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
5438 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
5439 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5440 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5441 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5442 site-specific initialization code.
5444 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5445 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5446 initialization processes.
5448 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5449 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5450 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5451 initialized properly.
5453 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5454 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5455 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5457 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5458 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5459 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5460 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5461 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5463 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5465 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5466 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5467 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5468 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5469 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5471 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5472 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5473 which look like this:
5476 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5478 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5479 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5482 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5483 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5486 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5488 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5489 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5490 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5492 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5493 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5494 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5495 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5496 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5498 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5499 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5501 int (*free) (SCM port);
5502 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5503 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5504 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5508 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5509 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5510 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5512 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5515 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5516 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5517 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5519 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5520 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5521 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5524 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5528 struct timeval *timeout);
5530 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5531 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5532 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5533 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5534 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5535 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5537 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5538 scm_catch_body_t body,
5540 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5543 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5544 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5545 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5546 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5547 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5548 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5550 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5552 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5555 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5556 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5557 spawning threads from application C code.
5559 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5560 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5561 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5562 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5563 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5564 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5566 ** Removed functions:
5568 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5569 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5571 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5573 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5574 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5576 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5578 ** mbstrings are now removed
5580 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5581 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5583 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5585 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5586 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5587 their new names and arguments:
5589 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5590 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5591 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5592 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5595 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5597 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5599 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5602 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5604 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5605 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5606 pass a #f arg to catch.
5608 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5610 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5611 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5614 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5615 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5616 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5617 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5618 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5619 reclaim its storage.
5621 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5622 worrying that some other function you call will call
5623 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5624 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5625 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5626 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5629 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5631 * Changes to the distribution
5633 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5634 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5637 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5638 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5640 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5641 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5643 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5645 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5646 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5647 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5649 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5651 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5652 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5653 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5654 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5655 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5656 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5658 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5659 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5660 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5663 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5664 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5665 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5666 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5668 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5669 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5670 libraries to your link command:
5672 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5673 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5674 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5675 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5677 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5678 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5679 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5681 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5683 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5684 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5687 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5689 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5690 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5691 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5692 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5693 searched is system dependent.
5695 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5697 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5699 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5701 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5702 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5704 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5706 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5707 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5708 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5709 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5710 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5713 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5715 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5716 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5717 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5718 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5719 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5721 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5723 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5724 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5726 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5728 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5729 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5730 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5733 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5735 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5736 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5737 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5738 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5740 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5741 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5743 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5745 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5746 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5748 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5750 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5751 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5759 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5761 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5762 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5763 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5764 a more informative way.
5766 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5767 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5768 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5769 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5770 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5771 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5773 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5774 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5777 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5778 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5779 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5782 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5783 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5784 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5785 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5786 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5787 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5789 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5790 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5791 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5792 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5795 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5796 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5797 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5798 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5799 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5800 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5802 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5803 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5804 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5805 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5806 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5808 *** regexp functions
5810 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5811 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5812 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5814 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5815 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5816 with SCSH regular expressions.
5818 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5819 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5820 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5821 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5823 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5824 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5825 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5826 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5828 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5829 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5830 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5831 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5832 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5833 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5835 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5836 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5837 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5838 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5839 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5841 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5843 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5844 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5845 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5846 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5848 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5849 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5850 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5852 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5853 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5855 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5858 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5859 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5860 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5862 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5863 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5864 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5866 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5867 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5868 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5869 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5870 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5873 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5875 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5876 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5877 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5878 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5879 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5880 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5882 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5883 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5884 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5886 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5887 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5890 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5891 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5893 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5894 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5895 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5896 may be one of the following arguments:
5898 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5900 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5902 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5903 the regexp match is written.
5905 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5906 following the regexp match is written.
5908 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5909 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5912 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5913 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5914 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5915 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5916 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5917 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5919 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5922 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5923 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5924 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5925 written out to PORT.
5927 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5928 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5929 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5930 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5931 will return after processing a single match.
5933 *** Match Structures
5935 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5936 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5937 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5938 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5939 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5940 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5943 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5944 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5945 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5946 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5947 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5949 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5950 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5951 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5953 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5954 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5955 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5956 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5957 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5959 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5960 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5962 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5963 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5965 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5966 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5968 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5969 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5971 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5972 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5973 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5974 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5976 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5977 Return the original TARGET string.
5979 *** Backslash Escapes
5981 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5982 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5983 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5984 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5985 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5986 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5988 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5989 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5990 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5991 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5992 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5993 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5994 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5995 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5997 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5998 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5999 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
6000 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
6001 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
6002 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
6003 each match a single backslash in the target string.
6005 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
6006 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
6007 return the resulting string.
6009 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
6010 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
6011 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
6012 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
6013 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
6014 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
6015 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
6016 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
6017 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
6018 translated to the single character `*'.
6020 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
6021 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
6022 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
6023 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
6024 consecutive backslashes:
6026 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
6028 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
6029 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
6030 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
6032 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
6033 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
6034 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
6035 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
6036 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
6037 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
6039 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
6041 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
6042 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
6043 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
6044 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
6045 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
6046 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
6047 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
6048 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
6049 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
6050 cumbersome escape syntax.
6052 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6054 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6056 * Changes to system call interfaces:
6058 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
6061 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
6063 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
6065 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
6068 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
6069 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
6070 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
6071 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
6072 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
6074 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
6075 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
6076 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
6077 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
6078 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
6079 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
6080 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
6083 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
6084 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
6085 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
6088 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
6089 `force-output' on every port open for output.
6091 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
6092 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
6093 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
6094 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
6095 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
6096 installed, you can say:
6098 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
6101 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6103 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
6104 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
6105 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
6106 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
6107 new dynamic roots and threads.
6110 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
6112 * Changes to the distribution.
6114 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
6116 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
6117 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
6118 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
6119 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
6120 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
6121 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
6122 programming language. These are packaged together because the
6123 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
6125 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
6128 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
6129 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
6134 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6136 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
6137 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
6139 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
6140 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
6141 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
6142 the (command-line) function.
6143 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
6144 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
6145 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
6147 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
6148 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
6149 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
6150 command line arguments
6151 -ds do -s script at this point
6152 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
6153 -h, --help display this help and exit
6154 -v, --version display version information and exit
6155 \ read arguments from following script lines
6157 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
6158 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
6160 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6163 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6167 (main (command-line))
6169 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
6171 ekko a speckled gecko
6173 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
6174 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
6175 following list of command-line arguments:
6177 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
6179 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
6180 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
6181 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
6182 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
6183 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6185 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
6187 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
6189 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
6190 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
6193 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
6194 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
6195 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
6196 SCSH) for circumventing them.
6198 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
6199 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
6200 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
6201 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
6203 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
6207 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6211 If the user invokes this script as follows:
6213 ekko a speckled gecko
6215 Unix expands this into
6217 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
6219 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
6220 read from the second line of the script, producing:
6222 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6224 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
6225 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6227 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
6228 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
6229 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
6230 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
6231 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
6232 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
6233 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
6234 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
6235 it only terminates the argument list.)
6236 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
6237 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
6238 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
6239 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
6240 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
6241 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
6242 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
6243 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
6245 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6247 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
6248 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
6249 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
6250 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
6251 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
6253 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
6254 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
6255 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
6257 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
6259 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
6260 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
6261 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
6262 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
6265 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
6266 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6267 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6269 * Changes to Scheme functions
6271 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
6272 and disabled by default.
6274 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
6275 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
6276 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
6277 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
6279 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
6281 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
6283 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
6284 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
6286 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
6287 (read-set! keywords #f)
6289 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
6290 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
6291 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
6294 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
6295 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
6296 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
6299 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
6300 support for Scheme functions.
6302 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6303 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
6304 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
6305 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
6308 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6309 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
6310 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
6313 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
6314 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
6315 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
6318 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
6319 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
6320 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
6321 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
6322 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
6323 display the result as a prompt.
6324 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
6326 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
6327 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
6328 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
6331 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
6332 procedure of zero arguments.
6334 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
6335 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
6336 argument is bound in the current module.
6338 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
6339 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
6340 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
6341 public bindings into the current module.
6343 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
6344 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
6346 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
6347 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
6349 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
6350 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
6352 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
6353 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
6355 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
6356 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
6358 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
6359 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
6360 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
6361 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
6362 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
6364 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
6365 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
6366 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
6367 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
6369 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
6372 ** Changes to I/O functions
6374 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
6375 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
6376 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
6378 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
6379 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
6380 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
6382 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
6383 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
6385 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
6386 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
6387 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
6388 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
6390 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
6392 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
6393 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
6395 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
6396 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
6397 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
6398 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
6399 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
6402 'trim omit delimiter from result
6403 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
6404 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
6405 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
6407 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
6409 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
6410 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
6412 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
6413 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
6414 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
6415 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
6416 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
6418 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
6419 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
6420 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
6422 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
6423 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
6424 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
6425 above, and defaults to 'peek.
6427 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
6428 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6430 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
6431 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
6433 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
6435 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
6436 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
6437 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
6438 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
6439 a delimiting character.
6440 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6442 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6443 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6444 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6445 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6446 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6447 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6449 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6450 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6452 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6453 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6454 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6456 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6457 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6458 the array to read and write.
6460 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6461 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6464 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6466 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6469 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6470 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6471 Values for COMMAND are:
6473 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6474 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6475 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6476 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6477 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6478 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6479 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6480 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6482 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6484 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6485 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6486 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6487 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6488 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6489 corresponding return set will be the same.
6491 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6494 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6495 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6496 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6497 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6498 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6499 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6500 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6501 special file being created.
6503 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6504 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6506 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6507 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6508 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6509 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6510 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6511 and originating address.
6513 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6514 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6515 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6517 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6520 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6521 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6524 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6525 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6526 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6527 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6528 this function returns #f.
6530 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6531 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6532 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6535 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6536 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6537 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6540 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6541 a valid STATUS value.
6543 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6545 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6546 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6548 Component Accessor Setter
6549 ========================= ============ ============
6550 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6551 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6552 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6553 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6554 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6555 year tm:year set-tm:year
6556 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6557 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6558 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6559 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6560 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6562 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6563 describing the host system:
6566 ============================================== ================
6567 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6568 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6569 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6570 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6571 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6573 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6574 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6575 system's user database:
6578 ====================== =================
6579 user name passwd:name
6580 user password passwd:passwd
6583 real name passwd:gecos
6584 home directory passwd:dir
6585 shell program passwd:shell
6587 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6588 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6589 system's group database:
6592 ======================= ============
6593 group name group:name
6594 group password group:passwd
6596 group members group:mem
6598 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6599 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6603 ========================= ===============
6604 official name of host hostent:name
6605 alias list hostent:aliases
6606 host address type hostent:addrtype
6607 length of address hostent:length
6608 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6610 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6611 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6615 ========================= ===============
6616 official name of net netent:name
6617 alias list netent:aliases
6618 net number type netent:addrtype
6619 net number netent:net
6621 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6622 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6626 ========================= ===============
6627 official protocol name protoent:name
6628 alias list protoent:aliases
6629 protocol number protoent:proto
6631 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6632 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6636 ========================= ===============
6637 official service name servent:name
6638 alias list servent:aliases
6639 port number servent:port
6640 protocol to use servent:proto
6642 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6643 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6646 ======================================== ===============
6647 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6648 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6649 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6650 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6652 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6653 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6654 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6656 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6657 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6659 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6660 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6662 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6663 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6665 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6667 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6669 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6670 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6671 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6673 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6674 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6675 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6676 return the remaining characters as a string.
6678 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6679 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6680 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6682 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6684 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6686 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6689 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6692 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6693 and returns the array
6695 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6696 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6697 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6699 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6701 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6702 symbol's value from C code:
6704 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6705 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6706 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6707 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6709 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6710 without assigning them a value.
6712 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6713 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6714 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6716 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6717 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6718 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6720 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6721 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6723 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6724 doesn't actually care about that.
6726 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6727 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6728 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6730 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6731 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6732 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6733 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6734 which we have just created and initialized.
6736 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6737 should one occur. We call it like this:
6738 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6740 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6741 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6742 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6743 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6744 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6745 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6748 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6749 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6750 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6751 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6752 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6753 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6754 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6757 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6758 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6759 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6760 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6761 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6764 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6765 scm_internal_catch, except:
6767 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6768 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6769 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6770 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6773 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6774 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6775 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6777 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6778 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6779 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6780 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6783 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6784 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6785 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6787 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6788 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6789 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6790 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6791 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6793 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6794 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6795 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6797 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6798 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6799 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6801 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6802 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6804 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6805 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6806 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6809 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6810 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6811 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6812 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6813 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6814 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6815 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6818 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6819 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6821 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6822 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6823 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6824 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6825 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6828 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6829 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6831 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6832 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6835 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6836 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6838 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6841 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6842 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6843 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6844 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6845 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6846 given the following arguments:
6848 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6850 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6852 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6854 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6857 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6858 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6859 command-line arguments.
6861 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6862 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6863 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6864 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6865 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6866 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6869 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6872 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6873 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6875 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6876 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6878 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6879 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6880 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6881 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6883 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6884 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6886 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6887 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6888 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6889 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6891 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6892 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6894 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6895 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6897 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6899 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6900 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6901 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6904 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6905 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6907 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6908 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6913 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6916 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6918 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6919 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6920 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6921 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6923 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6925 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6927 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6928 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6929 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6930 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6931 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6932 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6933 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6934 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6935 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6936 for more information.
6938 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6939 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6941 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6942 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6943 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6944 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6945 following two lines at the top of the file:
6947 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6950 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6951 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6952 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6954 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6956 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6958 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6961 (display (car args))
6962 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6964 (loop (cdr args)))))
6967 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6968 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6969 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6970 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6971 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6972 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6976 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6979 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6982 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6984 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6985 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6986 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6987 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6988 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6991 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6992 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6993 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6994 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6995 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6998 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
7001 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
7002 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
7003 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
7006 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
7007 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
7008 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
7010 to see a backtrace, and
7011 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
7012 to see them by default.
7016 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
7018 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
7020 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
7021 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
7024 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
7025 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
7026 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
7027 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
7030 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
7031 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
7032 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
7033 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
7034 functions which inspired them.
7036 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
7037 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
7041 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
7043 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
7045 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
7046 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
7049 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
7050 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
7051 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
7053 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
7054 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
7055 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
7056 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
7057 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
7059 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
7061 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
7062 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
7063 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
7066 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
7069 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
7071 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
7072 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
7073 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
7074 above should serve their purposes.
7076 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
7077 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
7078 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
7079 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
7081 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
7084 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
7085 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
7086 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
7087 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
7089 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
7090 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
7091 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
7092 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
7094 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
7095 for the `read' function.
7098 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
7099 to that of `integer?'.
7101 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
7102 use the R4RS names for these functions.
7104 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
7105 it simply returns the object's property list.
7107 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
7108 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
7109 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
7110 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
7112 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
7114 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
7117 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
7119 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
7120 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
7122 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
7124 void (*main_func) (),
7127 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
7128 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
7129 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
7130 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
7131 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
7133 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
7134 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
7135 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
7136 know which arguments have been processed.
7138 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
7139 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
7140 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
7141 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
7142 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
7144 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
7145 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
7146 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
7147 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
7148 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
7149 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
7150 people from making that mistake.
7152 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
7153 convenient ways to override these when desired.
7155 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
7157 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
7161 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
7164 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
7165 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
7166 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
7167 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
7170 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
7171 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
7172 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
7173 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
7176 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
7177 have been added to the Guile library.
7179 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
7180 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
7181 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
7184 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
7185 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
7186 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
7188 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
7189 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
7190 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
7191 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
7192 argument from the list.
7195 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
7198 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
7199 null-terminated string, and returns it.
7201 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
7202 to a Scheme port object.
7204 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
7205 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
7210 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
7212 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
7213 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
7214 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
7215 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
7216 code as a special datatype.
7218 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
7219 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
7220 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
7221 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
7222 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
7225 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
7226 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
7227 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
7228 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
7229 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
7231 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
7234 Copyright information:
7236 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7238 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7239 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7240 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7241 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7243 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7244 of this document, or of portions of it,
7245 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7246 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7251 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"